Time line

In February 2025, a new version of the electronic database of the Czech Literary Biographical Database was launched, which now works in the VuFind interface and offers a number of improved and completely new functionalities.

In May 2024, VuFind underwent a significant visual and functional upgrade. Along with a complete redesign of the user interface, several new features were introduced, including four new databases, a beta version of the indexes, the My Account module, and advanced export functions.

The Czech Literary Bibliography offers all the datasets for further use in open access mode. All datasets are stored and archived in the ASEP institutional repository.

Launch of two five-year projects NAKI – Czech Literary Exile 1948–1989 and ALKARO – Almanacs, Calendars, Yearbooks in the Czech Lands 1801–1945.

In 2023, the record process of other samizdat titles was suspended and the database, which at the end of 2022 numbered over 21,000 records, is being edited.

The VuFind search interface was launched in 2021 and is used to search the databases of the Czech Literary Bibliography.

A  Global and Digital Literary Studies Section was set up at the CLB to deal with quantitative research into biographical data.

Within the DARIAH-ERIC Consortium under the coordination of the Polish Literary Bibliography and the CLB a Bibliographical Data Working Group was established.

Closer collaboration was undertaken with the Polish Academy of Sciences  as part of the Future of Polish and Czech Literary Bibliography: Towards integration and exploitation in comparative research project.

With the launch of the Czech Literary Internet project a Literary Internet Bibliography team was set up at the CLB, and the CLB databases were expanded to include this field.

A Literary Samizdat Bibliography team was set up at the CLB, and work commenced on an analytical bibliography of samizdat periodicals.

Based on the results of an international assessment of research infrastructures in 2014, the CLB was included in the Roadmap of Large Research Infrastructures of the Czech Republic for the years 2016-2022 .

The edition was founded within the research infrastructure Czech Literary Bibliography and serves to publish specialized bibliographies in the field of literary science or related disciplines, as well as professional and methodological publications with bibliographic topics.

As part of the Bibliography of Czech Literary Studies 1945–1960, Methodological Aspects and their Application in Practice project, Vojtěch Malínek compiled a manual entitled Specialist Analytical Bibliography Processing Methodology.

The Czech Literary Studies Consortium was established during the 5th Congress of World Czech Literary Studies. Its goal is to connect foreign institutions involved in Czech studies within an umbrella network, and to establish an organized platform for mutual cooperation.

The CLB historical databases underwent conversion from the CDS/ISIS proprietary system to the Aleph system. This also involved the conversion of seven sub-databases containing almost 430,000 records.

The Bibliography of Czech Literary Studies 1945–1960 project, including a literary bibliography of the period, got under way. Both primary CLB units were linked up in continuous chronological order.

The Retrospective Bibliography card catalogue was digitized and made accessible in the RETROBI system. Thanks to its integration with the OCR transcriptions it allowed for full-text searches in the data.

Within the framework of the grant Digitalizace knižního katalogu Ústavu pro českou literaturu a zpřístupnění databáze osobností české literatury (2004–2008) [Digitalization of the book catalogue in the Institute of czech literature and accession of the czech literary personalities database (2004–2008)], the publicly accessible electronic Czech Literary Biographical Database was launched.

The bibliographical database was first made available on the ICL web pages and regularly updated at weekly intervals.

As part of the Czech Literary Bibliography Research Information System project, Czech Literary Studies bibliographical anthologies for 1961–1980 were converted into database form.

As part of the Objective information thesaurus of the general literary, scholarly and social existence of Czech national culture 1770–1945  project, a transcription was made of part of the Retrospective Bibliography in index card format.

From 1990 the Czech Literary Bibliography was one of the first in the Czech Republic to be processed using the CD/ISIS database system.

František Knopp, co-founder of the Centre for Information on Literary Studies and author of the following bibliographies, became an employee of the Institute:

• 1990 Bibliografie Karla Čapka: soupis jeho díla [Bibliography of Karel Čapek: an inventory of his works]
• 1994 Česká nezávislá literatura v ohlasech: výběrová bibliografie knih a článků od roku 1990 [Czech Independent Literature in Echoes: selected bibliography of books and articles since 1990]
• 1996 Česká literatura v exilu 1948–1989: bibliografie [Czech literature in exile 1948–1989: bibliography]
• 1998 Bibliografie časopisu Divadlo 1949–1970 [Bibliography of the journal Divadlo 1949–1970]
• 2000 Bibliografie díla Vladimíra Macury [Bibliography of Vladimír Macura’s works]

After the ICL was transformed into the Institute for Czech and World Literature in the 1970s and 1980s, bibliographies of Slav and Western literatures were compiled in the following series:

• 1971–1990 Česká literární věda. Slavistika 1971–1975 [Czech Literary Studies. Slavic literature 1971–1975]
• 1975–1990 Česká literární věda. Neslovanské literatury 1974–1982 [Czech Literary Studies, Non-Slavic literatures 1974–1982]
• 1972–1975 Bibliografie literárněvědných occidentalik v českém tisku 1970–1973 [Bibliography of Literary Studies of Western Literature in the Czech Press 1970–1973]

This publication summarizes methodology procedures developed at the ICL Bibliography Centre to date, particularly for processing retrospective bibliographies.

The annual bibliographical anthology  Czech Literary Studies  1962 was brought out under the editorship of Václav Brouček, Jaromír Jedlička, Boris Mědílek and Emanuel Macek. In subsequent years annual anthologies came out throughout the 1961–1980 period. The last of these, for 1980, was published in 1992.

Olga Balášová, Miroslav Laiske, Emanuel Macek and Jaroslav Nečas compiled for publication Bibliography of Czech Literary Studies. 1945–1955: works on Czech literature, recording literary studies book publication and articles.

The Department for Philological Documentation was attached to the Institute and started to build the Old Czech collection on a more systematic basis.

Emanuel Macek started working at the Institute of Czech Literature, subsequently becoming the long-term head of its Bibliographical Department and the policy-maker for what is now the Retrospective Bibliography of Czech Literary Studies as a general retrospective literary studies bibliography for the period from the first stirrings of the National Revival to 1945. He is the author of the following bibliographies amongst others: 

• 1960 Soupis díla S. K. Neumanna [Inventory of the works of S. K. Neumann]
• 1963 Mrštíkové a divadlo [The Mrštík brothers and theatre]
• 1964 Bibliografie české literární vědy 1945-1955 [Bibliography of Czech Literary Studies 1945–1955]
• 1964 Česká literární věda 1962 [Czech Literary Studies 1962]
• 1969 Bibliografie české beletrie a literární vědy: metodická příručka [Czech Fiction and Literary Studies Bibliography]
• 1982 Soupis díla Jana Mukařovského [Inventory of the works of Jan Mukařovský]
• 1983 Soupis díla Viléma Mathesia [Inventory of the works of Vilém Mathesius]
• 1987–1988 Z období Zápisníku [From the period of the Zápisník]
• 1988 Bibliografie F. X. Šaldy od roku 1928 do současnosti [Bibliography of F. X. Šalda from 1928 to the present]

Miroslav Laiske, one of the leading representatives of the Czech Literary Bibliography and founders of its concept, started working at the Institute of Czech Literature. Among his bibliographical works, we can mention:

• 1957 Josef Kajetán Tyl: soupis literárního díla [Josef Kajetán Tyl: an inventory of literary works]
• 1960 Bibliografie Jaroslava Haška: soupis jeho díla a literatury o něm [Bibliography of Jaroslav Hašek: an inventory of his works and literature about him]
• 1962 Bibliografie Boženy Němcové: soupis jejího díla a literatury o něm [Bibliography of Božena Němcová: an inventory of her works and literature about her]
• 1967 Karel Havlíček Borovský: soupis hlavní literatury o jeho životě a díle [Karel Havlíček Borovský: an inventory of the main literature on his life and work]
• 1967 Literatura o Janu Nerudovi [Literature about Jan Neruda]
• 1967 Divadelní periodika v Čechách a na Moravě 1772–1963 [Theatre periodicals in Bohemia and Moravia 1772–1963]
• 1969 Soupis prací prof. Felixe Vodičky za léta 1933–1968 [Compilation of Prof. Felix Vodička’s works for the years 1933–1968]
• 1970–1971 Josef Dobrovský: Bibliographie der Veröffentlichungen von Josef Dobrovský [Josef Dobrovský: Bibliographie der Veröffentlichungen von Josef Dobrovský]

With the approval of the CASA ICL Organizational Code, the policy for the future Bibliographical Department was also set out.