如何管理公共图书馆

How to Organize a Public Library

如何管理公共图书馆

Umberto Eco

翁贝托.埃科

作者简介

翁贝托.埃科（Umberto Eco，1932—），意大利小说家、文学批评家、符号学家、历史学家，被《剑桥意大利文学史》（Cambridge History of Italian Literature）誉为“20世纪后半期最耀眼的意大利作家”。

埃科凭借描写中世纪修道院阴谋的长篇小说《玫瑰的名字》（The Name of the Rose）蜚声世界文坛。该书被译为35种文字、全球销量数千万册，使埃科跻身一流后现代主义小说家之列。他接下来的小说《傅科摆》（Foucault’s Pendulum）、《昨日之岛》（The Island of the Day Before）也很畅销。他还著有大量学术著作和散文，如《翻译与过度翻译》（Interpretation and Overinterpretation）、《悠游小说林》（Six Walks in the Fictional Woods）等。他在欧洲已成为知识和教养的象征，在中国的人气也节节攀升。

本篇选自埃科1994年出版的作品集《带着鲑鱼去旅行》（How to Travel with a Salmon and Other Essays）。文中以戏谑的口吻调侃了图书馆各项不近人情的制度，极富黑色幽默感。

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. 不同种类的书目，放得越远越好。书籍目录和期刊目录必须分开放，且不能与主题目录[1]放在一起。同样，新旧书籍也必须分开放。如果可能的话，新旧书籍编目的拼写方式也得有所区别。例如，“睡衣”这个词在新编目要用a，拼成pajama；在旧编目则要用y，拼成pyjama。“柴可夫斯基”在新编目里要按国会图书馆分类体系[2]的拼法，拼成Chaikovski；在旧编目里则要按老式拼法，以Tch开头。

2. 书籍类别应由图书馆员确定，须与版权页标注的类别毫无关联。

3. 图书编号应该难以破译，尽可能复杂。如此一来，读者填借书单时就会写不下最后一行数字，便觉得它们无关紧要。这样，图书馆员就能把借书单退回，警告读者正确填写。

4. 从递单到取书的间隔必须尽可能地长。

5. 一次只许借一本书。

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. 读者把借书单填写完整并成功提交后，才能借到书，但此书不能带进参考书阅览室。因此，研究者不得不把工作分成两块：看其他书时不能查参考书，查参考书时不能看其他书。图书馆绝不鼓励读者同时阅读多本书，因为这可能导致斜视。

7. 馆内尽可能不提供复印机。如果已有复印机，就让人用起来费时费力。复印价格务必高于附近所有复印店，且最多只许印2到3页。

8. 图书馆员必须把读者视为敌人、浪费时间的家伙（要不然，他为什么不去工作，而跑来借书？）和潜在的小偷。

9. 参考馆员[3]的办公室必须固若金汤。

10. 绝不鼓励外借书籍。

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. 必须杜绝跨馆借阅，或借阅一次要花几个月。最理想的状态是，不让读者知道别的图书馆有哪些藏书。

12. 此规章制度须便于小偷行窃。

13. 图书馆开放时间须与当地工作时间一致，这是工会与商会共同作出的前瞻性决定，周六日、晚间、用餐时间理所应当闭馆。图书馆最坏的敌人莫过于兼职学生；最好的朋友莫过于托马斯•杰斐逊——这类人拥有大量私人藏书，无须造访公共图书馆，甚至可能将书遗赠至此。

14. 无论如何都不能让人在图书馆里找到便餐。读者只有先归还手中的书，才能出门填饱肚子。因此，出门喝杯咖啡回来，必须要重填借书单。

15. 务必让人找不到前一天看过的书。

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. 务必查不到某本书目前被谁借走。

17. 尽可能不设洗手间。

18. 最理想的状况是，读者根本无法进入图书馆。万一读者执意强调1789年宪法赋予的个人权利（这种权利与集体认知格格不入），硬是闯进了门，也绝不许他踏入书库这片神圣禁地，顶多让他匆匆扫一眼参考书架。

保密须知：

图书馆工作人员须为残障人士，因为公共机构有义务为其提供就业机会（消防部门也理应如此）。特别是，最好由跛子担任图书馆员，以便延长收借书单和进出地下书库的时间。工作人员如需架梯登上8米多高的书架，为了安全起见，其残臂须换成铁钩手。无臂馆员可用牙叼书，递给读者（馆规禁止递送大于8开的书籍）。

图书馆员必须把读者视为敌人、浪费时间的家伙和潜在的小偷。

Umberto Eco 翁贝托•埃科

[1] 主题目录，一种档案目录，按特定专题以一定次序编排而成。

[2] 国会图书馆分类体系，美国图书馆的两大分类体系之一，广泛应用于美国和一些国家的图书馆。

[3] 参考馆员，图书馆读者服务方面的专有名词，其职责是为用户提供信息咨询服务。

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