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Published: February 2nd 2005
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Honza is a very nice young man who worked in the library last year as an alternative service to the military. A stone mason by trade, Honza objects to military service on religious grounds. I do not know the details on how it was decided that his service to his country would be by working in the IBTS library. He has finished that obligation but is working again this winter, when he can not do any stone carving since it is warm weather work. He is such a good library worker that some folks have told us they have hopes he may study for a degree in library science. He said that he is really happy he had this opportunity as he has learned so much during his time here. Nancy and I are thankful he is here as he has played an important part in helping us get onboard in the library and has patiently answered questions and taught us the finer points of the computer software. Honza is from Prague and lives not far from Dejvice, the big city transportation hub we pass through whenever we go downtown. We see all the characteristics in him that make for a good librarian. He has fantastic attention to details and keeps wonderful records. He understands and can explain in simple terms the complexities of the automation software. Now that is the nitty-gritty part which would make the library he worked in well organized. But he has that other intangible trait that makes a really good librarian into an excellent one. He is very quick to jump to answer the needs of the patrons. He hurries to show a new reader the Dewey Decimal chart on the wall to explain the organization of the library. He gives careful directions to patrons on where they can locate the things they need. He is willing to get out of his seat and go with someone to a computer that is acting up or to locate something they have trouble finding. He smiles and engages patrons with his cheerful personality. So, you can imagine Bill and I would hire him if he applied to work where we were the ‘bosses’. But here, we are his students and glad to be so since our education needs to be quite complete.
Frankly, I was surprised that the Czech Republic has such a program. The United States has had an alternative service program for a very long time. I am sure that before the Velvet Revolution, when the Czechs overthrew the old Communist government Honza would not have had such a choice.
We worked in the library all day yesterday and kept the library open until nine in the evening. A gentle snow began falling in the evening and was still falling when we left the library. And, hurrah, we successfully turned on the security system without waking the entire campus ... after three tries. The alarm didn’t sound, but we could tell by the rapid beep, beep, beep that we had not armed the system properly. We found the problem to be we had left one of the interior doors open that must be closed for the alarm to arm. We are both sure the Security personnel will be glad when we are 100% perfect but then again maybe they enjoy seeing us at 9:30 in the evening since they have to work ALL night long. It may get lonely in that office. At least we have given the woman in charge something to smile about in our ineptitude.
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