The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 3/A Library for Bohemians
A Library for Bohemians
By Mrs. Eleanor C. Ledbetter.
The Broadway Branch of the Cleveland Public Library is situated in the heart of the Bohemian section of the city, where it was erected upon petition of the residents of the neighborhood. Bohemian books had been in the library since 1897, and on request of Mr. William H. Brett, then librarian, funds for a branch building suitable to the needs of the neighborhood were contributed by Andrew Carnegie. This building, which is French Rennaissance in style, of red brick and stone, cost, with the furnishings, $53,000, and was opened for use in January, 1906.
Broadway Branch, Cleveland Public Library
There are three reading rooms, one for children and 2 for adults; one of those for adults contains only English books, the other shelves books in Bohemian, Polish, and other languages. The city library system contains books in twenty-three modern languages, and eighteen different languages have been circulated from the Broadway Branch.
During the busy winter months it is visited daily by from eight hundred to one thousand persons, while on Saturdays the average number of visitors is over twelve hundred. The stone doorstep, worn half through, has long borne eloquent witness to these figures.
About sixty-five per cent of these visitors are Bohemian people, and their American born children and grandchildren. At the beginning of the war, the library contained over four thousand Bohemian books, carefully chosen to constitute an excellent representation of Bohemian literature. It was especially rich in folk-lore and romance, as is suitable in a neighborhood where most of the reading is for recreational purposes. The books were ordered directly from Prague, and in quality of type, paper, binding and general attractiveness are much superior to the average American or English publication. The best literary experts of the neighborhood assisted in the choice of titles and the editorial staffs of the Bohemian newspapers rendered particularly valuable help. “Zlatá Praha”, “Světozor”, “Národní Listy” and other European publications were received regularly until the fall of 1914.
Since that time the library has suffered with the rest of the world. No European periodicals and no new books have come to replace the old and the worn ones. That the books must wear out is indicated by the fact that the Bohemian circulation for a single year has been over 42,000, some of the best liked romány and povídky having been issued more than thirty times in a single year. This means that such a book was read in that year, not by thirty persons only, but by from three to five times thirty, since the child who draws a Bohemian book from the library usually reports that it was read by “my father”, “my mother”, “my grandma”, and one or two of the following: “my aunt”, “the neighbor lady”, “the boarder”, and “the lady up stairs”.
Winter Afternon in Children’s Room.
Assistants who speak Bohemian and who know the Bohemian literature are always at hand to assist the stranger or the English speaking child who wants a Bohemian book for his mother. The library staff consider the library, not merely as a place of business, but also as a place of hospitality, and their duty first to act as hostesses. With this feeling toward their work they are quick to extend courtesy to the stranger, the new comer, and the “foreigner” who wavers on the doorstep uncertain whether he dares to enter. Such a one is addressed in his own language, invited to enter, shown the Bohemian books and newspapers, and is made free to look about for himself. He sees on the walls a large framed picture of “Golden Prague” and the beautiful Czechoslovak recruiting posters, and on the bulletin board news in his own tongue from the wonderful new Československá Republika. Immediately he feels at home and at ease and desires to “join” the library. This formality is made as simple as possible, the only requirement being adequate identification as a responsible resident of the city. Often the would-be borrower volunteers his bankbook as the needed evidence. It is very pleasing to see how often the stranger, who has found his own way in, becomes sponsor to friends who were greater strangers than he.
It is to these strangers and to the old people that the Bohemian books mean the most. For them the library books take the place of living friends, and are thus a priceless boon. The young people, on the contrary, seldom read anything but English. They were born to the heritage of a distinctive culture, which crystallizes in Bohemian literature the efforts of centuries of struggle for freedom and free expression,
Corner of Children’s Room. but they toss aside this noble inheritance of the Czech language and literature to grope in high school and college after other European languages with which their connection will never be anything but slight. The pathos of this situation is often seen in the library, where parents wish their children to read in English translation a book which the parent loves in the Czech original; while on the other hand children often wish to find for “my mother” a Bohemian translation of a favorite English book.
It is partly for the sake of these young people that the library tries to secure all worth while publications about Bohemia and the related Slav peoples, and their literatures. Notices of such books are furnished to the Bohemian newspapers and are invariably followed by requests from young people who say, “My father wants me to read this book about his native country”. Thus the library books form a link in the chain which connects the best in the past to the building up of the future.
As an interesting side result of its situation and work, the Broadway Library has come to be considered by the whole city as the headquarters for general information regarding the Bohemian people, and the branch librarian is at present engaged upon the preparation for the Cleveland Americanization Committee of a pamphlet upon “The Čechs of Cleveland”.
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in 1919, before the cutoff of January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1954, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 69 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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