Summary of cataloguing within the "Books Discovered Once Again" project

Published on 15 July

During the "Books Discovered Once Again" project, i.e. from the project commencement to the end of April 2016, 12,780 volumes were thoroughly catalogued in the form of records at the recommended level of processing (according to the Resource Description and Access international rules), including both name and subject descriptions.

These 12,780 volumes were signed and entered in 11,503 bibliographic records. Why are there fewer records than volumes? Because in some cases, several copies of a book were entered in a single record, or the book in question is a multivolume monograph with all parts/volumes entered in a single record (such as encyclopaedias or compilations of more volumes), or it is a work published in instalments – a serial (magazine, yearbook) – with all volumes also entered in a single record.

Of these 12,780 volumes, 7,030 belong to Masonic literature (single-sheet prints, history, yearbooks, studies, etc.); the remaining volumes represent other foreign products, from commonly available novels to rare copies produced for the Third Reich. Products made on Czech territory are included only exceptionally, in a few copies only. In terms of time, the volumes come from the 19th and 20th centuries.

After the project's completion in May 2016, all the records were made available to the general public both in the NKC (National Library catalogue) and the SKC (Union catalogue of the Czech Republic). Prior to their publication in the SKC, the records were subjected to the final formal-logic check with excellent results – only 0.5% of them contained minor formal errors, which is a very good demonstration of the effective cooperation between newly hired cataloguers and permanent National Library employees carrying out checks and revisions of the records. The errors detected were corrected immediately and all records are now available in the SKC.

All the documented volumes are available in the National Library of the Czech Republic in the so-called research mode, i.e. to be borrowed only in the reading room of research workers or the reading room of the National Archival Collection for scientific purposes.

Although the first stage of the project's implementation ended, the mapping of the particular section of the reserve collections of the National Library and the documentation of new cataloguing records and information about the items continue. This concerns volumes falling under activities which follow those within the “Books Discovered Once Again” project. Another 1,000 volumes were documented by the end of June 2016.