Halfway down the Danube

Carnegie Library

We live about three blocks from the main campus of the University of Belgrade. "Main campus" means about four buildings, as the Uni is scattered all over the city. Still, one of those four is the University Library, a very dignified looking building that's painted a curiously pleasing shade of pink.

(At this point I'll just mention in passing that Belgrade has some of the loveliest buildings in Eastern Europe, cheek by jowl with some of the ugliest. More on this topic later.)

Three interesting things about the Library. One, you can't get very far inside -- it's still run on the socialist principle of Authorized Personnel Only. That's not just foreigners, by the way -- even students can't get in without a special permit. (Because, I guess, you wouldn't want students just wandering in and out of a library.)

Second, you can get as far as the card catalog. And the card catalog is, by gum, a real honest to goodness card catalog: a room full of those wooden cabinets with the tiny drawers, each one filled solid with hundreds of hand-typed cards. If you're under the age of 25 you may have no idea what I'm talking about, but this is how they used to keep track of the books in a library. A hard copy database, if you like.

Because of the wars and the economic blockade, Yugoslavia basically missed the entire IT revolution in library science. So they're still using a card catalog. And I mean using it; there were students in the catalog room, flipping through cards and pulling out drawers to sit on the table, just as we all used to do before 1980 or so. And it had that card catalog smell, hardwood and old card stock...

The library does have a CD-ROM with its collection information. But no computer terminals that I could see... so you'd have to either bring a laptop, or browse the catalog at home.

This is not to cock a snoot at the poor primitive Serbs. The catalog room was clean and busy. The system may not be modern, but it works. Under the circumstances, it looks like they've managed extremely well.

Third interesting thing: it's a Carnegie library, funded by the great robber baron's estate in 1926. I knew there were Carnegie libraries all over the world, but I didn't expect to find one here. And, like every library that Carnegie built, it has a bust of the great man himself as you walk in the front door.

Carnegie was a remarkably unpleasant man, but the good that he did seems to be living on.

Posted by douglas at April 12, 2003 11:16 AM