The National Library will present new plans for the new building

PRAGUE - The National Library of the Czech Republic wants to announce today what new developments it is preparing in relation to the construction of its new building in Prague's Letná. At a press conference in the Mirror Chapel of Klementinum, it also wants to summarize the important events of the past year.
For the construction of the new building, which is intended to solve spatial problems, the library will acquire land from the city for approximately 30 million crowns. The library has been struggling with a lack of space since the end of the 19th century. The land at the end of Letenská Plain at the Hradčanská metro station is designated in the zoning plan as a place "for development in the field of culture or churches". For the design of the building, the National Library plans to announce an international architectural competition.
The library would like to have the new building, which would house the majority of its library collections created after 1800, ready by 2010. The construction costs are estimated to be around two billion crowns.
The proposal for the new building has been supported by the Ministry of Culture. However, it has only half a billion crowns available annually for investments, so the funds must come from state resources through other means.
The construction itself could, according to the library director Vlastimil Ježek, begin in 2008. In early February, a proposal passed the second reading in the House of Representatives for the library to receive two billion crowns from the National Property Fund in conjunction with the National Museum. The money is proposed to be released by MPs from privatization proceeds.

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What will the new National Library of the Czech Republic be like?

The answer to this question will be partially known after the evaluation of the open international architectural competition, and completely only after the new library opens. Nevertheless, the year 2005, during which we prepared the building program and other necessary documentation for announcing the competition, was crucial for the new building.
The preparation of the concept of the new library at a time when libraries are gradually transforming from more or less closed institutions providing traditional services tied to their own collections into open institutions with a significantly broader socio-cultural scope and significance is a challenge in itself. Preparing the concept for the new National Library, some parts of which cannot be opened by principle (national conservation collections), which will be located in a place ideally suited for maximum openness (if today someone desires to study in a pleasant environment, enjoy a quality cultural experience, attend a social event, or simply sit with friends over good food or coffee, they will definitely not go to Letná), is a double challenge. Seemingly incompatible elements can be combined so that they limit each other and create the need for building various barriers. But in the age of modern technologies that minimize noise, the risk of document theft, etc., it is possible to arrange them in such a way that they purposefully intersect and enhance each other.
We will present the vision of the new building in the form of a simple graphic representation, which is briefly described in the following text. We believe that its realization will take place according to the plans in 2010, and that in this year the National Library will offer you qualitatively new services in the new building and in the revitalized Klementinum. However, given the time-limited space for collections, there is also an opposite scenario similar to the collapse of the early nineties: accumulating documents piling up in boxes with no possibility for processing, storage, and accessibility.
Before we describe the individual zones, we would like to evoke the following idea when looking at the model: no matter how the individual zones are ultimately organized and the free (if you will, non-library) zones will be relatively spacious, it must always and everywhere be evident that this is a library. The library should not disturb here, but must be "omnipresent." Whether behind glass, in the form of free views between floors, or in another form, is a matter for the architect. Conversely, a user moving in the zones closer to the center should have a pleasant feeling of being able to use the services of a restaurant, café, or ample spaces for discussions with colleagues or friends at any time. They will be able to view an exhibition directly in the building or attend other cultural or social events, although they must not be disturbed in their work by them.
To give a basic idea, we will mention just a few key numbers: in the new building, there will be capacity for 10,000,000 library units. Modern collections from 1801 to the present will be relocated here with a reserve for the next fifty years. (Historical and music collections and the Slavic Library will remain in Klementinum). A portion of the Parliamentary Library's collections will also be opened to the public here. A total of 300,000 documents will be available in the free selection, with the possibility of further expansion. Readers will have access to 1,200 study places.

Meeting place
is intended for everyone without distinction and limitation. Anyone can enter and leave this zone without control. In this space, there will be: a literary café, restaurant, multipurpose hall, exhibition space, relaxation and discussion zone, an information zone about the library, a bookstore combined with a sales outlet for materials published by and about the library. This area will also include a parking lot, cloakroom, and sufficient social facilities. Although this zone will be visually connected to the library, it must allow for completely autonomous operation even when the library is closed in the stricter sense.

Basic services for everyone
will offer a central service hall variant directly linked to the entrance for the public. This zone will be freely accessible as a place of first reception for users with information about the library's collections and services. Besides a reference collection of reference literature in free access, there will be catalogs, databases, portals, a digital library, and an archive of the Czech web available here. Internet access will not only allow the use of commonly accessible resources but also provide access to costly paid services and resources. Basic information, expert consultations, reference and research services will be prepared for users here, and they can attend user training sessions. Registration of readers, borrowing protocols, central cash register, receipt, and delivery of reprographic services, self-service copying, study space for reference literature, training and consulting space will be located here. Visitors can enter this space without registration and control; however, they will undergo routine checks of the documents taken out upon leaving.

Study zone with free selection
will be addressed as an open space intended for study on-site, with places in basic furnishings and a free selection of professional literature. Here, studying one's own documents will also be allowed, with connections to further services: self-service copying, access to computing technology, wireless connection, and basic consulting and advisory services. Entry into this zone already presumes the obligation to undergo verification of valid reader registration, identification of brought documents, and the storage of bags and outerwear in the cloakroom. Upon leaving the library, visitors from this zone will pass through the regular checks of documents taken out.

Specialized study rooms
will offer users a "classically" organized system of specialized study rooms (micromedia, electronic documents, periodicals) for accessing special types of documents from the universal library collections. Consulting and borrowing services will be available here for users (delivery/receipt of ordered and reserved documents from storages and from serviced reference collections), study space for collections from reference libraries, and other follow-up services (copying, wireless connection, etc.). Lovers of greater privacy will have access to a so-called quiet study room with above-standard places for long-term scientific/research work, with both freely accessible and serviced reference libraries, and the possibility of long-term reservation of documents stored in storages. Entry into this zone presumes at least adherence to the conditions valid for the "yellow" study zone with free selection; entry and exit in individual study rooms will be further regulated according to specific specifications.

National conservation collections
represent collections of publications published in the territory of the Czech Republic or Czechoslovakia from 1801 to the present. These are archival copies intended for preservation for future generations and form the "heart" of the National Library. They do not serve typical information services and are made accessible only when no other copy is available in the Czech Republic. The significance and purpose of conservation collections correspond to the manner of accessibility with exceptional demands on their protection. Losses from these collections are generally irreplaceable - they represent a non-reversible loss of national cultural heritage. Access to and exit from this zone are subject to extraordinary checks and security measures. Although most visitors to the new library are unlikely to ever enter this zone, its significance for the overall atmosphere of the building is extraordinary. The awareness that a significant part of the national cultural heritage is stored here and preserved for future generations lends a unique dimension to the entire building.
The following photos do not predict the "face" of the future library in any way, but they illustrate the principles mentioned in the text.
The new building of the National Library of the Czech Republic will be a modern multifunctional space that offers all visitors the opportunity to meet in a pleasant environment with colleagues or friends and/or attend some cultural events. The library will provide its users, in addition to millions of documents within its own collections, access to hundreds of millions of documents and information from around the world. All of this will be available in differentially organized and equipped zones – from open spaces to partially separated spaces for teamwork to closed spaces for completely undisturbed and/or loud teamwork. Besides the possibility of refreshments at the local restaurant and café, the new library will also offer plenty of space for alternative seating and relaxation. An undeniable advantage of the plot at Letná is the proximity of the park, which can be used for impressive and pleasant integration of study both indoors and outdoors...