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——在这个亚马逊(Amazon)与网络当道的年代，在世界上许多地方的人看来，上公共图书馆借书一举似乎更显得古怪过时。然而至少还有一个国家仍顽强地保持这项习惯，那就是捷克共和国。

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，捷克到处是图书馆：根据比尔及梅琳达盖茨基金会(Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation)进行的一项调查，该国有全世界密度最高的图书馆网络，数量比文法学校还要多。事实上，这项调查发现，每1971位捷克人就有一间图书馆，依人口比例算来是平均欧洲国家的4倍、美国的10倍（美国每19583人才有一间图书馆）。

为什么捷克遍地都是图书馆

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图书馆？其实在数十年的时间里，图书馆的建造曾是强制规定——以前捷克从大城到小镇的每个社区，依法都必须要有一间图书馆。

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. 该项法案是1919年颁布的，当时捷克斯洛伐克独立不久，用意是为了在脱离说德语的奥匈帝国统治后，提高全民的识字率、普及教育。而这种做法的确有效。

“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. “捷克人养成了很强的阅读习惯，即便在今天，会上图书馆的人买书也更多，一年下来平均会买11本书。”捷克国家图书馆附设图书馆学中心的主任维特?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.

这项图书馆法案挺过了“二战”德国占领期、共产主义时期，甚至当捷克在上世纪90年代初期与斯洛伐克分家时仍照行不误。它最终挺不住的是预算压力。这项法案在2001年为减省开支而废除了，而当时捷克全国上下有将近6019座图书馆。自此以后，有大约11%的图书馆遭合并或关闭。

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.

然而，现存的捷克图书馆并不甘于作为历史遗留的怪癖传世，它们尽可能地保持活跃及与民众生活的联系。图书馆是选举时的投票所、是当地居民的集会场地，馆方也会组织阅读俱乐部与艺术展览、提供计算机教学课程，并且在日间接待成群来访的学童与退休人士。

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.

不过，根据盖兹基金会的调查，这些图书馆的主要工作还是提供92%的捷克人仍希望他们继续下去的服务：借书给大家看。

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