In September I arrived in Cluj-Napoca for a five-month stay. I was to offer a course in the basics of American librarianship, with an emphasis on planning for technology in the library. I also expected to work directly with the library's administration on specific techno-logy planning issues. How the reality of my experience in Romania has matched these expec-tations is the topic of this presentation.

Knowing that professional education for librarians had been discontinued in 1974, the focus of my course would be on principles of librarianship. I planned to introduce computer concepts in a series of lectures and group discussion sessions. I would also do what I could to encourage communication across departmental lines and between staff and managers. As for library automation, I planned to concentrate on the human element, the multitude of decisions that must be made, the needed lines of communication, and of course, the general level of knowledge that must be attained by everyone involved. I would stress that each of these elements contributes to the long-term success of any automation effort. Since the isolation of Romanian libraries had been almost total in the decade preceding 1989, I would emphasize why as well as how to automate a library.

An important goal of the Fulbright program is to increase the awareness of Americans about other countries. My stay in Romania would be my first visit to an Eastern European country. Although I knew little about Romania prior to accepting the Fulbright post, I looked forward to gaining some understanding of a part of the world that had been mostly a mystery. I hoped to study the language while I was at it.

And so I came to Romania. At Embassy briefings and in discussion with previous assignees, I received advice such as the following:

Life in Romanian is hard. Until September, I had never stood in a pre-dawn queue for bread or dairy products. It's a humbling, energy-sapping way to start the day. As a foreigner and newcomer, I also expend a great deal of energy trying to communicate, practicing my rudimentary Romanian with shopkeepers, and taxing even my English in intense discussion with librarians and professors at the University. I'm tired much of the time, and can well understand that people holding down two or more jobs and queuing for bread have trouble seeing the relevance of "high technology" to their daily lives.

As foretold, it has quickly become apparent that I cannot possibly accomplish all I had hoped to do in five months time. Despite every warning and my best attempts, my agenda for the semester was simultaneously too ambitious and woefully inadequate to the expectations of some of my students. Decades of pent-up anger and frustration surface at unexpected and inconvenient times, and can short-circuit the learning process. A librarian who interrupts class with an emotional outburst probably had more in common with a coal miner tramping through Bucharest than she would acknowledge.

Curiosity about American technology is immense, but there seems to be a single "question behind the questions": "Can you tell us what to do?" It is a litany that I find overwhelming in its insistence and impossible to deflect. The atrophy of individual initiative is a much larger problem than I expected. The library staff does not receive what many of us would consider minimal levels of management communication and support. Library adminis-trators have yet to develop management expertise, or to fully appreciate the technological gulf between librarians in Romania and their counterparts in the West. They simply fail to see the relevance of technology to overall library management.

In comparing notes with my Fulbright colleagues in other fields, I've found a common thread: We have all brought with us curiosity and a willingness to experience the reality of life here. Most of us have already been rewarded with moments of intense satisfaction; and each of us has experienced a moment of disillusionment, followed by a new ease in carrying out our work.

Despite these few frustrations, I am heartened by the great interest in what Western librarians have to offer, especially in the areas of library automation and information retrieval. In particular, the enthusiasm with which so many of my Romanian colleagues have welcomed me leads me to assume that I am, in fact, contributing something, even with such a brief stay, by my very presence, in my outpourings of American optimism, and by sharing my expertise. As forewarned, I may never know if, or in what ways, this contribution is felt. But if my colleagues in Cluj are able to discern even one "answer behind the answers," my Fulbright experiences will have been a worthwhile endeavor, indeed.