The Homecoming Palliative Library was established by the director of the Homecoming hospice civic association in October 2004.

The library book collection specialises in palliative care. From the beginning it serves systematically the needs of people who come into contact with death and dying either in their professional or private life. The funding and operation of the library was supported by Phare EU funds and later by Phare EU – RLZ.

The first goal of the library is to build, organise, protect and make accessible to the public a specialised multi-field collection of palliative literature, the first and so far the only self-contained collection of documents on hospice and palliative care in the Czech Republic.

The second goal of the palliative library is to bring new expert information to a multidisciplinary team of the Homecoming home care hospice and hence contribute high quality work of the team by means of its books collection and catalogue.

The third goal of the library is to contribute to the improvement of the palliative care in the Czech Republic by increasing the level of information available both to experts and students of the respective medical and nursing subjects as well as general public including volunteers and mourners.

Information sources:

As far as domestic resources are concerned, the library draws first of all on the offer of the Czech publishers (Grada, Galén, Portál, Vyšehrad, Karmelitánské nakladatelství etc.), large Czech bookshops (Kosmas etc.), second-hand bookshops and individual persons.

Where foreign resources are concerned, the library draws first of all on the offer of expert palliative books in English and German getting the books directly from the publishers or through book distribution companies (Amazon, Starman Bohemia etc.), as well as from individual persons.

Acquisition relevance 

Based on available information sources the library creates lists of desired books, which it presents to its acquisition advisors (external co-workers, well disposed experts etc.) in order to avoid buying inappropriate titles and thus wasting financial resources.

Acquiring publications

The library buys most of its books itself, some publications are granted as presents and some come from Homecoming’s own publishing activities. It vastly uses discounts and benefits offered to libraries by publishers and some bookshops.

Gifts and donors

The library owes a part of its book collection to gifts coming from some publishing houses (especially Vyšehrad, Portál, Karmelitánské nakladatelství) as well as private donors (particularly tens of expert palliative books in English and German as well as a substantial part of the fiction collection). The library is very grateful for the book donations. It presents the wish list of desired publications on the website of the Amazone bookstore from which the potential donors can choose titles they would like to buy for the library.

Library collections

The library book collection is currently the only systematically build collection of documents on palliative care related topics in the Czech Republic. Some publications, especially some foreign titles from palliative medicine and hospice care are available to the public in the Czech Republic only here.

At the beginning of 2009 year the library had about 2200 monographs, 8 expert periodicals, 100 occasional or small information titles, 20 diploma theses. 

Currently three quarters of the collection are in Czech, the remaining quarter is in foreign languages, of which 90 % are in English.

Thematic segmentation of the fund:

The library book fund is segmented according to the field or topic of the publications. Currently the library is divided in the following categories based on themes:

• Medicine
• Nursing
• Ethics
• Social work and sociology
• Hospices and hospice care
• Grief and mourning
• Psychology
• Spiritual literature
• Other fields
• General information and dictionary part
• Fiction literature

On-line catalogue

The on-line catalogue was created in electronic form and is available to the readers on the library website On-line Catalogue. It includes also a booking module.

The catalogue provides users with the following main options: to browse the library collection in an alphabetical order (author – title), to search the collection by several different descriptors (author – title – key words), to login to the library by means of electronic form, to book titles on-line, to check the reader’s account on-line, to extend the time of their borrowings and to communicate with the librarian directly by e-mail.

The on-line catalogue has registeres 7769 views of particular individual web pages per month.

The catalogue is interconnected with the information portal of the Czech National Library through the unified information gateway as reference point (The National Library).

Catalogue record

Every document has its own record in the catalogue, which includes all standard catalogue data (concerning title, authors, publishers) including the document annotation. This makes the situation easier for the reader when choosing a title for on-line booking.

Library Rules

The library provides its services based on the Library Rules, available on the library web site as well as in a hard copy in the library. The library deals with personal data according to Act no. 101/2000 Coll.  

CD library rental

The library is open for public regularly three afternoons a week and individual agreement for another time is possible.

The visitors and readers have the opportunity to access documents freely, they can use a reading room with 6 seats and 2-3 Internet connected computers.

To rent a book outside the library a filled in and signed registration card is required. In case of expensive publications the library requires a financial deposit equal to the book’s price (pursuant the Library Rules). Long term borrowed books make 10 % of the entire book collection.

Inter-library rental service

The library provides inter-library rental services, meaning that it rents books from its fund remotely by mail through a different library, which asks for the books on behalf of their readers. This mediating library then becomes a guarantee of the rental and is responsible for the loss or damage of the publication.

Library personnel

The library employs a professional librarian who is assisted by volunteers from The Homecoming as needed.