Book Culture

The collection of documents on the development of book culture contains mostly non-literary material from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. The items are divided into fonds according to content.

• A significant part of the collections is held in the Publisher's Archives and personal fonds, which document the activities of more than forty publishing houses (for example V. Petr, J. Pelcl, V. Žikeš, L. Mazáč), graphic designers, typographers, illustrators and collectors. This fonds is related to the "Publisher’s promotional materials”, with publisher and book store advertisements from the 18th century to the present.
• The large “Illustration” fonds documents the art of illustration of Czech literature, in particular in the interwar period (for example the works of J. Čapek, C. Bouda, P. Dilinger) and in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries (A. Scheiner, V. Černý, V. Oliva). The fonds contains works by illustrators performed for publishing houses established after World War II. The fonds is being expanded with contemporary book illustrations.
• The fonds “Printing blocks and plates” documents techniques and methods of producing prints that were used to print books and magazines in the 19th and 20th centuries. Original printing plates by Czech artists (J. Čapek, J. Hodek, J. Váchal) are of great artistic value.  The “Material artefacts” fonds holds items used in book printing and bookbinding. The collection includes sets of letterpress type pieces and a collection of printing and book binding machines. The "Furniture” fonds has pieces of furniture from the studies of significant figures of Czech book culture (J. Váchal, L. Jiřincová, J. Otto, K. Čapek, J. Zeyer, K. Havlíček and J. Arbes).
• The core of the “Posters” fonds, documenting, among other things, publisher’s advertising, is the collection of K. J. Obrátil, originating primarily in the early 20th century. The fonds contains large sets of posters by A. Mucha, E. Orlik, K. Reisner, H. Melicharová and J. Hodek. The fonds also holds contemporary posters relating to books and museums.
• The “Typography” fonds contains typographic design – the arrangement of type (primarily by O. Menhart and M. Kaláb) and alphabet fonts.
• The major part of the "End Papers” fonds consists of the collection of decorative bookbinding papers from the estate of R. Hlava, which date mostly from the 19th and 20th centuries. The fond also includes smaller sets of historical and contemporary end papers.
• Our “Bookplates” fonds is the second largest collection of its kind in the Czech Republic. The fonds holds bookplates, occasional prints, and supralibros dating from the 16th century to the present. The collections of K. J. Obrátil, J. Paroubková, M. Novotný and A. Chvála make up the core of the collection.
• The sub-collection also holds the “Holy cards” fonds, the most valuable part of which is the collection of B. Přibil containing items mostly from the 18th and 19th centuries. It is complemented by a large set of holy cards originally held in the Literary Archive of the National Museum Library, and by printed sheets with holy cards from the J. Koppe printing shop. The “Holy cards” fonds is thematically related to the “Memorial cards” fonds.
• The “Cantastoria picture stories and prosaic prints” fonds makes the largest collection of its kind in the Czech Republic. It includes print with sacred and secular topics, published between the 17th and early 20th centuries.
• The “Song books” fonds offers another view of the functions of a song. It contains manuscripts of secular and sacred songs, originating mostly from the 19th and 20th centuries. The “Prayers” fonds is also large and contains primarily printed material.
• The “Book collections” fonds contains the libraries of important figures of 20th century book culture (J. Váchal, M. Marten, A. Chvála, M. Novotný and others). However, in their extent and quality, the book fonds “National Revival and Bibliophilia”, containing items of mixed provenance, are of the greatest significance.