In August 2002 tremendous floods caused heavy damage to library collections in many Czech institutions. Although itself struck with floods, the National Library established a crisis and consultancy centre, which provided expert consultancy and organized material aid to other libraries. Members of the library staff gathered requirements from inundated libraries concerning packaging material, transit boxes, filter papers, cooling plant and transport capacities, and they tried to find companies willing to help. The National Library lent a great number of crates to other institutions. Thanks to activities of inundated institutions, and help of volunteers, various companies, and the Army, almost 140 000 volumes from flooded libraries have been successfully placed in cooling plants. The aid to flooded cultural institutions continues e.g. by providing expert consultations and opinions in the field of climatology and microbiology.

In the National Library, only reserve holdings were inundated, which are not used by readers and only serve for substituting lost or damaged volumes. In the depository in Neratovice, the lowest shelves were flooded, where the volumes of Bohemical periodicals had been kept. Rescue of the aforementioned collection was organized by the National Library with the help of volunteers, men in alternative service, and the Maersk company, which lent a refrigerating lorry. On September 8th 2002, the frozen holdings were stored in the Mochovské mrazírny (Cooling Plant Mochov), in its subsidiary plant Kladno near Prague.

The National Library managed to receive extra funds to extend the project ”Development of protective boxes for rare and damaged collections” by the topic on drying the frozen library collections. In cooperation with the State Central Archive and the freelance expert Jiří Neuvirt, MSc., CSc., a series of tests of basic drying technologies was carried out, and the results played the main role in making decision of further proceedures in saving library and archival documents. On the initiative of the British Council and as a donation from it, the National Library received three vacuum-packing machines for drying rare historical documents. Since the Municipal Library in Prague had the greatest number of damaged early printed books, the National Library provided it with two out its three facilities for drying documents and with its own rooms equipped for drying under conditions following strict regulations of health protection during work.

Vacuum-packing is a highly time-consuming method, therefore since the beginning, the attention was focused on other methods of mass drying, which might be used for collections of the 19th and 20th centuries. There were several possibilities, of which the drying wood rooms in the town of Kralupy nad Vltavou near Prague were selected. Two unused rooms were given at the disposal. It was necessary to repair their equipment until the end of the year, especially the control systems, and to procure other required means (trolleys, ceramic boards, non-vowen textile materials, filter papers). As soon as during December, two packages of frozen documents, i.e. the total of ca. 2000 volumes, had been successfully dried in one of the rooms.

Operative research and development represent a very important part of the present rescue of documents damaged by water, as it has been proved in testing various drying technologies. For this reason we are immensely gratefull to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, USA, for its offer to support financially right the research and development in the field of drying, disinfection, reformatting, and restoration of damaged documents. Two members of the National Library staff – J.Vnouček and J. Polišenský – were appointed in an expert commission of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic and later also in an expert group at the commission chaired by the Vice-Premier of the Czech Government. The Collections Preservation Division prepared a document on the policy to recover the damages for the period between 2003 and 2008, including the costing.

Due to the lack of funds, the National Library fights for long with the process of dilapidation of the Klementinum area, which the floods of August made even worse.

The Klementinum, which is situated near the Vltava river with a minimum difference in altitude, was not as much affected with floods as other buildings that had not been protected by a flood wall, but its damages were still serious. As soon as the state of emergency was declared due to the danger of flooding, members of the library staff began to rescue at least the most precious and important objects endangered with flooding. Some more valuable reserve library collections were moved out from the underground as well as removable parts of the technological equipment (e.g. burners of boilers of central heating), artistic works (pictures and furniture, stored there before their restoration) and some consumer material from the library stock. However, removal operations had to be stopped, because the Pražská energetika (Prague energy-distributing company) disconnected energy supply to the transformer and there is not any stopgap energy supply in the Klementinum.

The level of underground water varies depending on the level of water in the Vltava river. Therefore the decisive moment came when the level raised above the level of floors in the underground. The underground was inundated up to the height from 30 cm to 350 cm according to the floor level. The underground was flooded with a certain delay after the peak of the flood waters in the river but at high speed. Water got in the underground both from sewerage system and through various leaks in floors and circumferential stonework and brickwork.

In spite of the fact that the whole area around the Klementinum was evacuated, a crisis team remained in the library and all the time it carried out preventative measures in order to prevent potencial flooding of the premises, it watched the height of water, and coordinated works aimed at minimizing further damage and removing existing flood damages. Crucial was the assistance of the fire brigade in the Klementinum, which the whole time pumped water from the underground. The firemen intervened thanks to the initiative of some members of the library staff. Also the cooperation with a crisis team of the Municipal Council of the City of Prague was beneficial. It provided for necessary technologies (electricity transformer, pumps) as well as their operation. However, it was difficult to secure access to the closed zone of the Old Town for colleagues and other persons, whose help we reckoned on. Drainage of water was regulated according to the current level of the Vltava river so as to minimize possible damage. Shortly after the drainage of water from the underground had been finished, one standby transformer was provided by the Východočeské energetické závody (East Bohemian Energy-distributing Plant). Thanks to that the main part of the Klementinum was successfully put in working condition and so the clearance works could be started and subsequently, also adaptations of rooms and repairs of technological equipment, especially of the gas boiler room.

The floods caused damage to the National Library in the amount of CZK ca. 20 million. Some damage became evident in the Klementinum area even later – e.g. collapse of floors with no cellars underneath, damage to ducts (sewage system, water-supply ducts, ventilation equipment) etc. The damage is being recovered step by step.

Statics of the Klementinum was not disturbed, as results from the preliminary static expert opinions.

Floods struck also other buildings in possession of the National Library, e.g. group of buildings in Liliová Street 5 (near the Klementinum), where the underground was inundated up to the height of ca. 1,5 m, and the depository in Neratovice (a town not far from Prague), which was flooded with water from river up to the height of ca. 25–30 cm.

We would like to thank especially the members of the crisis team, the staff of the Estate, Investments and Material Management Division and others, who played a decisive role in the flood control, removal of damages caused by flood, and quick renewal of the National Library´s work at all. And we also thank those, who in background effectively arranged for the help to other cultural institutions and the stopgap run of the National Library.