SLOVAK NATIONAL LIBRARY

Sign in and you will find digital copies of books, newspapers, magazines, scientific proceedings, articles, which were published from the invention of printing until the beginning of the 21st century. All works in the public domain as well as the so-called out-of-commerce works are accessible in the member's area of the European Economic Area.

Up to 2023, the Slovak National Library provided unlimited access to all digitised documents exclusively in its premises. At this stage, the digital content remotely available for registered users was restricted to the so-called works in the public domain. Intensive negotiations between the SNL and the partner of the project, a collective management organization LITA, led to the conclusion of an extended collective licence agreement which allows the SNL to make digital copies of the out-of-commerce works available to the general public free of charge even outside its own buildings. Naturally, the effective protection of the works and their rights holders is ensured. Therefore, DIKDA is a barrier-free and widely accessible public service provided by the Slovak National Library free of charge to any registered user.

DIKDA is open 24 hours a day, including public holidays. The digital library is the result of the national project Digital Library and Digital Archive aimed at digitisation of library collections. The largest project of digitisation of written cultural heritage in Slovakia started in 2012 and, over the course of 3 years, the SNL managed to scan and successfully process more than 1.25 million of Slovakicist materials. However, even after the substantive termination of the project, the library continues to work on its main objective. It means that the vast number of digitised documents keeps increasing. Likewise, the number of out-of-commerce works, which are accessible online, is growing steadily. DIKDA offers two ways to search its content. You may search the content by using either a full-text search or a field-based search.

Are you keen to learn some fun facts about the most interesting digitised documents? Visit our website dikda.eu. It offers you interesting, funny but also serious stories about books, magazines, photographs, maps, and historical manuscripts, which are somehow special to us at the Slovak National Library.

We wish you pleasant reading!