That Polish
libraries have often very poor collections of academic texts – is a fact well
known to anyone using them. In the humanities, this deficit proves particularly
painful. Here books are often more important than journal articles, and in
general publications age slower than in other fields. Therefore, databases made
available in the libraries don’t solve the problem effectively, as the former
don’t usually contain books, let alone books published some years ago (say, in
the 80.), which in the humanities can remain for decades key for a given discipline.
And it’s not only about secondary literature, but also about most basic tools,
such as scholarly editions of classic texts. An example: no single Polish
library owns the best critical edition of the Vulgate’s Old Testament in
eighteen volumes (Roma: Libreria Editrice Vaticana,
1926–1995).
So, Polish libraries
as a whole cannot compete with the Western ones. Still, some of these local
institutions put more emphasis on replenishing their collections than others.
One of the positive examples here is the University of Warsaw Library (BUW), together
with the faculty libraries belonging to it. The search results in the central
catalogue of academic libraries in Poland (NUKAT) often show that the only copy
(or one of very few) of a given title belongs precisely to BUW.
But BUW is
a likeable place for yet another reason: it is very much user-friendly. While
still guarding its most valuable resources, the library doesn’t aim at creating
the impression of severe resistance against a person visiting it. The interior
seems open rather than closed. On entry, each user is registered by placing his
library ID on a card reader. He then goes into a large, bright hall, where he
can move around freely, not bothered by anyone, and make use of: catalogues,
computers, reading rooms with their respective reference collections, as well
as large numbers of books accessible directly from shelves. The latter are
interspersed with little tables with lamps. A soft fitted carpet covers the
floors, so as to stop office-like clicking of heels.
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| Informal atmosphere at BUW |
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| Area with freely accessible books |
Emblematic
for this reader-friendly organisation of the library is the ‘pouf area’ there.
Low seats, resembling giant pillows, lie on the floor, and readers are resting in
them with books in their hands while assuming all sorts of informal positions.
Poufs appeared in Polish libraries thanks to KPMG company which sponsored them.
Not all institutions, however, made use of the gift in a similar way. A pouf
placed in the Jagiellonian Library forms an interesting contrast to the lively
pouf area in the Warsaw university library. This single seat is hardly ever
used by anybody, as it is placed very unfortunately near the entrance and a
security post, in direct vicinity of lockers, in which readers leave their bags
before moving into neatly guarded reading rooms. Simply – a matter of attitude.
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| The only pouf in the Jagiellonian Library, Krakow |
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