Acquisition is focused mainly on selection of documents from profiled fields (i.e., the social and natural sciences, culture, and arts). The acquired publications are included into the National Archival Collection and into the Universal Library Collection.

The total number of acquired documents of foreign literature was considerably lower compared with the years 1995–1999 (in 1996, the number was even lower). This decrease was mainly due to reduction of purchase resulting from provisional budget arrangements in the first four months of the year, highly unfavourable shifts in exchange rates during the year, and also due to installation of the new library system Aleph 500 including changes in organization of working procedures.

The total volume of acquired foreign literature was 8,632 unites. The proportion of exchanges to total acquisition of printed documents was 41,6% (3,596 units), gifts 32,8% (2,830 units), and purchase 19,5% (1,680 units). Non-printed documents were acquired both by purchase and by gifts or exchange. Due to a small number of acquired documents (6%, i.e. 526 units) their structure is not presented here.

The proportion of exchange to total acquisition number fluctuated in 1995–2000 between 38–59,5%, the proportion of gifts between 26–34%, and the proportion of purchase between 13,5–20,5%.

In 2000, the number of publications acquired by exchange was the lowest one in the last five years. In addition to the above mentioned objective reasons of the decrease of acquisition as whole, the principal cause was the general and global trend to reduce this source of acquisition (preferring purchase as the basic source of acquisition). However, this fact does not apply fully to post-communist countries in which an endeavour for further quantitative and qualitative development of exchange is evident (e.g. Slovakia, Russia, Poland etc.).

The exchange of publications is for us, for the time being, the most effective source of acquisition of foreign literature. The permanent evaluation of efficiency of particular exchange relations was an integral part of our work as well as the mutual comparison of benefits and exchange accounts. It resulted that the exchange contacts were variable as well as the structure of publications exchanged: periodicals, current book production, titles issued by the exchange partners themselves, offers of our duplicates, and in some cases also electronic publications. The exchange of periodicals was of the utmost importance, because they could be acquired for much less financial means in this way then through an ordinary subscription.

Active exchange contacts were maintained with 220 partners (national libraries, universities, special libraries, and professional institutions) in 46 countries. More details about the number of exchange partners in particular countries are presented in the tables.

Traditionally reliable exchanges of high-quality were with partners from German speaking territories (Germany, Austria) and from Romance languages countries (France, Spain, Italy). A valuable contribution presented our exchange with the USA and Great Britain, while our exchanges with Canada were considered as well established. The interest in exchange with Nordic countries was steadily decreasing and a similar situation was in our contacts with the Netherlands. Our exchange relations with Russia and Poland were very specific, because they did not only replace the insufficient market, but they also offered – compared with purchase – a significant decrease of too high prices of publications or journals; this applied to Ukraine and Bulgaria, too. Our exchanges with Baltic states and Slovakia also seemed to be very prospective. The specialists highly appreciated the results of exchanges with Taiwan and China. The exchanges with other countries were liable to fluctuations or they were – compared with other countries – less important.

The majority of publications were acquired from Germany (853), Poland (388), Russia (353), USA (312), France (297), and Great Britain (199). The data on other countries are presented in the tables. In addition to printed publications, also several monographs and national bibliographies on CD-ROM were acquired.

Together with the regular gifts, which the Library had been receiving for many years due to the membership of the Czech Republic or the Library in international organizations, also gifts from various inland and foreign institutions and organizations were acquired, as e.g. from embassies, professional workplaces, exhibitors in the Prague Book Fair, etc. There were also gifts from private persons. In principle it can be said that we accepted all gifts in line with the acquisition profile; an ideal case was when we could consult the structure of a gift in advance. In contrary cases, the gift was not accepted and we recommended to donators another relevant library; in extreme cases, the gift or its part were redistributed as agreed.

As to country of origin, we acquired publications mostly from Germany (622), USA (498), Switzreland (283), France (251), Great Britain (134), and Slovakia (127). The data on other countries are presented in the tables. In addition to printed publications, we acquired also several titles on CD-ROM.

The purchase of foreign literature was considerably influenced by a long period of provisional budget arrangement. It was necessary to stop all new orders at that time. The fact that it was not possible to order documents fluently from the very beginning of the year proved later to be very negative: some titles were sold out, some other ones could not be obtained until the end of the year. In addition to that, it was necessary to postpone also some payments of orders from the preceding year.

Due to the critical lack of financial means for acquisition lasting for many years, which was eased by a purposeful grant in last years, the selection of titles focused only on acquiring really necessary profile titles, ongoing publications including updates of bibliographical and publisher databases on CD-ROM, and on acquisition of indispensable reference literature. All prices reflected naturally also very unfavourable exchange rate of the Czech crown to the US dollar.

All offered reductions of prices were accepted purposefully. These were traditionally offered by exhibitors during the annual international Prague Book Fair ‘Book World’, by the Centre for Democracy and Free Enterprising, in occasional exhibitions of foreign exhibitors, and by concrete offers of various foundations. Thanks to that, the average costs per publication were relatively low with regard to real catalogue prices, i.e. CZK 1,912. The average cost of one ongoing title on CD-ROM was CZK 62,592, while the average cost of a monograph title on CD-ROM was CZK 3,573.