Introducing the library of the Department of Germanic studies of the Charles University in Prague

The History of the Library

The library of the Department has a long history. Its beginnings reach as far back as to the year 1888, i.e. to the time shortly after the splitting of the University into the Czech and the German educational Institutions by the emperor Franz Joseph I. in 1882.

After the end of the World War II, the library collections of the Germanic Seminar of the Czech Charles University and the Seminar of Germanic Philology of the former German University in Prague were merged.

In the first half of the 1990's (1992-1995), an extensive reconstruction of the Department Library has been carried out; in doing so, a depot has been established for historically valuable first editions of the German authors of the 18th and 19th century, as well as for series of Austrian and German works published in the Area of the Czech crown lands. The reference collection in the reading room of the library has been updated; books that were old, worn or present in too many copies were replaced by new ones, in addition, audiovisual media have been acquired. The library catalog has been revised, checked for losses and unified. In 1995, the electronic version of the alphabetic and systematic catalog has been developed; since 1996 the library has access to the internet, which enables it the usage of online catalogs.

Collections

The library comprises apart from the original editions of German speaking authors mainly research works in literature, linguistics and didactics, e.g. monographs and anthologies, compendiums, lexicons and reference books, there are monolingual as well as bilingual dictionaries and other media which serve partly as language learning aid (audio cassettes, videos and CDs). Furthemore, the library subscribes several periodicals, the Germanistica Pragensia magazine published as a part of the Acta Universitatis Carolinae series among others. The Bibilotheca germano-austro-bohemica and Litteraria germano-austro-bohemica series are also especially valuable.

The Master and Doctoral theses of the Prague germanic philogy students are also a permanent part of the library collection; handwritten theses of the students of the former German university are preserved as well. In the Department corridor, there is a showcase with information about the new acquisitions and important news. The reference collections concerning the currently ongoing courses for each term are located in the reading room of the library.

Search

The search in the library collection is possible both in the card indexes and in the online catalog. In addition to the alphabetic and systematic card indexes, the library users can also utilize the thematic indexes for linguistics and literature. The bibliographic data can be accessed online through the central catalog of the Charles University and the catalog of the Faculty of Arts – the online catalog of the Department library is a constiuent of these databases.

Services

The loan and information service is situated in the reading room of the library. It provides free information and consulting service, it is in charge of the loans and issues user ID cards. A registered user can in principle borrow any book or other medium, the loan period usally amounts to one month; for materials which are definitely needed for the studium and present in many copies, it can be the whole term. That does not apply to the reference collection of the library and the courses reference – a short loan for one day or the weekend is only possible with these media.

At the beginning of each study year, the library organizes a short informational meeting and a training for new students. One can learn not only the usage rules and the collections, but also the basics of library research. The library is since a long time ago in a lively contact with the library of the Goethe-Institute in Prague.