Since the founding of the Academy of Art, Architecture, and Design in Prague in 1885, the library has been an integral part of the school, and has been (and continues to be) dedicated to serving the faculty and students of the school. The library is open to the public, though use of the archives must be done on-site. In addition to having a collection that numbers around fifty-five thousand, the library also carries forty-five periodicals and magazines from other countries, as well as fifty-five from the Czech Republic. The specific collections within the library's archive reflect the departments of study within the school itself. Though direct access to the library's collection is not freely available, the current periodicals are at visitor's disposal for on-site reference. Books from the collection may be photocopied for study purposes, for which the library charges a fee. The library's catalog is available to the general public. Book collection is stored in electronic form, where the books are cataloged since 1940 until now.