National Technical Museum Library
The National Technical Museum Library is a publicly accessible library, specialized in content towards the history of science, technology and industry, not only as pertains to the Czech Republic, but with a Europe-wide and world-wide interest. The library was established together with the museum as a whole in 1908, and later was supplemented with a very valuable fund of two significant libraries – the library for the propagation of industry in Bohemia, which forms the main part of the library today, and the library of the association of architects and engineers (SIA). The library currently has around 220,000 volumes and each year is supplemented by professional literature, both Czech and foreign.
The content of the collection consists of technology, industry, crafts, natural and exact sciences and economy. Technical disciplines such as mining, metallurgy, mechanical engineering, railway and automobile transport, aviation, electrical engineering, architecture and civil engineering, etc. are represented; of the natural sciences, astronomy, physics, mathematics, geology and chemistry are the most important; of the economic disciplines, those which allow the study of the development of the economy. Some technical works, such as those on architecture, construction and design, also extend into artistic disciplines, which the library does not otherwise systematically follow.
An important part of the NTM library collection is its historical collection, which originated from the library of the Unity for the Encouragement of Industry in Bohemia and the library of the Society of Engineers and Architects. Many unique historical sources can be found in both of these important libraries. Among the family silver of the library are the entire series of journals relating to the development of crafts and the beginning of industrial enterprise in the Czech lands.