Acceptance of Donations into the Collections of the National Library of the Czech Republic (NL CR).

Donations of books are one of the indispensable sources for expanding the collections of the National Library of the Czech Republic. Although books, periodicals, maps, and CD media are welcome, our collection already comprises more than 7,000,000 items, and therefore their acceptance cannot be considered automatic. All donations are subject to careful selection and assessment to determine whether each individual item is suitable for inclusion.

By law, the NL CR primarily collects literature published on the territory of the Czech Republic and foreign Bohemica. Furthermore, it maintains a universal collection designed to meet the needs of academic universities and research institutions in the fields of the social sciences, natural sciences, culture, and the arts.

The processing and storage of each additional document entail costs; therefore, every donation is considered individually by NL CR staff. An item can be accepted only if it fulfills the following criteria:

  1. The item is a valid and legally published document, not, for instance, a photocopied and bound book or a home-burned CD copy.
  2. The item is in appropriate physical condition (e.g., the donated book must not be excessively annotated or underlined, torn, or damaged by mold or water).
  3. The document is complete, with no pages missing.
  4. The content of the document corresponds to the profile of the NL CR:  a) It was published in the Czech Republic or is of Czech interest. b) It belongs to the fields of the social sciences, natural sciences, culture, or the arts.
  5. The document is not yet represented in the collections of the NL CR, or, due to its importance, the Library may be interested in acquiring multiple copies.

Other institutions to which publications may be offered in accordance with the focus of their collections:

  • Donations of non-Bohemical foreign Slavic fiction should be offered to the Slavonic Library (sluzby.sk@nkp.cz).
  • Donations of non-Bohemical professional technical documents should be addressed to the National Technical Library (akvizice@techlib.cz).
  • Donations of non-Bohemical professional medical documents should be directed to the National Medical Library (fremutov@nlk.cz; pazikov@nlk.cz).
  • Contemporary non-Bohemical foreign fiction (published in 2020 or later) is best donated to the Prague Municipal Library (nakup@mlp.cz).
  • Older fiction may be offered to antiquarian bookshops, online services (Knihobot, Re-knihy), or shared through community book exchange boxes (you can easily find locations in your area online).