The Moravian Library, one of the libraries most often used by the students of the Masaryk University, has prepared several improvements for the new semester. It will go back to the original arrangement of books and it will offer a new American study room and a quiet study room, two new scanners and self-service desks for borrowing books.
Jaroslava Dvořáková, the library spokeswoman, explains what will probably be the most visible change: “Based on a survey among our readers and our experience from the previous period, we decided to go back to the original arrangement of our stock.” The readers will find a selection of books that can be borrowed on the ground and first floors. From the fourth floor up, the shelves only contain books that can be studied on the premises. Books from the closed stacks that can only be studied on the premises can be collected on the fourth floor.
The visitors will now find two self-check devices that allow self-service borrowing of books that can be taken home, and the library also acquired two self-service scanners. By doing so, the library fulfilled one of the many wishes of its readers, who can always suggest an improvement of the library services. These suggestions are taken seriously and that is why there are also some amusing improvements such as bookshelves at the toilets, a waterfall in the atrium and cough lozenges.
The library also provided a new quiet study room that seats thirteen people on the first floor for students who need to fully concentrate. Moreover, the library sections with foreign books were significantly extended. “You can now find an American library with a reader's bar on the third floor,” says Jaroslava Dvořáková, inviting readers to try out the bar, which however only serves books.
The Moravian Library, located at the Kounicova Street, is the second largest library in the Czech Republic with four million documents. The students of the Masaryk University form the largest part of the 21 thousand readers of the library. Besides now standard services such as study rooms, access to computers and to an electronic database, the library also offers long opening hours, a number of specialized books, a café and a music study room. “We also have a steady source of all books published in the Czech Republic thanks to the legal deposit rule,” says Dvořáková.
The library also organizes various cultural and free education events. Students up to 19 years of age can get their library card for free and older students can register in the library for one hundred crowns per year.