Parliament of the Czech Republic
Digital Repository

Joint Czech and Slovak Digital Parliamentary Library

Digital Library is a joint project of the Czech and Slovak parliaments in which Parliamentary Library, Information Technology Department of the Office of the Chamber of Deputies and Information Technology Department of the Senate Chancellery of the Czech Parliament and Parliamentary Library, parliamentary archive and Information Technology Department of the National Council of the Slovak Republic take part.

[Joint Czech and Slovak Digital Parliamentary Library replaces and updates former project Digital Library "Czech Parliament".]

March 27, 2000 At the conference Internet in the administration and self-government 2000 the Office of the Chamber of Deputies was awarded the Cesky zavinac prize for the Digital Library project. The aim of the prize is to appraise an excellent project which contributed significantly to development of information society in the Czech Republic especially with regard to the needs of state administration and self-government. March 23, 2003 At the conference Internet in the administration and self-government 2003 the Joint Czech and Slovak Digital Parliamentary Library was avarded the Cesky zavinac prize for "an exceptional achievement in the development of information society in the Czech Republic and Slovakia". "… is a breakthrough in the exchange of information between the legislative bodies and general public of the two countries, and it is becoming an important achievement also in the wider European context."

  PROJECT GOALS

The objective of the project is to create and provide unified information system:

1. on the activities of legislative bodies of the Czech and Slovak Republics from their beginnings in 1993 to the future
2. on the activities of common legislative bodies of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918-1992
3. on the activities of the Czech and Slovak deputies in various legislative bodies (Slovak National Council, Imperial Council, Diet of the Czech Kingdom) in 1848-1914

Another important goal is to bring information on present and past activities of the two parliaments to broad public and make access to parliamentary sources faster, easier and more effective for our MP's and senators and last but not least to preserve "golden collection" of parliamentary libraries and archives for the future.
Paper is inevitably perishable, in some cases there is no more possible to make copies from classic printed materials. Catastrophic floods in recent years made us realise how important is to preserve written and printed treasures on reserve media at different places.

  CONTENT OF DIGITAL LIBRARY

According to the Agreement on cooperation in creation and providing Joint Czech and Slovak Digital Parliamentary Library of Parliament of the Czech Republic and National Council of the Slovak Republic from 3rd June 2002, the Library will contain full texts of parliamentary prints (bills including preambles, resolutions), debates (verbatim reports of all sessions and votings) and other parlamentaria since 1848 until now.

During 2003 Joint Czech and Slovak Digital Parliamentary Library will contain parliamentary texts of several hundred thousands of printed pages. They will be:

• Austrian Constituent Imperial Diet 1848-1849 (Wien, Kromeriz)
• Diet of the Czech Kingdom 1861-1913
• National Assembly of the Czechoslovak Republic and the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic 1918-1968
• Diet of the Slovak Republic 1939-1945
• Slovak National Council 1944-1960
• Czech National Council 1969-1992
• Resolutions of the presidium of the Slovak National Council 1970-1987
• Federal Assembly of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and the Czechoslovak Federal Republic (Chamber of the People and Chamber of Nations) 1969-1992
• Parliament of the Czech Republic (Chamber of Deputies and Senate) 1993-2003
• National Council of the Slovak Republic 1993-2003

Finishing of digitalization of the rest of historical materials including filling some gaps in already processed historical periods is planned in near future. Joint Czech and Slovak Digital Parliamentary Library will continue under the Common Czech and Slovak editorial board.

  DOCUMENT TYPES IN DIGITAL LIBRARY

• Invitations for sessions
• Debates
• Bills
• Resolutions
• Materials of committees

  ECPRD SEMINARY - ELECTRONIC PARLIAMENTARY LIBRARY

Programme of the seminary with the list of participants and some of the papers.

  CONTACT

Mgr. Petr Houdek (e-mail: houdek@psp.cz, tel.:+420 2 5717 4515) - CZECH REPUBLIC
Mgr. Peter Smrek (e-mail: peter.smrek@nrsr.sk, tel.: +421 2 5972 2877) - SLOVAK REPUBLIC

Czech (Bohemian) Assemblies Digital Library

The Czech (Bohemian) Assemblies Digital Library is chronologically linked to the previous project Czech Parliament Digital Library, i.e. the Joint Czech and Slovak Digital Parliamentary Library.

The project has been stimulated by the appreciation shown by the results of the digitalization of Czech and Slovak parliamentary materials and the disclosure, in this Library, of contents of historical materials of the Parliamentary Library of the Czech Republic, usually hidden from domestic and foreign public, as well as, from experts. The most valuable section was declared as cultural heritage by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic in accordance with Section 3 of Act No. 20/1987 Coll. on State Conservation. An immediate impulse was the second edition of the successful publication Dejiny ceskeho statu v dokumentech (History of the Bohemian State in Documents) by Zdenek Vesely, Prague, Epocha 2003, 495 pages, which proposed the fundamental concept of the project and its historical classification. The project has been consulted with experts on history of law as well as with other historians specializing in the history of Bohemia.

The basic goal of this project is to make all available resources related to the history of Bohemian assemblies accessible via the Internet. It will however take some time to complete - with the close cooperation with other libraries and archives within the country.

The final shape of the project will have an electronic form, in HTML format or in digital pictures of fundamental documents of assembly, constitutional and state-law nature from the following historical periods:

• Beginnings of Bohemian assemblies and their development until the start of the 15th century
• Bohemian assemblies during the Hussite period until mid-15th century
• Bohemian assemblies during the estate monarchy until the start of the 17th century
• Bohemian assemblies during the Habsburg absolutism until 1848

The variety of the disclosed historical documents is especially caused by the fact that the nature of assemblies in Bohemian lands in former times is quite different from the modern era, when actual stenographic minutes are recorded. In the former periods the minutes only included results of the negotiations, resolutions, and decisions, which have not all been preserved. The reason for the more general classification of documents is also the fact that in historical studies it is very hard to draw a line between the state history and the history of assemblies as such, which constitute an integral part of the country's history.

In the early period of existence of the Bohemian state decisions made by assemblies replaced decisions of princes declared at assemblies of the nobility (e.g. Bretislav's Decree of 1039). Even later on the rulers issued decisions with the power of laws that would currently be adopted by the parliament, but assemblies did not approve them at the time. Based on the separation of powers between the ruler and the aristocracy, and later the estates, in the past such decisions were in the exclusive competency of the ruler (e.g. Premysl Otakar II's Privilege for the Rights of Jews of 1245, Kutna Hora Decree of 1409, but also Ferdinand II's Restored Land Arrangement of 1627). Some documents were originally proposed by an assembly or leaders of the aristocracy, but are only known after being promulgated by the ruler (e.g. John of Luxembourg's Inauguration Diplomas of 1310 and 1311, Vladislas Jagellon's Electoral Capitulation of 1471 and Ferdinand I's Electoral Reverses of 1526 and 1545).

Just as in previous projects, the documents will be processed and made accessibly using the so-called "nest system", once they become available, depending on their condition for processing and the possibility of their use for digitalization using current technology.