Libri Prohibiti, Private research library near Senovazne Square, Prague, Czech Republic.
Libri Prohibiti is a private archival research library on the third floor of Senovážné náměstí 2 in Prague 1, opened in 1990 by Jiří Gruntorád. Its reading room seats eighteen people, and the non-circulating holdings include Czech, Slovak, Polish, Russian and Ukrainian samizdat and exile monographs, periodicals and audiovisual materials.
Libri Prohibiti opened on 22 October 1990 in the presence of Václav Havel, first on Podskalská Street and later at Senovážné náměstí 2. Its core was the samizdat edition Popelnice, published by founder Jiří Gruntorád, who had been imprisoned for four years for distributing samizdat. The Society of Libri Prohibiti was registered on 24 April 1991.
The library's name echoes the Catholic Index Librorum Prohibitorum, a list of banned books. Its samizdat periodicals collection was added to UNESCO's Memory of the World programme in 2013. The reading room serves around ten visitors a day, and the collections do not circulate because of their fragility.
Libri Prohibiti occupies the third floor of Senovážné náměstí 2 in Prague 1 and is open Monday to Thursday from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m., except holidays and school vacations. Entry is free, the reading room seats eighteen, and the collections do not circulate because of their fragility.
The library's collection of samizdat periodicals was inscribed in UNESCO's Memory of the World programme in 2013. Its oldest items date from the 1950s, and the whole archive began with roughly 2,000 monographs and magazines that Jiří Gruntorád gathered during the years of normalization.
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