The library is CLOSED until further notice. You can access the books through online requests from the UKAŽ discovery service. The books themselves are issued in the Jan Palach Library during its opening hours.

About the Library

The history of the Institute of Musicology Library collection goes back to 1869, when musicology was established as a separate field at Karl-Ferdinand University. Musicology was taught at both branches after the university was divided into Czech and German. Czech musicology was de facto founded in 1909 when Zdenek Nejedlý became a professor. However, the libraries of both departments initially served as teachers’ reference libraries. It was only in the early 1950s that the library began to serve the general academic public fully.

The library contains literature from the entire spectrum of musicology and related disciplines, such as literature, theatre, ethnology, aesthetics, pedagogy, psychology or liturgy. A non-negligible part of the collection consists of ethnomusicological literature and titles representing modern research areas such as cultural analysis of music, postcolonial and feminist musicology, sound studies, and research on popular music or video clips.

The library has a representative collection of editions of early music; within the Czech Republic, the library has the most complete sheet music edition of the Corpus Mensurabilis musicae. The music collection covers the Middle Ages to the present day. The library also preserves a collection of old prints and manuscripts. The manuscripts of music are bohemian pieces from the 18th and 19th centuries. The collection includes audio and audiovisual media (CDs, DVDs, gramophone records).

Two computers in the study room have direct access to electronic databases and professional notation programs Sibelius and Finale.

You can find more information about the library on the Department’s website.

You can also follow news from the library on our Facebook page.

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