Knihovna: knihovnická revue 2020/1

Preface

Editorial 2020/1

Renata Salátová

Reviewed articles

Air quality measurement in depositories of the National Library of the Czech Republic – measurement methods and selected results

Magda Součková, Petra Vávrová, Jan Francl

Summary: Preventive protection of library collections is the basis of care for their preservation. Important part of it is to ensure quality indoor air of depositories. The paper deals with climate conditions recommended for long-term preservation of library materials and their measurement in depositories of the National Library of the Czech Republic (NL CR). It concerns a measurement of physical parameters of air (temperature, relative humidity, and light) and chemical (concentration of external and internal air pollutants). Physical parameters are monitored continuously in the depositories of the NL CR, the chemical ones were measured mainly in the framework of research projects in cooperation with domestic and foreign research organizations. The Baroque Hall in Klementinum, which is the only depository of historical book collections accessible to the public during tours of the premises, was examined in particular detail regarding the concentration of pollutants....

Non-destructive survey of bookbinding structure using X-ray radiation

Petra Vávrová, Jitka Neoralová, Dana Hřebecká, Kristýna Kohoutová, Anna Kulíčková, Marie Matysová, Daniela Popelková, Tomáš Blecha

Summary: The National Library of the Czech Republic, Collection Preservation Division has long been interested in the research of non-visible information in books and bookbinding. We are using non-destructive methods, radiography is one of these study methods. In this article we are presenting the use of our instrument and some results and images of the internal structure of bookbinding. This device was acquired for detailed testing of X-ray capabilities and limitations in a survey aimed at making hidden elements, layers, or damage in the layers of book binding materials visible. Most parts of the bookbinding structure cannot be reached without breaking the top layers. For historical collections, recycled materials in bookbinding such as parchment folia, book sheets, letters, scrap, and other materials that may be older than the specimen. These materials can be found for example in the spine part under the book cover, or in other parts of the bookbinding. Hidden information with invaluable value of historical and modern bookbinding can be obtained just by radiography....

Library and information at home and abroad

Polish popular science magazines until 1939 – a research report

Grażyna Wrona, Agnieszka Cieślikowa, Dorota Kamisińska, Ewa Wójcik, Renata M. Zając

Abstract: The emergence of popular science journals in Poland in the second half of the 18th century, their development at a varied pace and in subsequent periods, contributed to the creation of new areas of interaction between the scientist and society. Their role, regardless of the period in which they operated, was primarily to provide the reader with a certain amount of knowledge about the progress of science, the directions of conducted research, discoveries, inventions, the possibility of their application in everyday life, as well as to stimulate and shape the need to obtain information for cognitive, educational and self-education purposes. Thus, for a historian of science and a press historian alike, popular science journals are valuable and interesting research objects, both from the perspective of their interdisciplinary overview and the discovery of new research areas and methodological solutions. This publication, which is a report on a research project carried out in this field, funded by the National Science Center, is intended to discuss the various stages of this scientific work and present the results obtained....