Current Bibliography (since 1945)

Database description

This database came about through the merger of what were previously separate sub-databases, which were progressively expanded and converted to more up-to-date formats and systems. It is currently being enhanced to include in particular new entries from ongoing excerption covering contemporary magazine and book output and retrospectively supplemented with data for earlier periods.

For this reason, the database comprises several strata, each originally with a different excerpt  scope (cf. summary below). However, the individual parts are being progressively edited and unified to a common standard. Its oldest part consists of Czech Literary Studies bibliographical anthologies, covering the 1961–1980 period. These are chronologically followed by card excerpts from the 1980s. In the early 1990s the Czech Literary Bibliography started to be processed in the form of a structured database in the CDS / ISIS system, in which two database formats gradually emerged: (a) firstly the oldest and less detailed one, in which excerpts from the 1981–1996 period were processed, along with card excerpts for the 1980s, some of the Retrospective Bibliography and the Czech Literary Exile Bibliography (in book form: KNOPP, František: Czech Literature in Exile 1948–1989. Prague: Makropulos, 1996), and (b) 1997 and a more recent, more detailed, structured one, in which excerpts from the 1997–2012 period were processed, and eventually the aforementioned bibliographical anthologies for the 1961–1980 period were also converted to this format.

In 2012 the database was converted to the MARC21 international exchange format and the Aleph system, into which all the old databases were gradually converted throughout 2015 and 2016.  During this conversion, the contemporary bibliography data underwent systematic editing, and was supplemented by a series of persistent identifiers and other machine-addable information.

During the 2012–2015 period the Bibliography of Czech Literature 1945–1960 was processed (under the “Bibliography of Czech Literature 1945–1960” project, supported by the Czech Ministry of Culture within the NAKI programme), which filled a gap that had long existed between contemporary and retrospective bibliography. The database is  enhanced to include records from the  Czech Literary Samizdat bibliography (since 2016) and the Czech Literary Web bibliography (2017–2021).

The excerption scope of contemporary bibliography was defined for the original annual bibliographical anthologies as secondary specialist bibliography of Czech literature and literary studies.  However, within the individual sub-projects, this scope was gradually expanded to include the current state, where the contemporary bibliography processes not only secondary (such as articles, book prefaces and afterwords), but also primary sources (Czech fiction in books and magazines), i.e. all available materials on Czech literature.

Over 220 periodicals are regularly excerpted for the needs of the contemporary bibliography. This processing state is updated on an ongoing basis and available from the Database of Recorded Periodicals.

Links to the full texts of excerpted documents, accessible at existing digital libraries, are progressively  being inserted into contemporary bibliography database records. As of 31.12.2020, this involves more than 90,000 records.

Excerption scope of individual parts of the contemporary bibliography