BFB initiatives
During the project, we have cataloged over 12,000 books, which previously belonged around 2000 unique owners - private individuals and institutions. The question of who these people and institutions were has become increasingly pertinent. To answer these questions we have successfully extended the project under the Fund for Bilateral Cooperation (BFB initiative) EEA and Norwegian funds. At this point, we will inform about the activities of the extension project.
Published on 15 September 2017
Last workshop held in September in Kristiansand
Author: Jana Rumanová
In early September an internal workshop of the 4th BFB initiative, called "Expanding Cultural Heritage Research,” was held in Kristiansand. The first part of the meeting focused on the initiative's professional activities, in particular the presentation of historical research in Berlin. The project's historian, Mgr. Marcela Strouhalová, presented to our Norwegian colleagues the research results that she is going to use in her new book, which is the main output of this initiative.
Read morePublished on 5 July 2017
On continuing archival research, this time in the Bundesarchive in Germany
Author: Marcela Strouhalová
Within the 4th BFB initiative, ten days of research in the German Federal Archives was planned, to take place in second half of June 2017.
Read morePublished on 14 September 2017
Long way to the book “Hidden or forbidden? Remarkable history of the books stored in Reserve Collections of the National Library of the Czech Republic” publication
Author: Marcela Srouhalová, Tomáš Foltýn
After the time, when the monograph “Books discovered once again” was published and distributed to the professional researchers and the general public, the research team was asked very frequently to continue in the archival research also in the near future. Mgr. Marcela Strouhalová, the historian of the project, has started to make new archival research aimed not only to the Czech archives, but also to the archival collections stored in the foreign archives, especially in Germany. The intensive research last more than one year.
Read morePublished on 31 May 2017
IV. BFB Initiative: Strengthening the culture heritage research
Author: Anna Vandasová
At the beginning of May, the National Library and Stiftelsen Arkivet started work on IV. BFB Initiative, entitled Strengthening the culture heritage research, it will be solved to mid-September.
Read morePublished on 23 May 2017
The new education program will reach the schools in Norway!
Author: Gro Kvanvig
The educational program “Who rules our thoughts? Literature and books during the second world war” is chosen to become part of the offer to upper secondary schools in the county of Vest-Agder. Through the "cultural school bag", schools are given the opportunity to choose between different teaching programs linked to the curriculum.
Read morePublished on 10 May 2017
"'Treuhänderische' Übernahme und Verwahrung - international und interdisziplinär betrachtet"
Author: Marcela Strouhalová
Between 2 and 4 May 2017, another conference on the issue of looted art took place at the Viennese library.
Read morePublished on 5 May 2017
Lecture tour round Czech educational institutions
Author: Tomáš Foltýn
National Library of the Czech Republic and Stiftelsen Arkivet researches have arranged as part of the promotional activities related to the project “Books Discovered Once Again” many lectures at various libraries, culture heritage institutions, high schools or universities. During these open talks all the project activities and results were described including the process of book management, archival research and the ground of provenance signs. The audience was always interested especially in the formal holders´ microstories and in the provenance signs surveys.
Read morePublished on 26 April 2017
The final workshop within the third BFB initiative
Author: Marcela Strouhalová
On 20 April 2017, another workshop of the project’s managing team was held. This time, it took place in Prague. There were many questions to deal with. Besides the typical economic aspects, it was necessary to summarize the results of the main project, ending on 30 April 2017, as well as those of the third BFB initiative aimed at the presentation of results in form of lecture tours in Norway and the Czech Republic.
Read morePublished on 26 April 2017
The Paris conference Où sont les bibliothèques spoliées par les nazis? Tentatives d'identification et de restitution, un chantier en cours.
Author: Marcela Strouhalová
On 23 - 24 March 2017, the international conference Où sont les bibliothèques spoliées par les Nazis took place in Paris. As the title suggests, the conference was concerned with libraries stolen by the Nazis during the World War II.
Read morePublished on 16 March 2017
The annual journal Nytt blikk focused on freedom of speech and books during World War II in 2016
Author: Gro Kvanvig
As a partner in the project Books discovered once again, it was quite natural to focus on some of the themes of the project in Stiftelsen Arkivet's annual journal Nytt blikk.
Read morePublished on 9 March 2017
Norwegian lecture tour for the educational programme
Author: Marcela Strouhalová
Besides the creation of an educational programme and the educational and promotional video, a lecture tour directed at the wide public was a part of the third bilateral cooperation with the Norwegian partner, Stiftelsen Arkivet.
Read morePublished on 15 February 2017
III. BFB Initiative: Theory and praxis – demonstration of the educational program
Author: Anna Vandasová
The third BFB Initiative, which started in February this year between the National Library of the Czech Republic and the Stiftelsen Arkivet, follows closely on the project Books discovered once again and on the first and second BFB initiatives. The main goal of the last Initiative is demonstration of the educational program during lecture tours in the Czech Republic nad in Norway. Members of the project team are going to visit a few educational institution and try to broaden awareness of the pupils, students and public with a new perspective on postwar events through the program and video.
Read morePublished on 17 January 2017
Exchange of experiences at the workshop in Kristiansand
Author: Nina Wančová
The exchange of experiences and the cooperation between Norway and the Czech Republic are among the additional values of the project. This is why in every stage of the project, journeys to Prague and to Kristiansand, the seat of our partner organization Stiftelsen Arkivet, are planned. At the beginning of 2017, many of us set off for another personal meeting in the south of Norway, the port city of Kristiansand.
Read morePublished on 17 January 2017
And action! How we recorded a video
Author: Nina Wančová
Among the activities within the extended project was the preparation of a promotion video. Before the shooting, we had to consider several questions; in particular what we were trying to say, what purpose the video should serve and who we were hoping to reach. Our aim was to address the general public, to promote the project, to show how much work we had done within the project, and to create a video that would introduce the project and create the right atmosphere at the educational programmes that would take place in March 2017 in Norway and in the Czech Republic.
Read morePublished on 3 January 2017
Cooperation with the students of the Cabinet of Library and Information Science
Author: Nina Wančová
As mentioned before, the cooperation with the students of the Masaryk University started due to the positive feedback to the lectures given within the introduction of our project at Czech universities. This is why in the winter semester of the academic year 2016/2017, we got involved in the course dedicated to information sources, which is intended for students in their second year of bachelor’s programmes. Within their exams, the students were to prepare multimedia profiles describing the stories of the original owners of the books that we catalogued during the project. Altogether, 19 profiles were created.
Read morePublished on 16 November 2016
Educational Programme Creation - Trace the book stories
Author: Tomáš Foltýn
The proposed BFB initiative called “Educational Programme Creation - Trace the book stories” is aimed to realize various activities to strengthen the bilateral cooperation in the area of culture heritage between Czech Republic and Norway. It will be realized over the ground scope of the Books discovered once again project.
Read morePublished on 12 October 2016
Multimedia microstories prepared in collaboration with students
Author: Nina Seyčková
Within the extension project during the first bilateral cooperation, entitled “Provenance Signs Research”, we aimed to prepare twenty microstories about the original book owners. First, we had to pick particular individuals and institutions. The team of historians, including the project historian Marcela Strouhalová and Mirjam Kristensen of the Norwegian partner Stiftelsen Arkivet, made quite detailed probes into history. With respect to this activity we modified the project website by adding the Owners tab, where the completed microstories were made available during September.
Read morePublished on 19 September 2016
Final seminar: exchanging experience
Author: Nina Seyčková
On Tuesday 13 September 2016, an internal workshop with our Norwegian colleagues dedicated to the continuation of the project within the BFB initiative took place in Prague. During the intensive meeting, we exchanged experience in carrying out provenance signs research, publicising it and sharing it with both experts and the public.
Read morePublished on 18 August 2016
The selection criteria of the original owners
Author: Marcela Strouhalová
More than twelve thousand books were catalogued during the first sixteen months of the project. In the course of library work, over two thousand of their original owners were discovered. Discussions with experts and the public showed that it is also very interesting to ask who those owners were. Thus, we decided to carry out historical research, within the first BFB initiative, into twenty original owners whose fate we would like to present in the future, both as text biographies and in an interactive form. So what people and institutions have been selected for further research?
Read morePublished on 16 August 2016
New activities of the “Books discovered once again” project – The first BFB initiative called Provenance Signs Research
Author: Tomáš Foltýn
During the project called “Books discovered once again” the deep research inside so called Reserve Collections was made. Some books with apparent provenance signs were chosen for the process of cataloguing, library unit creation and long-term preservation. In the frame of the project more than 12 000 books have been processed. During the processing of the books new database of the provenance signs and formal holders is filled continuously. Now more than 2000 formal holders have been found. Among these formal holders there are many interesting persons from the first half of the 20th Century, some books were located in the institutional libraries (universities, civil fellowships, factories etc.) or state bodies.
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