Zadar, Day 3Mar 17, 2010
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Franciscan Monastery, Zadar
Volunteers at Monastery
Cataloged Books
| Our first stop today was the Franciscan Monastery in town. We got to hear all about their project, which is preserving the thousands of old books in their collection and cataloging them. For the last two and a half years they have been trying to catalog the collection, which has been difficult due to lack of money, lack of staff, and the condition of the books. Many of the books have been damaged by bugs, while others have water damage and other assorted problems. They were collected over the years from various monasteries, and for the most part arrived without any sort of inventory. Once the books are inventoried they are hoping to be able to get some money to help with preservation. We were then each given a book to look at and attempt to catalog by their standards. It was very cool to get to handle the books, but I was lucky to get the title, author and publication date. And I’m not entirely sure those were right! Afterwards we got a tour of the monastery, and then headed to lunch. The group went to the university cafeteria, but a few of us decided we didn’t feel like waiting in line, so we went back to Pet Bunara again. After a quick lunch we rejoined the rest of the group. Our next stop was the new campus for the university, where we had a series of three lectures. The first one was by Dr. Tatjana Aparac Jelusic, who spoke to us about the history of the information science degree in Croatia. I like that they broke down the practical skills of a librarian into a dozen sections, with the intention to make sure that these are all taught. They will end up with nicely rounded librarians that way. Afterwards, a group of us headed out to catch the bus to Nin. We bought a ticket to get there, but she wouldn't sell us a return ticket, which was a little unnerving. Once we got there we wandered around the town. It was kind of weird, because it's definitely intended to be a touristy area, but we were there at the wrong time of year, so we were the only tourists there, and nearly everything was closed. We were done within about half an hour, and only just missed the next bus back to Zadar. It was kind of cold, and there was absolutely nothing to do for the next hour and a half until the next bus came, and it was getting dark, so we popped into one of the only restaurants that was open. Everyone else had squid, I had spaghetti with shrimp, and we finally learned how to say cheers in Croatian - Zivli! Dinner was great, and we caught the 7:10 bus back to Zadar and the hostel, where we were in bed by 10pm. |
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