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Freedom Forum Fellowship Report: Poland |
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DATELINE: WARSAW, November 1996 THE ASSIGNMENT In 1996 The Freedom Forum's International Library Division ponsored a fellowship in cooperation with the Special Libraries Association. The driving forces behind this exceptional effort are Chris Wells, The Freedom Forum's Senior Vice President/International and Phyllis Lyons, Director Library Services. The program is in its second year. Two News Division members were selected this year; Margot Williams from The Washington Post to journey to Hong Kong and Manila and me, Barbara Semonche from the UNC-CH School of Journalism and Mass Communication Library, to venture to Bucharest and Warsaw. Our assignments were to help The Freedom Forum librarians in these cities create and develop their World Wide Web search skills and home pages. Simultaneously reaching journ alism students and working journalists was an added feature. The tour of duty is two weeks, one week in each of the cities. The extraordinary contributions of The Freedom Forum International Library Network to an emerging Eastern European free press are just beginning to be known. These international librarians are bilingual and provide excellent assistance to journalists, students, and researchers on a walk-in, call-in, or email basis. Perhaps most importantly, all this is done without charge and without fanfare. It is noteworthy that the American concept of news librarians and media researchers working side-by-side with journalists, as an investigative team, is unknown in Eastern European newspapers. In time this will change. Active cooperation with our international news library colleagues offers promise for expanding the image and role of news researchers. FACT GATHERING STAGE Published travel/tour guides were my first stop for information about historic Warsaw and Poland. Poland: The Rough Guide ('96) is the one I used. Warsaw had its own home page Warsaw - Let's Explore! which proved instructional. The standard online databases were also culled for every relevant factoid. Of course, The Freedom Forum's web site http://www.freedomforum.org was a valuable source on Eastern Europe including Poland. A surprising source came from one of our School's own international visiting journalists from Poznan, Poland, Barthomiej Lesniewski. He was a fount of information on traveling in Poland, sites to visit, Polish history, food, culture, currency exchange, and the investigative journalism in Poland. At his urging we added a day trip to Krakow. We were fascinated with what we did and discovered there, but more about that later. The most useful information about the library at the Warsaw Journalism Center came via email messages from Library Manager Maria Roszkowska. However, it wasn't until after I arrived in Warsaw that I discovered that she and her library assistant, Krzysztof Ciacka, had created a web site Warsaw Journalism Center. There is also a link to the WJC library Biblioteka. Visually the web site is colorful, active (adorned with Java scripts), and informative. The site is in written in Polish, but an English version is expected soon. Phyllis Lyons sent me photos from her earlier visits to Warsaw to scan and load to my web site. My husband, Jack, discovered some fine classical and folk music evocative of Poland which I could digitize for my computer presentation programs. Other facts: Warsaw has a population of nearly two million people. Brutalized during World War II, it took decades to recover its heritage and rebuild its country. Polish economy is among the most stable in Eastern Europe, but the government and people are still searching for expanding their products and services in a world market. Poland's media continues fighting for a free press under strong government control. REALITY TAKES HOLD The hard fact to face was I do not speak or read Polish. And in all likelihood I was not going to learn enough to manage in the short time I had to prepare.Fortunately Maria and Krzysztof both speak English as do many of the staff and students in the Warsaw Journalism Center. As it turned out, I needed a translator (Izabela Piasecka-Maszczyk, superbly professional) for only one day of my presentations.Information about Polish currency was encouraging. Apparently there is little fluctuation in the value of the zloty now. However, it took some effort to understand the difference between the "new" zloty and the "old" zloty. Also, credit card payment is not typical in Poland. That situation is changing as Poland become more involved in world economic exchanges. The International Herald Tribune published a special report (Nov. 9-10, 1996) on Eastern European markets. The lead headline was "Poland Springs Ahead...." An inside article speculated that the Polish market is ripe for playing. Encouraging signs. As for Polish politics, I leave that complicated subject for those more enlightened and experienced that I. However, there are some revealing stories about the conflicts between a freedom-minded media and a control-driven government on press rights. THE POLISH PRESS The press in Poland is vigorous and vigilant. During the week that I was in Warsaw The Warsaw Voice published a story about the Polish Journalists' Association establishing The Press Freedom Monitoring Center. It is a non-government, non-profit organization to protect freedom of speech and journalists' rights. And, it had a prime example to relate. Check this out.
For a review of Poland's press freedom struggles in 1996, consult the December 1996/January 1997 issue of IPI Report: The International Journalism Magazine. The article covered the challenges to public television in Poland, newspaper ownership, the launch of a new paper Zycie Warszawy, [Note: I toured this paper. Photos are available on this web page.] and several hgihly-charged confrontations with government press overseers. It also describes a conference hosted by IPI and PAP (the Polish Press Agency) for news agencies in Central and Eastern Europe. At that conference the news agencies adopted a ground-breaking Warsaw Declaration on August 31, 1996 demanding that governments allow them full journalistic independence. "News Agencies must have the right to gather and distribute information freely." The document was backed by UNESCO and will help to forumulate Council of Europe policies on media freedom. An illustrative example of the daily life of a Polish journalist appeared in an article, Journalism Warsaw-Style written by Tom Fenton and published in The Forum magazine March, 1995.
Another article published by The Freedom Forum, Quiet Revolution: Cable Television Comes to
Central Europe offer some interesting facts.
While I did tour the newly-launched Warsaw newspaper Zycie, meeting its editors and reporters and admiring its high-tech, state-of-the-art editing and graphic equipment, I discovered that its "library" was still clipping, pasting, and filing articles manually. No computer access at all. Apparently the job is seen as a "clerical-type" job. However, I did observe three proofreaders absorbed in their work. When I asked the editor conducting my tour who did the "fact checking" or "reference research" for the newspaper, he seemed a bit puzzled by my question. Finally he responded that it was the journalists' job to fact check information, and that he, of course, checked behind them. Did I mention that news librarians or news researchers are virtually unknown in Polish media? I'm on the track of those newspapers in Poland and Romania which do have news librarians. So far, no luck, but I continue to search. WEATHER CONDITIONS Cold weather, even snow and ice, was what I was told to expect. Those were the prevailing weather conditions this time last year in Warsaw. The good news was that the temperature there was closer to 50-55 degrees and, with the exception of one day, very clear and sunny. WHAT DID I TAKE WITH ME? My husband, Jack Semonche and his IBM Think Pad loaded with seven multimedia Internet and WWW instructional computer presentation programs in Astound! (Note: I'm working toward loading these presentations on my web site.) A special computer cable and adapter designed for exclusive use in Romania and Poland was essential. Additional disks with such unique applications as The N & O's NeRD Intranet program, compliments of Teresa Leonard were included. Back-up disks of all my programs and web files, e.g., bitmap, audio, video, text were added. (Note: Folders packed with reams of handouts were Fed Ex'd, compliments of The Freedom Forum, to the libraries in Bucharest and Poland two weeks prior to my arrival so I was not burdened with that material. Shortly after my arrival in Warsaw, Maria discovered a gem of a book listing, by categories, an astonishing array of up-to-date Polish web sites which we subsequently demonstrated with WJC students on the last day of my visit. Besides the usual serviceable wardrobe, I tucked away my email address book, my lists of bookmarked Web and gopher sites, several mystery novels, dried fruits and granola bars, tissues and aspirin in my tote bag. Suspecting that gifts to the librarians just might be in order, I purchased some CDs of American music, classical and pop. The choice turned out to be a good one. WHO MADE ALL THE TRAVEL AND TRAINING ARRANGEMENTS? The Freedom Forum has an in-house travel agent who helped make flight and hotel arrangements. Phyllis Lyons had considerable experience traveling in Eastern Europe so her assistance was extremely valuable. We flew Delta Airlines from Raleigh-Durham to Atlanta and then took a nine-hour flight to Vienna where we stayed overnight before flying to Bucharest on Austrian Airlines. There is no direct flight from Bucharest to Warsaw, so after my tour was finished in Bucharest, we had to return to Vienna for an overnight stay before flying to Warsaw. The Freedom arranged for a driver to meet us at the Warsaw Airport but Maria and her husband, Tom, met us as we walked into the terminal. And what a welcoming sight they were! They helped us collect our baggage and negotiated our safe delivery to the Forum Hotel. Then, after a brief rest, Maria and Tom picked us up at the hotel and started us on our first tour of the Warsaw. We stopped for refreshment and discovered that the next day would be a great one for train travel to the venerable city of Krakow. Not knowing our way around the enormous Warsaw railway station, Tom took charge, consulted the schedule, arranged for our exchange of currency while Maria waited in the long lines for tickets. After so much effort we rewarded ourselves with a genuinely fine Polish dinner of fresh fish and excellent Polish beer. Maria's and Tom's ten-year-old daughter, Anna, joined us. The Warsaw Freedom Forum librarian, Maria, made the training arrangements in Bucharest. She planned my schedule, arranged for students to come in small groups for training, established contacts with university libraries for tours. Krzysztof joined Maria, Izabella (the interpreter) annd me on a tour of the newspaper Zycie and served as our photographer. Inbetween classes, Maria saw to it that we toured some of the extraordinary historic sites in Warsaw. One of the was "Lazienki," the palace in the park. The palace and gardens, breathtakingly beautiful, was painstakingly, expensively restored following the devastation of World War II. In the park were varieties of birds I'd never seen. And startlingly "red" squirrels who, when entreated to approach with calls of "Basha! Basha! Basha!" obediently responded. "Basha," I'm told is the diminuative of Barbara. Hmmmmm. Maria also saved some time for us to savor the flavor of the finest bakery in Warsaw. I'd never seen or tasted such treats! They somehow managed to appear daily for the students and me to enjoy. WHAT WAS OUR SCHEDULE LIKE? We began our days suitably fortified with substantial Polish breakfasts and ended them with excellent dinners in the hotel restaurant which specialized in game meat of all types. I was bold enough to sample wild boar napped delicately with a "fortified" cherry sauce. Intriguing. Since the Forum Hotel was only a 15 minute walk to the WJC, we did indeed walk, enjoying the exercise and the experience. After dropping me off at the Center Jack returned to the task of editing his book manuscript and the pleasures of art galleries, book stores, and exquisite amber jewellry stores. Maria arranged for groups of WJC students (6-8 at a time) to meet me in the Freedom Forum Library (one room) where Krzysztof had the one computer in the Center that had a connection to the Internet up and running. I had my laptop ready and we worked back and forth between the Astound! presentation programs on my computer and the Internet and WWW access on the desktop. Typically I would meet with groups each morning and afternoon for 3 hours each. I made a 30-40 minute presentation and then set about to demonstrate online. While most of the students had read and heard about the Web, very few had ever seen or used it. And even fewer actually had email addresses. Telecommunication services are making progress in Poland, but there is still a long way to go, even for colleges and universities. WHAT WEB TRAINING DID I OFFER AND HOW DID I DO IT? Essentially my training methods in Warsaw were similar to what I had done in Bucharest. I relied upon my computerized presentations and handouts, of course, and also on Internet access supplied on the library's computer. The one significant difference was that for the most part the students and instructors at the WJC undertood English well. Only one class of students required the services of an interpreter. And Maria hired one of the very best in Warsaw, Izabela Piasecka-Maszczyk. It takes a little practice to work with an interpreter, though. For example I had to learn to pause sufficiently to allow Izabela to turn my English into Polish. I observed that it seemed to take many more Polish words to express what I said in English. BTW, WWW is pronounced "Vu-Vu-Vu" in Polish. Fascinating! I consulted with Maria about which of my programs would be best suited for particular audiences. Following my opening presentations were questions from the groups, then some hand-on experience. By the end of the week, Maria, Krzysztof, and I were sharing the instructional program. It was readily apparent that the students responded with many more questions when the demonstration was done in Polish. Neverthless, It was "team teaching" at its best, I thought. If the live demonstrations on the Web were not so slow due to lack of a direct link to the Internet, the sessions would have been even more successful. I kept reminding myself that this was just the beginning. More sophisticated technology and telecommunications were to come to Warsaw and the whole of Poland. TELECOMMUNICATIONS IN WARSAW: Telecommunications, including email and Netscape in The Freedom Forum Library is VERY slow. Typing the briefest of messages took a long time. Connecting to servers in Warsaw as well as in other countries was not always smooth and timely. For Netscape use, the graphics and images took 6-10 minutes to paint the screen. This is not surprising when relying upon modems for access to the net and web. In time this situation will improve. Admittedly Poland does not yet have the telecommunications infrastructure to accommodate high-speed digital lines, but that is not stopping the development of commercial, academic and personal web sites. INTERNET AND WEB ACCESS AT WJC The WJC library, indeed, the entire Center will require computers with direct access to the Internet. Servers should be added to accommodate expanding, accelerating graphical access. The library will be considering how to load its collections and Internet training services onto its library web page. Krzysztof has already made a great start. The library has the skills and the talent and the interest to make a valuable contribution in educating journalism students on how to access useful information on the Internet and the WWW. To reach the next level, the WJC library needs the enhanced equipment. The availability of good computers and servers are an important first step; for the next level they need a high capacity NT or UNIX server, a T1 line telecommunications access, and a server to scan graphics and images. Such equipment will lead to a much more sophisticated LAN and "intranet" in the library. Maria and Krzysztof have good ideas about the content ; and, of course, I will gladly offer my knowledge and skills on a continuing basis to support the library. Such an "electronic information library system" will serve as a model for news library research throughout Poland. NEWS LIBRARIANS IN POLAND Shortly before I arrived in Warsaw, Maria conducted an informal telephone survey of selected librarians in Poland asking them about their experiences with the Internet. She was stunned to learn that few of them knew anything about it. The typical response from the librarians querried was, "Internet? What is it?" Doubtless that response will change before long. Surprisingly, the phrase "news librarian" or "news researcher" is apparently unknown among journalists, journalism educators, and library science faculty in Poland. (The term "special librarian" is a bit of a mystery to them as well.) That does not mean that investigative reporting is not done here, but it lacks the critical element of carefully balanced, high-quality new research for accuracy and comprehensiveness.) It may be a long time before news librarians are part of Poland's news organizations. Then again, it might happen faster with proper working models such as the one that will be developing at Warsaw Journalism Center Library in Warsaw. EXTRA ADDED FEATURES As for our journey to Krakow on our second day in Poland (a Sunday), it ranks among our most memorable and enjoyable experiences of the trip. Even getting there was a pleasant ride in a private compartment on a modern train speeding non-stop through the fields and forests of southern Poland. Krakow is undeniably picturesque with its old town square, castle, university, and gilt-adorned churches. Equally appealing was observing handsome families strolling, window-shopping in the square and side streets. Surprise note: the outdoor fast-food choice of many seemed to be resh-roasted corn-on-the-cob! Also surprising, pleasantly so, was watching young and old alike buying from flower vendors long-stemmed blossoms to carry while they wandered the curving, cobblestoned lanes. This was old world scenery and life at its best. The week ended with Maria, her husband, Tom, and Krzysztof arranging a farewell dinner for me and my husband, Jack, in one Warsaw's finest, vintage restaurants. We toasted our friendship and dined on magnificent food in a charming private room. We exchanged gifts, books and CDs, and promises to keep in touch. (We have!) Polish hospitality is much celebrated; in my experience I cannot enthuse enough about it. Maria and Tom were remarkable in their warmth and generosity. I look forward to seeing them again. WOULD I RETURN TO WARSAW? In a heartbeat! Maria, Krzysztof, and the rest of the staff of the Warsaw Journalism Center were genuinely friendly. The Center itself, while somewhat cramped because of its rapidly expanding curriculum, and increasing student enrollment, was nevertheless in attractive and comfortable surroundings. The entire staff, especially Anna Jasinska, the Center's Program Director, welcomed me enthusiastically. I felt truly special and came away with great respect for all of them. I think that this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship. |
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