The online encyclopedia of Brno now has 18,000 entries

Brno - More than 18,000 entries and 8,000 images have already been gathered by a group of enthusiasts in the internet-based Encyclopedia of the History of the City of Brno. The project is celebrating its five-year anniversary these days. Brno is still the only Czech city that can boast its own internet encyclopedia, said Jitka Šibčíková, one of the authors, to ČTK today. The entries are increasing, and the enthusiasts continue to add new information from the city's history and present.
    The encyclopedists gather data about streets and squares in Brno, monuments and memorial plaques, buildings, archaeological sites, events, and of course personalities whose lives are connected to Brno. "All thematic areas are interconnected, allowing for a smooth transition between records, for example from the page of a given personality directly to the street named after them," Šibčíková stated.
    In the encyclopedia, people can find bare facts as well as various interesting details. For instance, they can learn what rights Brno's prostitutes had in the 14th century, who performed the first documented anatomical dissection in Moravia, and since when Brno's buildings have been numbered. Every day, when visiting the website, users can see a calendar of current anniversaries related to the city.
    The most visited sections are those dedicated to streets and events. The website attracts not only Brno patriots but also people from abroad, such as from Slovakia, Germany, the USA, Austria, and Britain. "We record visits even from Iraq and Japan. In the case of foreign users, it is not only our compatriots but also former students of some Brno universities," Šibčíková noted.
    All contributors to the encyclopedia work without compensation. Most of them are employees of various cultural and educational institutions in the city. The technical operation of the website is irregularly supported by institutions such as the Museum of the City of Brno and the Institute of Archaeology and Museology of the Faculty of Arts at Masaryk University. The enthusiasts do not hide the fact that a lack of funds is hindering them from achieving even greater creative freedom.
    The Internet Encyclopedia of the History of the City of Brno will also have printed "competition" in the coming years. The city council approved a fifteen million crown grant this January for the creation of a seven-part book series on the history of the city. Historians will be working on it until 2018.