Acquisitions were financed from the regular budget of the institution with 1.41 million CZK, i.e. 1,03% from the whole state subsidy for library activities, and from the special acquisition funds of 15 million CZK. Other funds were taken from the projects, a basic goal of which was to improve information environment and library services – more in detail see information about the research and technological development projects.

The provisional budget in the beginning of the year had a negative impact on the whole area of acquisitions. The funds could not be spent regularly in the course of the year and therefore it was not possible to plan acquisitions more consistently. In addition, other problems with the foreign literature were caused by extremely disadvantageous development of currency exchange rates.

The most important acquisitions were those of Bohemical desiderata especially for the national archival collection and universal library holdings. Some of the important foreign titles are worth mentioning here, e.g. 45 vols. of the Historia Scientiarum edition (outstanding works of German scientists from the period of 1500 – beginning of the 20^th century), CD-ROM DocThèses (catalogue of doctoral theses from French universities since1972), Nos beaux villages (French history and architecture), Jesuitische Mathematik in Prag im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert (1556–1654), Psalterium Egberti (facsimile of a manuscript), encyclopaedia Latvia: Country. Nation. State., the new English-Chinese dictionary Zui xin shiyong Ying Han pinyin cidian, La rhétorique ou l´art de parler (key work of the French classical thinking) etc. Other important acquisitions were also updates of bibliographic databases on CD-ROM, especially national bibliographies (British, German, French, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Slovak, Slovene, Canadian, and Belgian), and we also managed to acquire publisher databases having the character of books in print (Global Books in Print, Electre, Verzeichnis lieferbarer Bücher, etc.).

The collections of old printed books were enriched with the title Moraviae nova et post omnes priores accuratissima delineatio auctore I. A. Comenio (undated edition of a map of Moravia printed after 1680.)

The Music Department received as donation a collection of rare transcriptions of unique Renaissance and baroque sources of lute music from works of the well-known Czech specialist dr. Emil Vogl.

Among the most important acquisitions of the literature on librarianship can be reckoned the titles as e.g. Directory of University Libraries in Europe, Great Libraries from Antiquity to Renaissance by K. S. Staikos, Harrod’s Librarians Glossary and Reference Book, and Planning Academic and Research Library Buildings by P. D. Leighton.

The Slavonic Library holdings were substantially enriched thanks to a large donation of publications from the Paris Publishing House YMCA-Press and the Russian Public Alexander Solzhenitsyn Fund in Moscow. Other important acquisitions were those of desiderata for Slavonic publications from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in Bonn and of émigré Ukrainian periodicals from Germany.

Thanks to research and development programmes it was possible to acquire also other foreign information resources, which had been financially inaccessible for the National Library before: for example, the CD-ROM titles as Patrologia Latina, Acta Sanctorum, World Bibliographies on CD-ROM series, or World Biographical Archives series, as well as purchase of access to important databases such as OCLC FirstSearch Service, EBSCO, ProQuest 5000, PCI, PCI Full Text, Web of Science, Biological Abstracts, Springer Link, Elsevier, or purchase of additional licences for the Czech full text database Anopress.

Important changes took place also in the regulations concerning the legal deposit of periodical publications, when since 22 February 2000 on the basis of a new law of Dig. No. 46/2000 on rights and duties at publishing periodicals and on changes in some other laws (the socalled periodicals law) and its amendment with the law of Dig. No. 302/2000, the National Library receives two copies of each periodical title.

The cataloguing was strongly influenced with the changeover to Aleph 500 and optimisation of workflow incl. reallocation of rooms. The most important change took place in the analytical cataloguing, because the former MAKS cataloguing module used for this work did not enable appropriate application of AACR2R. A revolutionary change was the integration of cataloguing of foreign monographs into acquisition. In several cases certain delays in cataloguing of Czech literature were produced. As in the past five years, intensive work continued in the area of the Czech cataloguing policy. Fundamental interpretation of AACR2R/UNIMARC for corporate names and unified titles for the Bible was published as well as instructions for cataloguing of electronic resources and audio documents.

Thanks to Aleph 500 the standard work in the authority module was started and preparatory steps were done for creation of a union database of national authorities.

The two main preservation areas were divided in two organizational units (divisions): storage and related activities, and preservation support consisting of preventive care, conservation, restoration, microfilming, and digitization.

Within the framework of the project Prague – European City of Culture for the year 2000, new exhibition show cases were purchased to ensure optimal conditions for displayed library materials and ca 100 old printed books were examined incl. necessary conservation and restoration treatment. Microfilming and digitization were merged into one production line and the installed technology was optimized to improve the quality of the preservation microfilm. The testing of the Digital Library started with samples of digitized periodicals and manuscripts. Within the framework of the Kramerius and Memoriae Mundi Series Bohemica national programmes, digital access to many rare documents from other libraries, museums, and archives was enabled.

Much attention was paid to the problems of disasters and the library started to cooperate with the National Blue Shield Committee.

In comparison with the situation several years ago, an unexpected acceleration of deterioration of the acid paper materials was discovered not only in the National Library holdings, but also in other institutions. The safeguarding of these documents must be faster than originally supposed. This fact is the most serious challenge for Czech libraries, and not only in the area of preservation of the cultural heritage for the nearest future.

Compared to 1999, we have now out of 525 seats 52 equipped with PCs and 28 out of those are connected to Internet. The information technology is concentrated in the Reference Centre that has been equipped with state-of-the-art technology thanks to the Open Society Fund (see Projects), and in the Main Hall.

The year 2000 may also be characterized as a starting point in acquiring a growing number of information resources that we can offer to our users. The library secured a financial support for several of its projects within the framework of the umbrella programme of the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic called Information Resources for Research and Development. Furthermore, we took part in other projects in this programme as a participant in consortia licenses. Due to this generous programme we have dramatically increased our offer of primary (full text) and secondary electronic resources, which are available locally and on line in most of the National Library reading rooms.

Amongst the most important on line resources are:

• EBSCO – predominantly for social sciences and the humanities, economics and medicine with 3 300 full text titles of periodicals, newspapers and wire services, enhanced by over 1 300 full text reference publications

• ProQuest 5000 – bibliographical references for close to 7 000 foreign language periodicals (4 000 with full text) in the area of medicine, social sciences and the humanities, business and applied sciences

• Periodical Contents Index – abstracts of articles from social sciences journals since 1990, with supplementary PCI Fulltext

• Web of Science – retrospective database going back to 1980 and containing bibliographic references with abstracts accessing Science Citation Index Expanded (5 600 titles), Social Science Citations Index (1 700 titles) and Arts and Humanities Citation Index (1 140 titles)

• OCLC FirstSearch Service is one of the most important resources of its kind in the world. It combines the best from the union catalogues, ILL services, document delivery and electronic full text functions. It provides access to OCLC Online Union Catalogue, which contains 40 million bibliographic references from the 11^th century to date with locations in libraries around the world. It is the fundamental information resource for ILL services, thus enabling researchers and scientists in R&D in the Czech Republic to have a ready access to information in their field of inquiry. OCLC FirstSearch Service also provides access to ERIC (Educational Resource Information Centre), MEDLINE, H. W. Wilson Select full text and to other resources.

The collection of the above mentioned resources is supplemented by more narrowly defined sources, or rather sources which represent most important secondary and primary information for the National Library collection profile:

• World Bibliographies contains titles from language groups and subject areas very important for the National Library (English, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, Latin, and music, maps and atlases) back to the 15^th century. It enhanced already large collection of national bibliographies in the National Library.

• World Bibliographical Archives – impressive world-wide collection on microfiche with indexes on line

• Patrologia Latina and Acta Sanctorum – designated for researchers, who use early printed materials from the collections in the National Library, and specialists cataloguing those materials

• American Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies (ABSEES) enriched substantially resources of the Slavonic Library

• Biological Abstracts – the most important resource for biology and biomedicine connected to the Union Catalogue of the Czech Republic – Foreign Language Periodicals

• Access to electronic version of journals published by Springer through Link service makes available 485 journals in the natural sciences

• Consortium Elsevier Science enables access to full texts of ca 300 journals in chemistry, geology, biology and medicine

The year 2000 can be considered as a turning point in the sphere of manuscripts processing. After several years’ experience with digitization and the participation in the international MASTER project we succeeded in creating a standard for electronic processing of manuscripts. Thanks to that it is possible to change from traditional processing to the electronic one.

At the same time, we started to prepare a new qualification of work that would enable to process the printed material in the same way. This means to leave the strict division of materials into manuscripts and prints, and to transfer to the differentiation according to historical epochs.

A rising social demand on organizing exhibitions resulted in transformation of expert library work. The work in the specialized department is no longer based on traditional bibliological or codicological description and on popularization deduced from it, but it consist in presentation that tries to show a great variety of possible or even new topics.

152 new publishers entered the International Standard Book Numbering system (ISBN) and 23 publishers ceased publishing. The total number of publishers participating in the ISBN system in the Czech Republic as of December 12, 2000 is 2898.

ISBNs were checked in about 12 000 book titles. The Czech National ISBN Agency itself assigned 904 numbers to books published by publishers not participating in the ISBN system.

The printed directory of publishers participating in the ISBN system supplemented by the list of music publishers participating in the ISMN system (as of December 12, 1999) was published. 24 issues of the bimonthly O.K. – Ohlášené knihy were also published.

Working contacts with the International ISBN Agency in Berlin continued; three updates of the Czech publishers database intended for the international directory PIID (Publishers´ International ISBN Directory) were sent there as well as the list of incorrect ISBNs assigned by Czech publishers in 2000.

The Czech National ISBN Agency presented its activity in the 28^th International ISBN Agency Advisory Panel meeting in Berlin in October.

Five new music publishers entered the International Standard Music Numbering system (ISMN). The total number of participants in the ISMN system in the Czech Republic is 40 as of December 12, 2000.

ISMNs were currently checked in music publications. The Czech National ISMN Agency itself assigned 50 numbers to music titles in which ISBNs were not presented.

The Czech National ISMN Agency presented its activity in the 8^th International ISMN Agency Advisory Panel meeting in Berlin in April.

In cooperation with the Czech National ISSN Centre (in the State Technical Library) 114 ISSNs were assigned to new nontechnical serial titles.

The tasks scheduled by the working plan for reserve collections – prepared until 2004 – were fulfilled.

The work concentrated on selection of both national and foreign periodicals of all categories. 2,033 meters of shelves were sorted and 3,262 volumes of periodicals were newly selected.

Together with periodical publications also books were selected and distributed into corresponding categories of reserve collections in total number of 3,922.

A new period of access to collections started with retrospective conversion of the general catalogue (see Projects). New ways of making the collections accessible to users were also represented by the editorial project Periodicals of Russian and Ukrainian Emigration Published in Czechoslovakia between1918 and 1945. The financial support of the Senate of the Czech Republic enabled to digitize 180 titles from this unique collection. This project was also of a great importance from the point of view of their preservation. All together 39 CDR and archival microfilms of periodicals were processed this way.

In 1999, The Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies provided two grants for preservation and evaluation of archive materials, which had never been processed. This activity continues also at the present.

Besides the above mentioned projects, the Slavonic Library mapped the former taboo subjects and contributed thus to the development of Slavonic studies. In cooperation with other institutions, the most eminent activities were the international conference Days of Marina Tsvetaeva – Všenory 2000 and colloquia Czechoslovakia and Gulag and Russian Voluntary Force – its history and acceptation. The exhibition T.G. Masaryk and Russian Emigration in Czechoslovakia was held on the occasion of the international conference T. G. Masaryk and Russian Aid of the Czechoslovak Government in Moscow. Several librarians from the Slavonic Library read their papers there.

The library also tried to offer more detailed information in the field of Slavistics. As a result, the reference book The Czech Slavonic Studies: Personalities and Institutions was published. It contained uptodate information on institutions of Slavonic studies and individual researchers in the Czech Republic.

The Slavonic Library placed a great emphasis on extending the offered services especially via Internet (see Library Services).