Cycle of a book - part 1/5: Selection of documents

Published on 4 May 2015

The subject of the project’s implementation is the processing of non-Bohemical documents stored in the depository of the National Library in Neratovice, which are part of the so-called reserve collections, and performing a related historical research. Two groups of interesting documents were selected within the project preparation.

The first group is Freemasons’ literature coming from numerous lodges located throughout Europe, as well as overseas. These are documents containing Freemasons’ mysticism, philosophy, and rituals, as well as annual reports of the activities of individual lodges (with the estimated number of volumes at 6,000).

The second half of the project is formed by documents brought to Czechoslovakia during World War II or shortly afterwards via confiscation or repatriation. These were often scattered among personal libraries and the libraries of various societies or institutions. Within the project, these documents will be incorporated into a broader, particularly historical and social, context. Research designed in such a way – the processing of collections and their placement into period context – presents a unique feat in the field of heritage institutions, aiming at an area of Czech history which has yet to be systematically explored.

Selection and identification of documents in Neratovice depository

Relevant documents, which are the subject of processing within the “Books Discovered Once Again” project, do not form a designated set of publications, but are scattered in as yet unprocessed Reserve Collections of the National Library, the number of which exceeds 300,000 volumes. Thus, the selection and identification of books requires much manual sorting in the depository, where the books are stored in two to three rows on rack shelves. The selection criteria are defined by the time limit (printed before 1950) and the presence of ownership marks in the books (provenance stamps, Ex Libris, printed ownership labels), with the exception of handwritten notes which are often illegible and may not be conclusive, i.e. they may not express the ownership of the document in question. The selection of corresponding documents is guaranteed by National Library experts, the backbone of the internal research team. Individual racks are searched systematically, and every book must be checked in the given order. Books containing the above-described ownership marks are sorted into special transport boxes directly in the depository in Neratovice with regard to the nexts steps in their processing, their character and their physical condition. Individual boxes are then transported by a removal company to the place of further processing in the Central Depository in Prague-Hostivař (CDH).