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Across town from the Mala Strana, at the Prague Municipal Library, Pavla Pursova, one of the librarians, was near tears as sherecounted how hundreds of rare books were soaked despite being moved for safekeeping. Among those ruined were an edition of therare 1488 Prague Bible, the first in the vernacular Czech (the New York Public Library has another copy), and the 1836 first edition of"Maj," or "May," a poem by the Czech Romantic Karel Hynek Macha. Die NYT berichtet über Verwüstungen in Prag und anderswo in Tschechien (Zugangsdaten: payyourauthors, abouttime). Ã?ber das Einfrieren der Bücher in einer Gemüsefabrik schreibt AP. Aber was kommt danach?  The Czech minister of culture, Pavel Dostal, said Thursday it could take up to 100 years to                        restore the frozen documents. But Jana Tomsu, an art restoration expert with the National Museum, said it could even take                        longer, noting it would take one restorer working alone 5,000 years to repair 20,000 books.