AI SEMINAR 5 - The Library

“Until then I had thought each book spoke of the things, human or divine, that lie outside books. Now I realized that not infrequently books speak of books: it is as if they spoke among themselves. In the light of this reflection, the library seemed all the more disturbing to me. It was then the place of a long, centuries-old murmuring*, an imperceptible* dialogue between one parchment* and another, a living thing, a receptacle* of powers not to be ruled by a human mind, a treasure of secrets emanated* by many minds, surviving the death of those who had produced them or had been their conveyors* […] ‘And is a library then an instrument not for distributing the truth, but for delaying* its appearance?’”
- Umberto Eco in The Name of the Rose, London: Random House, 1998, p. 286.

Task 1 Try to explain the difference between the following terms, if there is any.

  1. library vs. bookcase vs. bookshop
  2. donation vs. purchase
  3. reading area vs. stacks*
  4. database vs. catalogue
  5. newspaper vs. magazine vs. periodical vs. journal
  6. publication vs. volume
  7. on-site reference* vs. available on loan*
  8. bibliography vs. publication details


Task 2 Match the texts on the next page with the names of the following libraries.

1. The Moravian Regional Library in Brno
2. The National Library in Sarajevo
3. The National Library of the Czech Republic
4. The Library of Congress in Washington D.C.
5. The Leuven (Louvain) Library
6. The French National Library
7. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina
8. The National Library of China




a) This library is an integrated cultural complex, with libraries, museums, exhibition areas, educational centres, and an international conference centre. A reception desk is located in the foyer of the library (where The Hall of Fame is located) in order to guide newcomers. Visitors are shown the historical background of the library and the current efforts to design and build the new library as a revival of the old one.

b) Thislibrary, which turns 200 this year, began with fewer than 1000 books. It now holds 115 million items in a number of formats. "America's oldest national cultural center", this library was established as a legislative library, and now serves as the copyright agency of the United States.

c) In 1368, Charles V – "The Wise" – had his own personal library, which contained 917 manuscripts*. In those days, royal collections were transient* in nature in that they were irretrievably dispersed* upon their owner's death. It was not until Louis XI, (1461-1483) the true founder of this library, that the collection was consolidated* and never to be dispersed again.

d) The Library has the total floor area of 170,000 square meters, ranking* first in the national libraries of Asia and fourth in the world. It has a rich collection of 22,400,000 volumes, in which there are 270,000 volumes of rare books; 1,600,000 volumes of general ancient books; and 35,000 pieces of scripted turtle shells and animal bones.

e) In August of 1914 German troops set fire to the library building and to much of the city. The destruction of the library aroused international indignation.* Before the First World War had even ended, committees were formed in both Allied and neutral countries to collect money and books for the reconstruction of the library. Books arrived in such numbers that by 1939 there were some 900,000 volumes on the shelves of the reconstructed library. However, in 1940 when the Wehrmacht occupied the city, the library went up in flames once again. After the war, the burnt-out building was restored and the library now houses more than a million volumes.

f) This traditional university and county library was founded in 1808. With its 3.5 million volumes, it is the second largest library in the country. The library is specialized in social sciences, medicine, and technical literature. It also has a valuable historical collection, including about 1200 incunabula*, 2500 manuscripts, and 33,000 old prints. The annual acquisition* is about 50,000 volumes; the library staff is about 170, serving 35,000 users (about 50% of them university students); and 600,000 items are lent out per year.

g) In 1622 Jesuits began the administration of the university and to transfer its libraries to the Klementinum. When the Jesuits left (1773–1777), the university and library remained. Thanks to the efforts of Count Francis Kinsky, they received the title of Imperial Royal Public and University Library from Empress Maria Teresia. In 1935 the library was renamed and a law was passed stipulating the legal deposit copy duty*.

h) The first shells from bombs hit the library in late August of 1992. Scorched shreds* of pages blew from the burning building and landed on the streets all over the city; people called them black butterflies. The library was an early target, but the attack foreshadowed* the worst of the ethnic cleansing to come. In languages from Persian to Arabic to Croatian, the multi-ethnic history of the city and region had been carefully catalogued and stored on the shelves. Virtually everything was destroyed.


Adapted from: http://www.mzk.cz/eng/about.php3, http://www.libraryspot.com/features/largestlibraries.htm, http://www.nlc.gov.cn/newpages/english/situation/index.htm, http://www.nkp.cz/altnkeng.htm http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2002/08/20020826_b_main.asp, http://www.bl.uk/, http://www.bib.kuleuven.ac.be/english/bibc/histor_e.htm, viewed on 2.10.2003.

Discussion questions

  1. Why are libraries important?
  2. What are the most useful things they provide for you as an individual? And for society?
  3. Which libraries have you used?
  4. Have you ever visited a foreign library?
  5. What relevance* are libraries in the age of the Internet?
  6. Should public libraries have a mandate to serve all citizens?


Task 3 – Reading - Alexandria
1 The Eastern Harbour of Alexandria has been a crossroads of culture and continents for 2300 years. This is where the Pharos Lighthouse, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, guided people from all nations safely into port; where Queen Cleopatra first laid eyes on Julius Caesar. Today, Alexandria is trying to recapture the spirit of perhaps its richest legacy—the Great Library of Alexandria—by opening the new Bibliotheca Alexandrina. The ancient library dominated the ancient world of learning from about the third century B.C. to the fourth century A.D. The new one is situated on the Eastern Harbour on or near the site of the original, in the shape of a massive disc inclined toward the Mediterranean, evoking the image of the Egyptian sun illuminating the world.

2 "In a world worried about the clash of civilizations, about war, about hatred and about killing, I think it's significant that out of Egypt comes this new library, a place of understanding, learning, tolerance and brotherhood," said Ismail Serageldin, the library's director.
"Egypt is the cradle of civilization and the birthplace of three monotheistic religions, so the library will very much reflect religious tolerance," said Mohammed Aman, the Bibliotheca's collection advisor. During the 1980s, Egypt and UNESCO resolved to build the Bibliotheca Alexandrina with the same universal goals as the ancient one: a focal point* for research, the advancement of knowledge and the open exchange of ideas.

3 Countries from around the world, especially the Middle East, contributed to a $220 million-plus building effort by the U.S. An international spirit still reigns at the Bibliotheca: Italians and Egyptians are working together to preserve rare manuscripts; Greeks are helping with antiquities; the French, with a science museum; and Americans, with computer systems. Dozens of countries are sending books.

4 Around 295 B.C., the scholar Demetrius of Phalerum convinced the new pharaoh, Ptolemy I Soter, that Alexandria could rival Athens as a centre of culture and learning – by establishing a library that would house all the books in the world. History says that the Ptolemies became so hungry for knowledge that they seized* books from every ship that came into harbour. They made a copy for the ship, but kept the originals for themselves. The library housed the masterpieces of classical civilization: the works of Aristotle and Plato; original manuscripts of Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides; Egyptian treatises on astronomy and medicine; Buddhist texts; and the first translations of the Hebrew scriptures. Historians believe that Alexandria eventually amassed 700,000 scrolls.*

5 While today the library plans to have a broad general collection, it isn't trying to gather the entire creative legacy* of humankind under one roof. The library will try to attract researchers and scholars from around the world. "It is a vision that was realized on this very spot over 2300 years ago when the library was founded," said Serageldin. Alexandria is where Euclid devised geometry; Herophilus discovered that the brain, not the heart, was the seat of thought; Aristarchus, 1800 years before Copernicus, determined that the Earth revolved around the sun; and Eratosthenes set up a simple experiment that measured the Earth's circumference. In tribute to these discoveries, the new library features a museum dedicated to science history, and a large planetarium graces* the entrance.

6 The first and most famous blow to the ancient library came in 48 B.C. when Julius Caesar laid siege to Alexandria and set fire to the city. Historians believe that flames consumed about 10 percent of the library. By the middle of the new millennium, the library had fallen completely. Historians believe that not a single scroll survives. Today’s opening of the new Bibliotheca Alexandrina proves that perhaps the most important element of the ancient library persists — its spirit. And this time the building is fireproof.

Adapted from: Chad Cohen, National Geographic Today, October 16, 2002.


Exercise 1
Which of the following is the most suitable title for the article?

a) Clash of Civilizations
b) Old Trouble at Alexandria's New Library
c) Egypt Opens The New Library of Alexandria
d) Famous Egyptian Centre of Research Reopens
e) International Effort
f) The Legacy of the Library Demands High Standards

Exercise 2
According to the article, decide whether the following statements are True or False.

  a) The Great Library of Alexandria was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
  b) Situated approximately in the same place as the original library, the new building is a precise copy of the original.
  c) The library serves as a symbol of traditional Egyptian religious tolerance.
  d) Some of the main aims of the library focus on investigation, learning, and the free
exchange of information.
  e) More than twenty states are sending publications to the library.
  f) The pharaoh family copied books for the library from every ship that came into harbour.
  g) It is certain that Alexandria finally obtained 700,000 scrolls.
  h) Not a single scroll was preserved after the library fire in the 5th century.


Exercise 3
  1. Why has Alexandria been chosen as the seat of the new “world” library?
  2. For how long did the Great Library of Alexandria represent the knowledge of the world?
  3. What other functions apart from collecting books did the Great Library have?
  4. What other ancient city did Alexandria compete with?
  5. In what context is Julius Caesar mentioned?
  6. What are some differences between the Great Library of Alexandria and the new Bibliotheca Alexandrina? (Name at least three.)
  7. How does the author support his idea of “the international spirit” of the library?
  8. When was the new Bibliotheca Alexandrina opened?
  9. What facilities does the library offer?
  10. Which continents are never (directly or indirectly) mentioned in the text?

Conservation and Restoration

Task 4
Fill in the gaps in the text below with the following words:

One of the fundamental missions of libraries is to  collections so that they may be communicated and passed on to  generations. Conservation first of all means : making sure that collections are housed in an environment which prevents all damage and keeps each item for future use. This involves :
- maintenance of library buildings, and ensuring that temperature and conditions in stockrooms remain stable
and fire prevention
- storage quality control
the conditions under which documents are communicated.
Conservation also means protecting the documents themselves with appropriate bindings or other specially manufactured protective . Substitute copies of documents are now more and more used for communication purposes. Photographic or microform  , and - more recently - digital techniques, are all used to the lifetime of particularly originals. The work involved in protecting and replicating library documents requires a knowledge of the history of graphic material, of papers and parchments, inks, and photographic and audiovisual . Document lifetimes vary enormously, on the nature of each item and on the processes used to produce it. Continuous monitoring of the collections and advanced scientific are essential in defining the most appropriate conservation methods in each case.


Adapted from: http://www.bnf.fr/site_bnf_eng/index.html. Viewed on 6.2.2002


Bibliography

Bibliography can be a list of all the materials consulted during research, written assignments, and other academic texts (referred to directly or indirectly in the text) written at the end of the work. Such lists are organised alphabetically and must be complete, accurate, and consistent* in the use of one style.

Note: Referencing within any work can be done in several ways, though most people now favour the "Author, date" or "Harvard" referencing system. To use such quoting from written or any other sources, one must put the author's surname and the date of publication in the text like this:
Example: According to Barnes (1996), there is a comprehensive guide to referencing available in the library.
or
There is a comprehensive guide to referencing available in the library. (Barnes 1996)

Bibliography Format Examples: those listed below are the most widely used formats; the styles are many and change. The preferred style of your teacher and consistency* within a work are the key issues!!!

BOOKS:
author – title – place of publication – publisher – year of publication – pages
Author (surname first). Title (underlined or in italics). Place: Publisher, year, pages.
Gellner, Ernest. Thought and Change. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964, pp. 6-8.

JOURNAL ARTICLES:
author – title of the article – full title of the journal – volume number – issue number – year of publication – pages
Marotta, Emanuel: ‘Europol’s Role in Anti-Terrorism Policing’, Terrorism and Political Violence, 11/4, 1999, pp.15-18.

UNPUBLISHED WORKS:
author – title of the work – characteristics of the work – place of publication – year of publication – page
Rignall, Martin: Oral Narratives in English and Greek, unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Reading, 1991, p. 46.

INTERNET:
author – title of the work – the Internet address – date of viewing– page
Linz, J.J. and Montero, J.R.: The Party Systems of Spain: Old Cleavages and New Challenges, http://www.mk.gov.es/researchpapers/no405.htm, viewed: 05/06/2003, p. 2.

Note: For more information on bibliography style see, for example, Modern Languages Association pages at http://www.umanitoba.ca/libraries/use_it/citing_mla.pdf (viewed on 20.10.2003).

Exercise 1
Look at the bibliographical entries below and state
a) whether they are for a book, journal article, an unpublished source, or Internet.
b) what the numbers in parentheses* refer to (publisher, title, etc.)


1) Handler, Richard: Nationalism and the Politics of Culture in Quebec, London, MacMillan,
1988, pp. 6-8.

2) Connor, Walker. 1984. 'Eco- or ethno-nationalism?', Ethnic and Racial Studies 7, 3: 342.

3) Hroch, Miroslav. "From National Movement to the Fully-formed Nation: The Nation-

building Process in Europe", in Balakrishnan, Gopal, eds. Mapping the Nation. New York and
London: Verso, 1996: pp. 78-97.

Exercise 2

Look at the following extract from a bibliography and decide in what ways it is inadequate or incomplete.
1) Kapferer, Bruce. Legends of People, Myths of State: Violence, Intolerance and Political Culture in Sri Lanka and Australia. Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press.
2) Hutchinson, John. 1987. The Dynamics of Cultural Nationalism: The Gaelic Revival and the Creation of the Irish Nation State. London: pp. 450-462
3) McKay: 'An exploratory synthesis of the primordial and mobilisationist approaches to ethnic phenomena', Ethnic and Racial Studies, 1982. 395-420.

Exercise 3
Look at the following bibliographies. Which of them are unacceptable and why?

A

Schlesinger, Philip. 1992. 'Europeanness - a new cultural battlefield?', Innovation 5, 1: 11 23.
Smith, Anthony D. 1981. The Ethnic Revival in the Modern World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Smith, Anthony D. 1986. The Ethnic Origins of Nations. Oxford: Blackwell.
Smith, Anthony D. 1988. 'The myth of the "modern nation" and the myths of nations', Ethnic and Racial Studies 1, 1: 1-26.
Smith, Anthony D. 1989. 'The origins of nations', Ethnic and Racial Studies 12, 3: 340-67.
Smith, Anthony D. 1991. National Identity. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Smith, Anthony D. 1992. 'National identity and the idea of European unity', International Affairs 68, 1: 55-76.

B
Anderson, Benedict. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of
Nationalism
. London: Verso. P.78
Armstrong, John. 1982. Nations before Nationalism. Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press. P.58
Greenfeld, Liah. "Nationalism in Western and Eastern Europe Compared," in Can Europe
Work? Germany & the Reconstruction of Post-communist Societies,
eds. Stephen E.
Hanson and Willfried Spohn. Seattle & London: University of Washington Press, 1995.
Hastings, Adrian. The Construction of Nationhood: Ethnicity, Religion and Nationalism.
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. pp. 2-5.

C

Breuilly, John. 1993. Nationalism and the State. 2nd edn. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Campbell, J. and Sherrard, P. 1968. Modern Greece. London: Ernest Benn.
Connor, Walker. Ethno-nationalism: The Quest for Understanding. Princeton University Press.
Hobsbawm, Eric. 1990. Nations and Nationalism since 1780. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 26-31.
Gellner, Ernest. 1973. 'Scale and nation', 3: 1, 17.
Tipton, Leon (ed.). 1972. Nationalism in the Middle Ages. New York:
Tonkin, Elisabeth, Maryon McDonald and Malcolm Chapman (eds.). 1989. History and Ethnicity. ASA Monographs 27, London: Routledge.
Kitromilides, Paschalis. 1989. "'Imagined communities" and the origins of the national question in the Balkans', European History Quarterly 19, 2: 149-92.



Grammar – Conditionals

Exercise 1
Complete or answer the conditional sentences below.

a) If the publication I need is only available as an on-site reference, I will
b) If I go to the library today, I will …
c) If he needs a book that is only available in a foreign library, he will have to …

d) What would you do if you lost or damaged a book from a library?
e) What would you do if you inherited* a great number of books?
f) If you became the university library manager, what would you change?
g) If you had the opportunity, which world library would you like to use for your studies?

h) What would the world have been like if Gutenberg had not invented the printing press?
i) What would have been different in the development of world science if the Great Library of Alexandria had not burnt down?
j) What could have happened if all the Czech National Library archives had been situated close to river banks in the summer of 2002?
k) What would have been different in the world of libraries if the Internet had not been invented?

Exercise 2
Fill in the gaps with suitable forms of the suggested verbs.

  1. If the international community ____________, the library in Alexandria ____________. (not to help, not to reopen)
  2. If you ____________ to consult microfilms or rare books, you ____________ use special reading rooms. (wish, have to)
  3. If it ____________against copyright laws, ____________the whole book. (not to be, copy)
  4. If you __________ the book a month ago, you ____________ it by now. (request, read)
  5. If the Ptolemies ____________ today, the new library ____________them. (live, surprise)
  6. I wish I ____________ this place last semester. (know)
  7. If you ____________ the word, _________it ________in the dictionary. (not to understand, look up)
  8. In recent years, the modernization of the library ____________ possible if the staff ____________. (not to be, train)
  9. Egypt ____________ the right place for "an institution of dialogue, tolerance, understanding and rationality" if its religious authorities ____________ banning books. (be, not to keep)
  10. I have got lost. If only I ____________ the right way to the Moravian Regional Library. (take)



Vocabulary

1. murmuring šeptání
2. imperceptible nevnímatelný, nepostřehnutelný
3. parchment pergamen
4. receptacle schránka
5. emanated vycházející
6. conveyors nositelé
7. *to delay zdržovat, pozdržet
8. stacks (library) sklad knih, který je přístupný veřejnosti
9. on-site reference prezenční výpůjčka
10. available on loan absenční výpůjčka
11. manuscript rukopis
12. *transient přechodný, dočasný
13. irretrievably dispersed nenávratně rozptýlen
14. to consolidate sjednotit
15. *to rank řadit
16. to arouse indignation vzbudit rozhořčení, pobouření
17. incunabula (incunabulum - singular) inkunábule, prvotisky


- books printed before 1501 or work from an early period
18. acquisition přírůstek
19. stipulating legal deposit duty právně určující povinný výtisk
20. scorched shreds spálené cáry papíru
21. *to foreshadow předvídat
22. *relevance důležitost pro danou věc
23. *focal point hlavní bod
24. *to seize uchopit
25. scroll svitek
26. *legacy dědictví
27. to grace zdobit, poctít
28. *to prolong prodloužit
29. *vulnerable citlivý
30. *consistent; consistency důsledný, v souladu; důslednost
31. to inherit zdědit
32. parentheses U.S. (xxx); round brackets U.K. (xxx); brackets [xxx]