Czech Electronic Library

Czech Electronic Library

In collaboration with the inSophy Centre for Software Solutions for Science and Leading-Edge Technologies, on 11.5.2005 the ASCR Institute for Czech Literature launched operation of its full-text Czech Electronic Library – 19th Century Poetry Database. The Czech Electronic Library Project is a unique achievement in the provision of online access to the digitized cultural heritage, and not only within the Czech context. The web-based application at  www.ceska-poezie.cz provides free access to 1,200 professionally edited books of poetry, covering almost all the poetry book output of the 19th century and providing the broad public with easy access to an extensive selection of poetic texts, some of which were practically unavailable until recently. It also offers specialists a number of sophisticated tools for advanced work on artistic text (e.g. structured searches and automatic creation of alphabetical and frequency-based glossaries).  The Czech Electronic Library will surely also be used in the developing field of e-learning. The Czech Electronic Library Project was created in the department of the same name at the Institute from 1998 to 2005. The challenging software behind the internet application was developed by inSophy. The project was co-financed under a Czech Ministry of Culture grant programme. The "Czech Electronic Library – 19th Century Poetry" full-text internet database of 1,200 collections of Czech poetry was publicly presented at the ASCR premises (Národní třída 3, Prague 1) on 11th May. 300 users registered during the first week of public operation.