British Library, the leading British literature and librarianship institution with a global outreach, is the world’s largest library by number of items catalogued – it holds over 170 million of books and other items, such as maps, stamps, manuscripts and sound recordings from around the globe.

The European collection lead curators prepared a special tour for Mr Libor Sečka focusing on unique historic books that bear a connection to the Czech lands. Among others, the Ambassador was able to see the original of an illustrated Bible in Czech from 1489, the first printed map of the Czech lands from 1518, which belonged to the English royal court and was designed by Mikulas Klaudián, the only surviving copy of Conatuum pansophicorum dilucidatio by Johann Amos Comenius from 1638 or the original of the Výkřik (Scream) magazine published by the Czech legionaries in Irkutsk at the end of World War I.

After the tour, the Ambassador Sečka met with the Library management including the Chief Executive Roly Keating to talk about a possible future cooperation with the Czech Embassy in London in the areas of culture and public diplomacy. Among the other guests was a representative of the London Borough of Camden, a long-time partner of the Czech Embassy, Mr Abdul Hai, the Cabinet Member for Young People and Cohesion, who offered his support for the possible future projects.