Since 1953 analytical descriptions of individual editions supplemented by the shelf mark of extant copies in Czech and foreign libraries have been prepared on catalogue cards. Special treatment was given to the writings of J. A. Comenius and Bohuslav Balbín, whose bibliographies were published separately as part of the preferential creation of personal bibliographies for these authors. From 1993 new records were processed into a specially created database using the ISIS system, and the records are currently being converted into the CLAVIUS system with the aim of creating a modern online database system compatible with the Czech-language part of the national retrospective bibliography compiled at the Division of Classical Studies within the AS CR’s Institute of Philosophy using the same system. In view of contemporary developments abroad in the area of giving access to national retrospective bibliographies, from 2014 the BFPB database will be systematically supplemented by digital copies of the described printed works, which together with detailed selection data will significantly improve the convenience of research and the utilization of the processed documents.
- development of the BFPB
- definition of foreign-language Bohemica and methodology of description
- library collections examined for the BFPB
- published material and studies and reports
The BFPB is currently made accessible in two ways: foreign-language Bohemica from the 16th and 17th centuries is published in the form of scanned card catalogues allowing searches by author or anonymous title and also by printer. Digitized card indices are freely available on the website of the LCAS, and also on the CD-ROM “Bibliography of Foreign-Language Printed Bohemica 1501–1800. I. 16th and 17th Century Productions by printworks in the present territory of the Czech Republic”, published in 2003. The website of the LCAS also makes available in digitized form the personal bibliographies of the works of J. A. Comenius and Bohuslav Balbín, which were published in printed form (Balbín, 1989) and on CD-ROM (Komenský, 2007).
18th-century Bohemica can already be accessed through a database which allows combined searches of records by author, title, printer/publisher, year and place of issue. Linked to these brief records are digitized cards with a detailed analytical description and the shelf marks of copies which have been located. the BFPB database will gradually be expanded with records of works for which no extant copy has yet been established (known as desiderata) and analytical descriptions of printed works not yet recorded in the original BFPB card catalogue.
In publishing the Bibliography of Foreign-Language Printed Bohemica in its uncorrected version the Library of the Czech Academy of Sciences does not renounce copyright over the assembled bibliographical material and its further publication in any form.