America House: a resource center to cultivate an open society in Ukraine (12/01/96)

America House: a resource center to cultivate an open society in Ukraine

by Marta Kolomayets

KYIV - It may be called America House, but it is home to scores of Ukrainian students, scholars and journalists doing research. It is also a sanctuary for bibliophages and the incurably curious who want to know about the United States and its culture, its literature, its places and its people.

Kyiv's America House is part of the United States Information Agency (USIA) network, known abroad as the United States Information Service (USIS), and is funded by the U.S. government. Although there is an American Center in St. Petersburg and an American library in Moscow, Kyiv's America House is unique to the countries of the former Soviet Union. It is more than just a library. It is an information resource center, it is a classroom for learning the English language, it is also a model for training Ukraine's future librarians, changing their mindset as to what services a library should provide, as well as showing them new technology in the field of information-gathering.

Victor Kytasty, the first and current director of America House, likes to tell - only half jokingly - the story of the Soviet Union's most famous librarian, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, Lenin's wife, to explain the theory of library science that prevailed in this closed society for more than 70 years.

"They believed that if you asked for a book in the library, a librarian's job was to ask why you wanted the book. If your library had the book, then it was the librarian's job to determine whether or not you should get the book, or to give you another book to read. Then the librarian had a final assignment: to decide whether or not to turn you in for asking for, what in her mind, was the 'wrong' book," he said.

Mr. Kytasty feels that part of the problem with Soviet librarians was the fact that their training was only a six-month course, while in the United States the profession is a science, and librarians need a master's degree to work in the field.

Books in Soviet libraries were hidden away from public view; access to books was often denied; check-out was impossible because librarians were worried about books being stolen or damaged.

"The idea of open shelves, the fact that you can pick up a book and browse through it - and best of all, check it out and take it home for two weeks - comes as a surprise to most people who walk through our doors," said Mr. Kytasty, showing off the brightly lit, Western-style renovated space that the USIS rents from a children's publishing house, Veselka.

He added that America House has almost no problem with its visitors stealing library books. As a matter of fact, in the last three years since the library opened, only 20 books are missing - 10 of them were checked out by Americans.

"We did have one instance in the beginning when we caught a Ukrainian kid trying to steal a book by Mark Twain. Each book has a sensor in it; the kid was surprised that we caught him - he admitted that he had torn the sensor out of the book.

"But my feeling was that if this kid had wanted 'Huckleberry Finn' in English so badly we may have given it to him if he had asked," confessed Mr. Kytasty. The library revoked his privileges for six months; today he is once again a frequent visitor.

"And if you provide open access and show a certain respect to the people you serve, they will return the gesture," said Mr. Kytasty.

In the closed society that was the Soviet Union, access to information was heavily policed. In the era of communism it was safer to lead a sheltered life than to worry that one knew too much.

"The institution of America House was set up to help with democratic and economic reforms. Based on what happened in Germany after World War II, the U.S. Congress voted to set up a whole series of America Houses in the region to help with the democratization of Germany and the reconstruction of its civil society," said Mr. Kytasty.

That idea was revived after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Kyiv was chosen as a site for an America House. Today Kyiv has between 5,000-6,000 book titles by American authors on its shelves and 10 times that number on CD-Rom. It carries tens of magazines ranging from National Geographic to Vogue, as well as PBS videos and USIA-produced documentaries. America House boasts state-of-the-art equipment, including computers and access to the Internet.

"I took the job because I liked the mandate," noted Mr. Kytasty, a Ukrainian American who arrived in Kyiv in 1992 to do curriculum reform at Kyiv State University. But the San Diego- based professor of comparative literature said the university at that time was not yet ready for such a progressive move. As a result, he wound up teaching English in Kyiv and helping the Council of Advisers to the Ukrainian Parliament with translations.

But, in his first days at America House, quite a few people in Ukraine saw his job as being an officer of American propaganda. Mr. Kytasty rejected this theory immediately.

"If we offer courses in English to Ukrainian parliamentarians, is that American propaganda? No, that's not American propaganda, that's to help them to communicate with the rest of the world, to read materials on legislative and economic matters, to become part of a Western community," he added.

Sometimes Mr. Kytasty gets strange requests for information, with which he graciously complies.

"After all, the purpose of America House is, first of all, to provide information," he said. For example, the smooth transition of power between Presidents Leonid Kravchuk and Leonid Kuchma was orchestrated by Mr. Kytasty and the archives at America House.

"I consider this one of our success stories," he explained. "The presidential administration turned to America House for information on how other countries do inaugurations, because Ukraine had never done a transfer of powers before. They wanted to know where the old president meets the new president, how they act, what they say to each other," he said.

But sometimes the questions that are asked stump Mr. Kytasty and his co-workers at America House. Recently, the Ukrainian Parliament had a request. It wanted to know what percentage of the U.S. government income comes from its businesses, from government-owned companies.

"We don't have anything like that. We don't have that concept of government-owned business, and their request shows a certain mindset which is alien to us," said Mr. Kytasty.

Perhaps most gratifying is his work with students. A teacher at heart, he is inspired about Ukraine's future when he sees students from Ukraine's Institute of Foreign Relations or the Public Administration Institute coming in to do research, as well as professors and scholars looking for the newest information in such publications as the New England Journal of Medicine. He estimates that about 20 percent of his clientele are graduate students.

"Lately, the policy in Washington has been that we should service the highest-ranking people, but frankly, I think that it is better to get them when they are being formed, that is, at the high-school, college and graduate levels," said Mr. Kytasty.

"We have an open-door policy," said Mr. Kytasty. "When we first opened our doors, many Ukrainians were under the false impression that the library was only for Americans. Between you and me, we try to keep the Americans out," he quipped.

America House works with librarians, having helped to set up a Ukrainian Library Association and sending 16 Ukrainian librarians to the United States in June for the American Library Conference. It has also developed an English-language Resource Center, to be housed at the University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, which will serve as a depository of materials for English-language teachers in Ukraine. A video library also is available to Ukrainian teachers who can help their students not only with language but provide lessons on American history.

Another successful program that has recently been shut down by the U.S. government because of budgetary cutbacks was USIA traveling exhibits. "That was a way to turn Ukrainians' faces to the West and opening up a formerly closed society," said Mr. Kytasty.

The son of the late Hryhoriy Kytasty, the director of the Ukrainian Bandurists' Chorus, and an accomplished bandurist in his own right, Mr. Kytasty enjoyed the educational and cultural aspects of the traveling shows, meeting with Ukrainians in Svitlovodsk (Kirovohrad region), Ternopil and Zakarpattia in the last two years.

"Even as late as 1995, our group in Svitlovodsk was the first group of live Americans that the local people had ever met," he noted.

Despite the fact that Mr. Kytasty is disappointed that the traveling shows have ended, he is adamant about keeping America House and its library opened.

"I think what happens in this library is that you find your identity not only in your own culture, but in relationship to others, something that was always impossible in a closed society," he said.

"Here, at America House, with the support of Ambassador William Green Miller and the USIS team, we see a very pro-Ukrainian approach; materials produced by America House are only in Ukrainian.

"And you see the Americans treating Ukrainians and all that is Ukrainian with a great deal of respect. And, they begin to respect themselves," said Mr. Kytasty.