如何管理公共圖書館

How to Organize a Public Library

如何管理公共圖書館

Umberto Eco

翁貝托.?？?

作者簡介

翁貝托.埃科（Umberto Eco，1932—），意大利小說家、文學批評家、符號學家、歷史學家，被《劍橋意大利文學史》（Cambridge History of Italian Literature）譽為“20世紀后半期最耀眼的意大利作家”。

?？茟{借描寫中世紀修道院陰謀的長篇小說《玫瑰的名字》（The Name of the Rose）蜚聲世界文壇。該書被譯為35種文字、全球銷量數(shù)千萬冊，使?？栖Q身一流后現(xiàn)代主義小說家之列。他接下來的小說《傅科擺》（Foucault’s Pendulum）、《昨日之島》（The Island of the Day Before）也很暢銷。他還著有大量學術著作和散文，如《翻譯與過度翻譯》（Interpretation and Overinterpretation）、《悠游小說林》（Six Walks in the Fictional Woods）等。他在歐洲已成為知識和教養(yǎng)的象征，在中國的人氣也節(jié)節(jié)攀升。

本篇選自?？?994年出版的作品集《帶著鮭魚去旅行》（How to Travel with a Salmon and Other Essays）。文中以戲謔的口吻調侃了圖書館各項不近人情的制度，極富黑色幽默感。

1. The various catalogues must be housed as far apart as possible from one another. All care must be taken to separate the catalogue of books from that of periodicals, and these two from the catalogue by subject; similarly, the recent acquisitions must be kept well away from older collections. If possible, the spelling in the two catalogues (recent acquisitions and older collections) must be different. In the recent acquisitions, for example, pajama should be spelled with an a, in the older, pyjama with a y. Chaikovski in recent acquisitions will follow the Library of Congress system; in the older catalogue the name will be spelled in the old-fashioned way, with Tch.

2. The subjects must be determined by the librarian. On their copyright pages the books must bear no indication of the subjects under which they are to be listed.

3. Call numbers should be impossible to decipher and, if possible, very complex, so that anyone filling out a call slip will never have room to include the last line of numbers and will assume they are irrelevant. Then the desk attendant will hand the slip back to him with the admonition to fill it out properly.

4. The time between request and delivery must be as long as possible.

5. Only one book should be released at a time.

1. 不同種類的書目，放得越遠越好。書籍目錄和期刊目錄必須分開放，且不能與主題目錄[1]放在一起。同樣，新舊書籍也必須分開放。如果可能的話，新舊書籍編目的拼寫方式也得有所區(qū)別。例如，“睡衣”這個詞在新編目要用a，拼成pajama；在舊編目則要用y，拼成pyjama?！安窨煞蛩够痹谛戮幠坷镆磭鴷D書館分類體系[2]的拼法，拼成Chaikovski；在舊編目里則要按老式拼法，以Tch開頭。

2. 書籍類別應由圖書館員確定，須與版權頁標注的類別毫無關聯(lián)。

3. 圖書編號應該難以破譯，盡可能復雜。如此一來，讀者填借書單時就會寫不下最后一行數(shù)字，便覺得它們無關緊要。這樣，圖書館員就能把借書單退回，警告讀者正確填寫。

4. 從遞單到取書的間隔必須盡可能地長。

5. 一次只許借一本書。

6. The books distributed by the attendant after the request form has been properly submitted cannot be taken into the reference room, so the scholars must divide their working life into two fundamental aspects: reading on the one hand and reference consultation on the other. The library must discourage, as conducive to strabismus, any crossover tendencies or attempts at the simultaneous reading of several books.

7. Insofar as possible, no photocopier should be available; if such a machine does exist, access to it must be made very time-consuming and toilsome, fees should be higher than those in any neighborhood copy shop, and the maximum number of copied pages permitted should not exceed two or three.

8. The librarian must consider the reader an enemy, a waster of time (otherwise he or she would be at work), and a potential thief.

9. The reference librarian’s office must be impregnable.

10. Loans must be discouraged.

6. 讀者把借書單填寫完整并成功提交后，才能借到書，但此書不能帶進參考書閱覽室。因此，研究者不得不把工作分成兩塊：看其他書時不能查參考書，查參考書時不能看其他書。圖書館絕不鼓勵讀者同時閱讀多本書，因為這可能導致斜視。

7. 館內盡可能不提供復印機。如果已有復印機，就讓人用起來費時費力。復印價格務必高于附近所有復印店，且最多只許印2到3頁。

8. 圖書館員必須把讀者視為敵人、浪費時間的家伙（要不然，他為什么不去工作，而跑來借書？）和潛在的小偷。

9. 參考館員[3]的辦公室必須固若金湯。

10. 絕不鼓勵外借書籍。

11. Interlibrary loans must be impossible or, at best, must require months. The ideal course, in any event, is to ensure the impossibility of discovering the contents of other libraries.

12. Given this policy, theft must be very easy.

13. Opening hours must coincide precisely with local office hours, determined by foresighted discussions with trade union officials and the Chamber of Commerce; total closing on Saturday, Sunday, evenings, and mealtimes goes without saying. The library’s worst enemy is the employed student; its best friend is Thomas Jefferson, someone who has a large personal library and therefore no need to visit the public library (to which he may nevertheless bequeath his books at his death).

14. It must be impossible to find any refreshment inside the library, under any circumstances; and it must also be impossible to leave the library to seek sustenance elsewhere without first returning all books in use, so that, after having a cup of coffee, the student must fill out requests for them again.

15. It must be impossible on a given day to find the book one had been using the day before.

11. 必須杜絕跨館借閱，或借閱一次要花幾個月。最理想的狀態(tài)是，不讓讀者知道別的圖書館有哪些藏書。

12. 此規(guī)章制度須便于小偷行竊。

13. 圖書館開放時間須與當?shù)毓ぷ鲿r間一致，這是工會與商會共同作出的前瞻性決定，周六日、晚間、用餐時間理所應當閉館。圖書館最壞的敵人莫過于兼職學生；最好的朋友莫過于托馬斯?杰斐遜——這類人擁有大量私人藏書，無須造訪公共圖書館，甚至可能將書遺贈至此。

14. 無論如何都不能讓人在圖書館里找到便餐。讀者只有先歸還手中的書，才能出門填飽肚子。因此，出門喝杯咖啡回來，必須要重填借書單。

15. 務必讓人找不到前一天看過的書。

16. It must be impossible to learn who has a book that is currently out on loan.

17. If possible, no rest rooms.

18. Ideally, the reader should be unable to enter the library. If he does actually enter, exploiting with tedious insistence a right, granted on the basis of the principles of 1789, that has nevertheless not been assimilated by the collective sensibility, he must never, ever—with the exception of rapid visits to the reference shelves—be allowed access to the sanctum of the stacks.

CONFIDENTIAL NOTE:

All staff must be affected by physical defects, as it is the duty of a public institution to offer job opportunities to handicapped citizens (the fire department is considering an extension of this rule to its ranks). In particular, the ideal librarian should limp, in order to lengthen the time devoted to receiving the call slip, descending into the basement, and returning. For personnel expected to use ladders to reach the shelves more than eight meters above the ground, it is required that missing arms be replaced by prosthetic hooks, for security reasons. Personnel lacking both upper limbs will deliver the requested volume by gripping it in their teeth (library regulations tend to prevent the delivery of volumes in a format larger than octavo).

16. 務必查不到某本書目前被誰借走。

17. 盡可能不設洗手間。

18. 最理想的狀況是，讀者根本無法進入圖書館。萬一讀者執(zhí)意強調1789年憲法賦予的個人權利（這種權利與集體認知格格不入），硬是闖進了門，也絕不許他踏入書庫這片神圣禁地，頂多讓他匆匆掃一眼參考書架。

保密須知：

圖書館工作人員須為殘障人士，因為公共機構有義務為其提供就業(yè)機會（消防部門也理應如此）。特別是，最好由跛子擔任圖書館員，以便延長收借書單和進出地下書庫的時間。工作人員如需架梯登上8米多高的書架，為了安全起見，其殘臂須換成鐵鉤手。無臂館員可用牙叼書，遞給讀者（館規(guī)禁止遞送大于8開的書籍）。

圖書館員必須把讀者視為敵人、浪費時間的家伙和潛在的小偷。

Umberto Eco 翁貝托??？?

[1] 主題目錄，一種檔案目錄，按特定專題以一定次序編排而成。

[2] 國會圖書館分類體系，美國圖書館的兩大分類體系之一，廣泛應用于美國和一些國家的圖書館。

[3] 參考館員，圖書館讀者服務方面的專有名詞，其職責是為用戶提供信息咨詢服務。

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