J. E. Purkyne University Research Library

The library is located in the centre of the city of Ústí nad Labem and its construction contributed to the regeneration and revitalization of a part of the city with a significant positive impact on the environment in its immediate vicinity.
The library serves the research and educational goals of the university and provides access to information resources to meet the needs of students, researchers and academics, university staff, the city, and the region. The main goal was to fundamentally address the information needs of users of existing faculty libraries, but also to concentrate library collections, electronic information resources, information technology, and work capacity into an institution, which will allow user-friendly and cost-effective acquisition, storage, and dissemination of information for all types of users.
Main goals and planned improvements:
– merging of faculty libraries into one unit, which will collectively provide library and information services at the J. E. Purkyně University
– self-service machines (check-in and check-out)
– university bookshop
– café
– space for education and cultural events
– access for users with specific needs

The library is located on the university campus and is part of the Multifunctional and Educational Centre, which includes auditoriums, lecture halls, rector’s office, and a library.
The project was created on the territory of a former brownfield in the area after Masaryk Hospital Krajská zdravotní a.s. It is a new building built on top of the original building of the Faculty of Social and Economic Studies. The very body of the library provides a barrier-free route through the university campus and, together with the leveling ramp at the Faculty of Arts, enables students with special educational needs to freely move between the Rector’s offices and other faculties.
The main materials are monolithic reinforced concrete, ceramic masonry, structural steel, and atypical prefabricated material – staircase arm, filigree slab. The architect designed the interior in a combination of exposed concrete and expanded metal gratings, the floors of the free selection complement the colour of the industrial space, into which natural light shines through the copilite wall.

• Brozek, Ivo. 60 years of the university library in Ústí nad Labem. Ikaros. Volume 18. isuue 12. 2014.

  https://ikaros.cz/60-let-vysokoskolske-knihovny-v-usti-nad-labem

  The following article focuses on the history and development as well as the contemporary status of the academic library at the University of Jan Evangelista Purkyně in Ústí nad Labem. Important circumstances of various changes that the Library went through over the years are also mentioned. A part of the text is also dedicated to the celebration of 60th Anniversary of the launch of the Library in September 1954.

• Vědecká knihovna UJEP od SIALu je knihovnickým počinem roku. archiweb.cz. 2013

  https://www.archiweb.cz/en/n/home/vedecka-knihovna-ujep-od-sialu-je-knihovnickym-pocinem-roku

• Library of the Year Award. Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic

  Awarded for its significant achievement in the field of providing public library and information services, and for merging faculty libraries into an effective whole in a modern library building.

  2013