Paper details
The Central Portal of Czech Libraries – KNIHOVNY.CZ
Author
Bohdana Stoklasová, Academy of Sciences Library, Czech Republic
Documents to download
Abstract
The paper will focus on the national project KNIHOVNY.CZ – The Central Portal of Czech Libraries. It will outline its aims, the current state, the objectives for 2013 and its outlook until 2015 and 2020. The Central Portal of Czech Libraries KNIHOVNY.CZ (CPK) will allow clients to obtain the desired documents in the traditional, printed or digital form and to receive prompt and comprehensive information anywhere and anytime. Besides printed documents, Czech libraries already now offer their users numerous databases, the content of digital libraries and other information sources. Nevertheless, these services are quite scattered and often little user-friendly. Common users are not able to take full advantage of the information potential of the libraries. The path from the current situation to such a goal as a strong CPK ensuring unified access to the system of Czech libraries where each library may function as an interface to the whole system and every librarian will be able to provide complex services is very long and definitely not easy; libraries will have to cooperate to overcome technological, financial as well as human obstacles. They need to identify sources important for Czech libraries and their users and select the optimal tools to integrate them and make them accessible, but also to find ways to share user identities, make online payments, and improve interlibrary loan services and document delivery. By 2015, the CPK should be put into operation and utilised by the fifteen Czech libraries that have expressed their interest in participating in the pilot phase of the project; further Czech libraries will gradually join in.
Author's professional CV
Bohdana Stoklasova completed her studies in Library Science at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University in Prague. Following her short employment at the Central Technical Base of the Centre for Scientific-Technical and Economic Information (ÚVTEI), she worked in the National Library of the CR for 30 years. After the beginning at the Automation Division, she led various library units and from 1998 worked in the top management of the institution. She was responsible not only for the daily operations of the National Library of the CR but also for important development projects, mainly in the areas of the standardisation and retrospective conversion of the catalogues, the digitisation and long-term preservation of digital documents, and, last but not least, in projects developing a number of library portals. They were mostly significant national as well as international projects. She led a team of experts preparing the library part of the construction programme for the new building of the National Library of the CR and subsequently for the revitalisation of the Klementinum. Having managed the Uniform Information Gateway project in the long-term, she currently coordinates the project KNIHOVNY.CZ – The Central Portal of Czech Libraries. Her lecture and publication activities (including international) in all of the above-mentioned areas are very extensive. B. Stoklasova participated actively in the working groups and committees of the IFLA; she led the IFLA Bibliography Section for several years.
