Library

The Library of the Czech Geological Survey is a public library and currently holds roughly 210,000 volumes. Its collections are available in the study room in Prague and at two smaller study rooms located in Brno and Kutná Hora. In addition to scientific literature, the study rooms also provide users with an extensive collection of reference literature and access to worldwide bibliographic and full-text databases, and free internet access as well.

The Library of the Czech Geological Survey was founded in 1924 as a central information office of the State Geological Institute (founded in 1919).  The library collects, stores, and provides access to printed and electronic geoscience publications from all over the world. The holdings also include an extensive collection of environmental literature from the former library of the Ministry of the Environment.

Collections and study rooms

• Geoscience Collection – GEOL contains documents with information on regional geology, applied geology, economic geology, geochemistry, mineralogy, and palaeontology.
• Environmental Collection – ENVI contains documents on environmental protection and related disciplines focusing mainly on waste management.
• Mining Literature Collection (study room in Kutná Hora) contains documents concerning mineralogy, geology, hydrogeology, petrography, geochemistry, mining history and general history, metrology and numismatics.

Study room  in Prague, Klárov 3

Contact: +420 257 089 439, email: knihovna@geology.cz

Study room in Brno, Leitnerova 22

Contact: +420 543 429 201, email: knihovnabrno@geology.cz

Study room in Kutná Hora, Dačického náměstí 11/7

Contact: +420 327 515 724, email: knihovnakh@geology.cz

Catalogues provide access to all documents in the CGS Library holdings.

Catalogues

Online catalogue 

• Search for literature, i.e. books, periodicals, offprints and electronic sources in the CGS Library’s holdings. An older collection is being updated retrospectively.
• Now, the catalogue allows registered users to order documents online, to create lists of articles that can be sent to an email address, and to access a reader account. More information is available in the help section of the online catalogue or by consulting a librarian.

Card catalogues

• The general catalogue contains 125,000 library entries from 1850–1986. It was scanned in 2001. The catalogue is arranged by nouns in titles (including periodicals) and by the names of authors.
• A new catalogue of periodicals contains periodicals that went out of print in 1987–2003

Catalogues closed, only data on depreciation are added.

Bibliography

• A classified list of articles on the geology of the Bohemian Massif and related units by Czech and foreign authors, which were published in Czech and foreign sources from the library‘s collection (GEOL articles), and articles on environmental issues (ENVI articles).
• The articles database is now linked to the books and periodicals database. By clicking through to an article, readers can order the relevant volume (journal, book), in which the article was published.

Online catalogue

Geological bibliography - name catalogue

• Scanned name bibliographic card catalogue (articles, papers, separates and books; contents identical to printed bibliographic yearbooks), 1928-1989, 100,000 records, card catalogue closed. Available in card form in the CGS library. 

Bibliographical yearbooks - available for consultation in the study room - contain lists of geoscientific publications (monographs and articles) from 1528 onwards.

External databases (licensed)

The CGS Library provides access to full-text databases (ScienceDirect, SpringerLink, Willey Interscience, Blackwell, GeoscienceWorld) and bibliographic databases (Web of Knowledge, Scopus and Georef). These databases are accessible through the CzechELib project.

The licensed sources that the CGS Library makes available to its registered users can only be used by the users for standard study and research purposes, using only the tools offered by the selected licensed source. The use of various robots or other automated downloading programmes is prohibited when working with licensed sources.

CGS employees can access the databases from CGS offices and facilities or via a VPN gateway, and registered external users can access them in the CGS Library’s study room.

Services

Library services are subject to the Library Policy knihovna_rad_en.pdf (350.19 KB) and Service Fees cgs_library_fees_en.pdf (194.16 KB). 

• The full range of library services is provided only to registered library users.
• Users over 15 years of age may register.
• The online catalogue may be used to pre-register, but the registration must be completed by visiting the library in person.
• Most of the documents are stored in a separate repository outside Prague and must be requested via the online catalogue or by email (knihovna@geology.cz). Requests are usually processed within a week, and readers are notified by email when the material is available. The document location can be found in the online catalogue.
• Copying services are subject to the Library Policy and Service Fees. In accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act and license conditions, copies of documents are intended solely for the personal use of the user. Only digital photographs may be taken of old or damaged printed documents in the study room (to preserve them).