“Public library is a local gate to the world of knowledge and a fundamental premise for
life-long education, independent decision making and cultural development of individuals and social groups.”

We go to libraries to inspire ourselves with achievements or mistakes of others, to find wisdom and errors of human spirit, to assuage our need for learning and knowledge. Libraries are cultural institutions providing milieu for self-education, offering quality leisure time and access to multitude of otherwise inaccessible information.

What does it mean when we say LIBRARY

• a collection of books for recreational reading or study
• an institution gathering, preserving and making accessible books and other information media for the purpose of information dissemination
• an organisation that through its services strives to satisfy information, scholarly, educational and recreational needs of its users. Public and information services are provided according to Art. 4.1 of the Act 257/2001 Coll. without charge. Such services for example include:

  - access to library book collection
  - reference services
  - bibliographic and factual information
  - supplying data from remote information resources
  - access to remote information resources of which the library has charge free us

  More information on library services provided for free or charged for may be found in a section “Library services”

• the term “library” is also used by publishers to denote an edition of materials on a specific subject area

In many languages the term “library” has its root in the Greek language biblos=book and téké=shelf or in Latin liber=book

Most Czech libraries are now by nature hybrid, which means that they provide information from printed and also from electronic resources. They increasingly explore external and remote resources. What can you use and what is available in a given library may be found in a section “Library collections”