60 Years of Chemical Information on Institute of Chemical Technology Prague – from Classical Library to One of the Largest Collections of Chemical Information Sources in Europe

Abstract

On the occasion of 60 years anniversary of founding Institute of Chemical Technology as independent academic institution the parallel history of its Central Library is summarized. It is stressed that despite of unfavourable economical and political condition in Czech Republic for most of this time range the Central Library was able to maintain relative high standard not only as classical library but also to keep pace with development of electronic forms of scientific information. Thanks to this after opening of physical and financial borders Central Library was able systematically build up collection of digital information resources, both the secondary chemistry databases like CA, Beilstein or Gmelin but also very large collection of primary journals including so called archive collection covering full runs of most chemistry titles.