My moment of real crisis came about in ?85 or ?86, when I waited for hours in line for toilet paper. I was so terribly upset, I can?t even remember if I finally got what I wanted or not, but I was disgusted, with myself too, I felt very, very badly. And then I went straight to the British Embassy, told the Securitate officers at the gate that I wanted to go to the library, and they asked for my ID. I was registered with the English Library, and from that point on, I was always around, borrowing books. After a month or so, no one asked for my ID any more, on the contrary, they told me, ?Welcome, Mrs. Ciobanel?. I never felt I was watched and never was afraid. For me it was an act of desperate challenge, yet nothing happened at all. (I. P., 24)

I used to go to the Library of the Academy; the heroes who could cope with the cold inside were very few. I noticed that it was mainly the old men that could hang on, the old men who had been in the war, and part of men had served time in Russian prisons. You had to have gloves on, everything was made of iron and glass in there. (A. V., 7)

In the winter of ?84 I tried to go and read in the Library of the Academy. After an hour I gave up, I couldn?t stand the cold any more. I came back in May, and when I went in, it seemed to me that all the people I knew there had grown not 5 months, but 5 years older. (111)

In the reading room of the Institute for Art History, upstairs, there were minus 6 degrees Celsius. Imagine what it was like in the stacks. (A. V., 6)

We worked with the torch-light on, here in the library. We had about 3 torches. (A. V., 6)

The Central University Library, the one that burnt at the Revolution, was the most beautiful library I?d ever seen in Romania. On the first floor was the teachers? room where I used to go, and the room of rare books and manuscripts, which I unfortunately never had a chance to enter. In the teachers? room, the books were on the shelves, you could go and pick whatever you liked. The request notes were rolled up and sent through a tube to the stacks. The requested book would come up with a small elevator. (A. V., 7)