National Library is not just a "big building"

The passionate debate about the blob at Letná, which has been ongoing for over a year, drowns out the "down-to-earth" concerns of readers, students, scientists, and librarians..

I understand the enthusiasm of my young librarian colleagues for unconventional architecture inspired by modern libraries. I thus also understand their excitement for the design by Jan Kaplický, which won the international competition for the construction of the new building of the Czech National Library. Young people and intellectuals have a need to distinguish themselves from what has been.

Seven Questions

However, the discussion and decision-making regarding the construction of the new library should primarily focus on the resolution of seemingly very down-to-earth problems that no one has seriously cared about yet. Let us pose seven such unanswered questions:
How will the operating costs increase with the addition of a third building for the National Library (Klementinum, Central Depository Hostivař, Letná)?
How many staff members will be needed and what will the salary costs be?
If the protected and accessible collection is divided - historical materials up to the end of the 19th century in Klementinum, modern ones in Letná - what will researchers do who necessarily need modern, current scientific works and contemporary professional periodicals for historical originals? Specifically: will documents circulate, will readers circulate, or will documents be purchased in larger numbers for both access points?
By how much will the strongly underfunded budget for acquiring foreign documents: books, periodicals, access to full-text information resources increase in the future?
By how much will the funding for the digitization of the historical and national conservation collection increase in the future?
Which library services will the library retain, which will it strengthen and expand, and which will it newly install?
How will it deal with the basic problems that have been troubling its users for some time in the future? These are:
- the extent of opening hours;
- the scope and speed of services provided to remote users;
- the extent, specialization, and comfort of reference services (which means: readers, we are here for you and we will find and recommend what we have available to solve your problem; not the previous approach: readers, emancipate yourselves and learn to navigate the complex information system of the library on your own). The money planned for the monstrous construction of the new building should primarily be directed towards documents and new technologies that can make documents accessible as quickly as possible, selectively, and remotely.

When we say National Library...

The uproar surrounding Kaplický's blob maintains, entirely in the style of Barnum-style advertising, public interest in the National Library. This is, after all, a positive finding. So what is it when we say National Library?
As the only one in the Czech Republic (and this is the case in sister institutions of that name in all cultural states), it collects, describes, preserves, and makes accessible all printed documents published within the territory of the republic. It acquires them in two copies from publishers for free. Thus, it does not purchase domestic productions; rather, it must preserve them forever in the national conservation collection.
To the long-standing historical collection founded by the donation of Charles IV, it has accumulated and continues to accumulate a collection that today numbers more than three million volumes.
The second branch, of approximately the same size arising from the same donation and donor, that is, another three million volumes, consists of documents in foreign languages, initially Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and further in the languages in which the development of science occurred and was recorded at certain stages, namely, French, German, and English.
This part of the Klementinum treasure - both historically and today purchased - documents the development of social, humanitarian, and natural sciences, inspiring contemporary titles for current candidates in the scientific fields of university disciplines. This "university" part of the collection distinguishes our National Library from its national sisters around the world, but it shares a connection with university libraries. Unfortunately, it also differs from them in the poverty of contemporary foreign titles.
The total number of documents in the National Library collection currently exceeds six million. Annual additions to the collection tend to rise, while annual loans of real copies tend to decrease; however, there is a strong increase in interest in providing data drawn from real documents, copies of parts of documents, information about authors, etc., and in research services to both nearby and distant users using new transmission and reproduction technologies.

Is there really a shortage of space?

The management of the National Library is sounding the alarm and points out that due to a lack of storage space, the situation from the 1980s may repeat when books piled up on top of each other, making it impossible to search for, extract, and provide individual titles to readers. It must be added here that nowhere in the world has a building been constructed for a national library with such capacity that, over time, its storage spaces would not need to be expanded by annexes and depots.
In the 1990s, the American Mellon Foundation generously donated a grant to Czech and Slovak librarianship. Through its use, our librarianship quickly rose from backwardness to a world-class level. At the same time, the Mellon Foundation compelled the then-government to finance the construction of a modern depot with facilities for the preservation and restoration of collections in Hostivař for the National Library. That the capacity of this depot is not infinite was already known to the National Library at the time of its opening.
Gaining additional space for the development of the library meant utilizing all the properties that the library owned in Prague (e.g., the house on Liliová Street, which has since been sold), striving to continue construction in Hostivař, and acquiring the Klementinum wing at Mariánské náměstí, where the technical library is located. One of the arguments for why the government supported the construction of the new National Technical Library, now being completed in the Prague Dejvice area of the Czech Technical University, was to free up operating capacities for the National Library in Klementinum after the technical library was moved out.
The librarians' concern for sufficient comfortable and accessible storage, as well as concern for well-equipped places for users, is commendable. However, how does this concern reconcile with the fact that study rooms are disappearing in Klementinum, that communication on the ground floor and the first floor of the so-called New College is closed to regular library operations, as it is now home to the Klementinum Gallery; why are the free attic spaces rented out to the Czech branch of the international PEN Club; why does the director of the National Library, Vlastimil Ježek, offer 4,000 square meters to Charles University? After all, this last idea best illustrates the nerves of the current head of the library and the desire to surround himself with supporters from all influential angles.
During the First Republic, in the term of office of one of the best directors of the National Library, poet Jaromír Borecký, two incredible projects were accomplished: firstly, to restore and adapt the Baroque Klementinum so that it could be a dignified residence solely for libraries. The construction modifications lasted about seven years. Secondly, Borecký finally reached an agreement that all institutions that still traditionally operated here as parts of the Czech (and German) Faculty of Philosophy of Charles University would gradually vacate Klementinum. Director Ježek's plan to drag the Faculty of Philosophy back into the Klementinum walls takes us almost a hundred years back.

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Eva Novotná worked at the State, from 1990 the National Library in Prague's Klementinum from 1977 to 2004, first in its audiovisual center and later in the public relations department. Among other things, she founded the Society of the National Library, which assisted with the beginnings of digitization.