Recommendations for reading and their educational function in the light of selected Polish guides for librarians and catalogs of books published in the years 1918-1939

Abstract

In the interwar period about 50 different types of guides for librarians and bookselling guides were published in Poland. Many of them contained mainly advices on setting up libraries, organizing them and gathering collections, but both types contained information on selection of books in terms of their educational function. 1) The aim of the research is the presentation of selected guides issued in Poland in 1918-1939, which were addressed to employees of various types of libraries: public, school, parish, home, etc. and their lists of books and recommenda­tions depending on the targeted reader. 2) Materials and methods: selection of guides, comparative method, literature analysis, bibliographic method. 3) Applications are the answers to the following questions: Were the reading recommendations in the analyzed manuals addressed only to the book professionals, as an aid in completing book collections and making reading choices, or to the readers as well? Which educational models were most important, to what extent they referred to the curricula in schools? Whether censorship was taking place (they included titles that should not be read), etc.?

Keywords

• library pedagogy, reading recommendations, guides for librarians, bookselling guides, reading in the first half of the 20th century, educational function of the book