The program of the seminar began with a block of lectures that related to the possibilities of using central digital services for libraries and the public, the possibility of offering them to readers and searching for works unavailable on the market, and the process of digitizing library collections.

Very interesting was the contribution about the cooperation of libraries and schools in the framework of informal education of pupils from the Jiří Mahen library in Brno and the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University, and the report on publishing activities in the library of the National Museum.

Traditionally, there was also a social evening, where colleagues and I discussed our experiences from our libraries and gathered interesting ideas for our further work.

On the second day, we focused on the digitization of monographs and periodicals, which minimizes physical contact and thus prevents their damage. In the case of some printed materials, it is almost impossible to physically inspect them due to their age or very poor condition. A concrete example was provided by the Hussite Museum in Tábor, which is dedicated to digitizing the manuscripts of Tábor theologians and explained the advantages and risks of this method. Colleagues from the Museum of Applied Arts in Prague attracted attention with their contribution about the database of projects created by Jan Kaplický and his parents. Iva Bydžovská and Jana Poláková presented us with the collections of shopkeeper prints in the library of the National Museum and in the Moravian Regional Museum, their history, sorting and preservation. Jiří Šilha provided good advice regarding cataloging in the Tritius library system.

A place in the seminar was also given to colleagues who could not come to Brno because of the floods. Some attended the seminar online, others sent a letter in which they described the difficult situation in their area and the impact on local cultural institutions.

A beautiful end to the second day was a visit to the Palace of the Nobles, in which we saw interesting exhibitions of puppets and puppet theaters and traditional culture in Moravia with the development of furniture, toys and folk clothes.

After the busy program of the two previous days, everyone welcomed a pleasant change that our colleagues prepared for us on the third day: a lecture by Tomáš Kubíček in the Milan Kundera library, which is part of the Moravian State Library, and a tour of the basilica and the monastic library of the Augustinian Abbey in Staré Brno.

Many thanks to colleagues from the Moravian Regional Museum for organizing this pleasant meeting!

Veronika Dolanská, September 24, 2024