爲什麼捷克遍地都是圖書館大綱

PRAGUE — In the age of Amazon and the internet, the idea of going to a public library to borrow a book may seem ever more quaint and old-fashioned in many parts of the world, but one country, at least, is clinging to it tenaciously: the Czech Republic.

布拉格——在這個亞馬遜(Amazon)與網絡當道的年代，在世界上許多地方的人看來，上公共圖書館借書一舉似乎更顯得古怪過時。然而至少還有一個國家仍頑強地保持這項習慣，那就是捷克共和國。

There are libraries everywhere you look in the country — it has the densest library network in the world, according to a survey conducted for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. There are more libraries than grammar schools. In fact, there is one library for every 1,971 Czech citizens, the survey found — four times as many, relative to population, as the average European country, and 10 times as many as the United States, which has one for every 19,583 people.

放眼望去，捷克到處是圖書館：根據比爾及梅琳達蓋茨基金會(Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation)進行的一項調查，該國有全世界密度最高的圖書館網絡，數量比文法學校還要多。事實上，這項調查發現，每1971位捷克人就有一間圖書館，依人口比例算來是平均歐洲國家的4倍、美國的10倍（美國每19583人才有一間圖書館）。

Why so many Czech libraries? Well, for decades they were mandatory — every community, from a big city down to a tiny village, was required by law to have one.

爲什麼捷克有這麼多圖書館？其實在數十年的時間裏，圖書館的建造曾是強制規定——以前捷克從大城到小鎮的每個社區，依法都必須要有一間圖書館。

The law was enacted in 1919, soon after Czechoslovakia emerged as an independent country. The idea was to promote universal literacy and education after the country was free of the German-speaking Austro-Hungarian Empire. And it worked.

該項法案是1919年頒佈的，當時捷克斯洛伐克獨立不久，用意是爲了在脫離說德語的奧匈帝國統治後，提高全民的識字率、普及教育。而這種做法的確有效。

“Czechs developed a strong reading habit, and even today, those who visit libraries buy more books — 11 a year, on average — than others,” said Vit Richter, director of the Librarianship Institute of the Czech National Library.

“捷克人養成了很強的閱讀習慣，即便在今天，會上圖書館的人買書也更多，一年下來平均會買11本書。”捷克國家圖書館附設圖書館學中心的主任維特‧李希特(Vit Richter)表示。

The library law survived the German occupation, the communist era and even the breakup with Slovakia in the early 1990s. What it couldn’t survive, in the end, was budgetary pressure. To save money, the requirement was dropped in 2001, when there were about 6,019 libraries in the country; since then, about 11 percent have merged or closed.

這項圖書館法案挺過了“二戰”德國佔領期、共產主義時期，甚至當捷克在上世紀90年代初期與斯洛伐克分家時仍照行不誤。它最終挺不住的是預算壓力。這項法案在2001年爲減省開支而廢除了，而當時捷克全國上下有將近6019座圖書館。自此以後，有大約11%的圖書館遭合併或關閉。

Rather than just linger on as an eccentricity from a bygone age, though, the surviving Czech libraries are doing what they can to stay vibrant and relevant. They serve as polling places for elections and as local meeting venues. They organize reading clubs and art exhibits and offer computer literacy courses, and they welcome droves of schoolchildren and retirees during the day.

然而，現存的捷克圖書館並不甘於作爲歷史遺留的怪癖傳世，它們儘可能地保持活躍及與民衆生活的聯繫。圖書館是選舉時的投票所、是當地居民的集會場地，館方也會組織閱讀俱樂部與藝術展覽、提供計算機教學課程，並且在日間接待成羣來訪的學童與退休人士。

But mostly, they do what 92 percent of Czechs still want them to go on doing, according to the Gates Foundation survey: They lend books.

不過，根據蓋茲基金會的調查，這些圖書館的主要工作還是提供92%的捷克人仍希望他們繼續下去的服務：借書給大家看。