The Library of the Association of Mutual Assistance of Commercial Workers in Łódź in the years 1887-1918

Abstract

The article presents origins, organisation, book collection and lending of the library of the Association of Mutual Assistance of Commercial Workers in Łódź, established by the organisation’s statute, and its role in the Association’s activities and within the local community. The Association’s statutory assumptions included establishment and maintenance of cultural or educational institutions. The library was one of them. Its collection were offered to the readers in 1888. The Author describes library’s staff, financing, methods and rules of gathering collections, amount of the collection and its changes, language and content structure, lending, reading rooms, and its role for the Łódź commercial workers. Concluding she underlines an important role of the Association in developing the book culture in Łódź during the partition period and after regain of independence (this was one of the most important Łódź book collections in the interwar period). The collection was dispersed, presumably during the World War II.