The Academic Cooperative Bookstore “Skrypt” in Toruń in the years 1945-1950

Abstract

The article presents the Academic Cooperative Bookstore „Skrypt” active in the years 1945-1950 at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń (NCU) as an independent agency of the students’ organisation “BratniaPomoc” (Eng. Brotherhly Help). Its tasks included copying and sale of university textbooks for the NCU students. The author, referring to archive documents and found publications of the “Skrypt”, presents a brief history of students’ organisations at the NCU in that period; origins, aims, organisation, personal and financial matters of the “Skrypt”; its publishing activity, technical infrastructure, bookselling, premises and staff, as well as the process of its liquidation in the years 1949-1952. Concluding she states, that the Academic Cooperative Bookstore published useful textbooks, mostly written by the NCU lecturers. This production was completed with lecturers’ books published by the private Scientific Bookstore of T. Szczęsny in Toruń. After liquidation of these two institutions, their functions were taken over by the Polish Scientific Publishers PWN, cooperating with the NCU, and since 1956 a newly created NCU University Press. The article is closed with the list of 34 identified Publications of the Academic Cooperative Bookstore “Skrypt”.