Why Libraries Are Everywhere in the Czech Republic 为何捷克处处都是图书馆 The library at the Strahov monastery in Prague. 位于布拉格斯特拉霍夫修道院的图书馆
PAVEL HOREJSI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES JULY 21, 2016 What in the World By HANA de GOEIJ 2016.7.21 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-在亚马逊和因特网的时代，去公共图书馆借书在世界上的不少地方可能已经显得太过古板而又过时了，但至少有一个国家，还在固执地坚守这一习惯：那就是捷克
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. 在这个国家，图书馆随处可见-根据比尔与梅琳达盖茨基金会所进行的调查显示这里拥有着世界上最密集的图书馆网络
图书馆的数量超过了文法学校
实际上，调查表明每1971名捷克国民就拥有一间图书馆-在人数上欧洲国家平均是它的四倍，而美国是它的十倍，每19538个人才拥有一间
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. 为什么捷克有这么多的图书馆？其实，数十年间，它们还曾是强制设立的-每个社区，从通都大邑到穷乡僻壤都需按法律要求建立一间图书馆
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. 捷克斯洛伐克在实现独立后不久的1919年通过了这项法律
其目的是使国家在从说德语的奥匈帝国独立后，能够提升全民识字率和受教育程度
这一举措颇为有效
“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. “捷克人养成了较强的阅读习惯，甚至到今天，他们逛图书馆所买的书仍然超过了其他国家-平均每年11本，”捷克国立图书馆图书馆学研究所主任维特•里赫特说
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. 图书馆法历经德国占领期，共产主义时代以致1990年代初与斯洛伐克分离而不废
却最终未能逃脱预算的压力
为了节约经费，2001年命令遭到废止，当时全国尚有6019间图书馆；自此以后，有约百分之11的图书馆被合并或关闭
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. 幸存的捷克图书馆并未沦为旧时代格格不入的孑遗苟延残喘，而是尽可能地努力保持着活力和关联性
发挥着选举中投票所和地方集会场馆的功能
它们组织了阅读俱乐部和艺术展览并提供计算机普及课程，还在白天接待络绎不绝的学童和退休者
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. 但根据盖茨基金会的调查，百分之92的捷克人仍希望图书馆能延续其主要的事业：书籍出借
来源：New York Times