History of public reading : an introduction

After the First World War, the concept of public reading appears for the first time as a new attitude towards popular reading. Although received without enthousiasm, this new concept of the Library's role as an important element of leisure, of culture, of training, of popularization and information, of documentation and research, of preservation steadily grew until the setting up in 1945 of the Direction des bibliothèques et de la lecture publique. In this article are examined in detail two points: history of the term and contents of public reading
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