National Technical Library

During my bachelor studies I had one Erasmus year in Prague. Whenever I had to study or work on some projects I went to the National Technical Libraray, i. e. Národní Technická Knihovna (NTK). It has incredible atmosphere and it is situated just in front of Czech Technical University in Prague building so for future engineers it takes just a few seconds to go there.

You don't have to be totally in silence (at least not on every floor); the upper you go in floors, more silent the areas become. In the last floor you can even find small separated study areas, something like personal rooms where you don't have to be disturbed at all by people around. It is the perfect place if you feel that you are tired of noisy Erasmus people or if you really need to work or study for some reasons, but you can't kick out everyone from your room. In the building you can find everything, such as: cafe/bar on the ground floor; snack, water, chocolate and coffee machines on every floor; computers, electricity, books, and terrace at the top. Oh yes, that is one of the best parts, the top terrace! Especially when it is a sunny day, so you can just go out while you are inside the building on the last floor, and enjoy the sun.

Or it happens that you can go out to enjoy snow (I'm just kidding; I don't think they open the door in that case... or who knows? )

Anyway entire Prague is beautiful in snow and so is the library.

They have all the books of the library in online database, so you can check on their webpage if the book you are searching for is available or not without going to the library and ask for it. Really practical and modern, isn't it?! Also I've just found on their webpage that from now on they are open until 2 am on weekdays! Wow!

For me the best of the best here are the drawings of Dan Perjovschi, a Romanian artist! Brilliant critics of our society wherever you look in the main hall. Take into account that each time you will go there, you will stop in the main hall, check these drawings and discover a new one, that you haven't seen before. There are around 200 cute drawings in the walls!

Oh and as a civil engineer of course I love the floor that is painted in colours in a way to show the general deflection at every point in the plane of the floor, so you can easily guess where the columns are under you (and I guess you are wondering about this every time you enter in a building).

And it is not only this to make clear for the visitors that they are in a technical library but also several other things. All the pictograms are drawn in an engineering way and also on the stairs there is always something written, like this one: the possible speeds you can reach.

I hope you will like it just half as much as I do.