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Published: January 25th 2005
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IBTS Library
The circulation desk and offices are on the ground floor in the building directly ahead. The book shelves for the religious books are on the second floor directly above. The reading room on the ground floor in the building to the left. There has been intermittent snow, both all night and during the day. I don’t know, but it is like a low pressure system has gotten stuck over Prague, the clouds come in with a load of snow, dump the snow and then go back somewhere for another load. Unlike last Saturday when it was clear and very windy now with the clouds and snow there is no wind. The snow falls almost straight down, falling softly and at times as large as goose feathers. It is a beautiful sight. The seminary has a small tractor with a blade on the front that runs around the streets each morning pushing snow away ... but leaving a thin layer on the cobblestones. This, in turn, makes the makes the cobblestones quite slick. Fortunately someone goes around each morning sprinkling sand on the sidewalks and steps. To go from our building to the library we have to walk down a slight incline, cross a narrow road and then walk down 47 steps to get to the lower level where the library is located. Needless to say concrete steps can be very slippery when covered with ice or snow and cobblestones even more so.
Library Reading Room
The reading room was the stable when these buildings were a stagecoach inn. We ate breakfast with two young women, one from the Ukraine and one from Belarus. To get here the one from Belarus had ridden on a train for 24 hours and the one from the Ukraine had ridden a bus for 36 hours. Twenty-four hours on a train is not too bad, at least a person can get up and walk around on a train and usually the seats are larger and more experience. To undertake such a journey indicates how important these two young women felt if is to meet and interact, exchange ideas and network with other seminary librarians.
The library at IBTS is housed in two of the older buildings. Older does not mean run down. Rather it simply means they were built a long time ago. The very first building build here was destroyed by the Bavarian and French armies in 1742. In 1729 a stagecoach inn was opened here beside the road that ran from Horomerzice to Prague. The restaurant called The Inn operated here until 1957. I will give more of the history of these buildings at a later date. The reading room of the library is in the building that formerly was
the stable for horses. It must have been a very good stable as the reading room is quite beautiful. The book stacks, circulation desk and library offices are in an adjoining building that housed carriages and additional needed equipment for running the stable. The complex is a beautiful set of buildings.
There is a kindergarten here at IBTS. We see the children coming in each morning with their parents. Their room is nice and bright. Each morning the children are taken outside to a play area. Invariably when I pass some are smiling, laughing and running around playing while others have sad faces and are crying. I watched for a few minutes and soon some who were crying were now laughing and playing while other, who just moments ago were happy, are now crying. I suppose that is normal for this age child where the world is totally RIGHT or totally WRONG depending on the circumstances of the moment. Regardless they are cute kids.
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