Selection of books and premises for reading studies in the Warsaw public libraries in the years 1900-1918

Abstract

The author presents the situation of public libraries in Warsaw in the years 1900-1928. He perceives as public the libraries combining two trends. The first one is the continuation of the traditions of education movement in any ideological or organisational variant. The other - defining libraries as institutions of independent goals and universal functions. He selected the following institutions, declaratively and personally related to the "educators" - Towarzystwo Czytelń miasta Warszawy [The City of Warsaw Reading Rooms Association], Towarzystwo Biblioteki Publicznej miasta Warszawy [The City of Warsaw Public Library Society], Wydział Czytelń Warszawskiego Towarzystwa Dobroczynności [the Reading Rooms Department, Warsaw Charity Society], Biblioteka Kolejowa [the Railway Library]. The author proves that the end of the first decade of the 20^th century was for the Warsaw librarianship a time of development and changes, not a breakdown. In the conditions of the "Stolypin reaction", as well as social and cultural transformation, its enriched and changed model had evolved.