Eugène Morel and the section of modern libraries: an early-twentieth-century take on professional training for librarians

Eugène Morel is remembered for his diatribes against the libraries of his day and for his project for a modern system of public libraries. He held that the path to achieving his ideal lay in establishing proper professional training for future librarians. His essay La librairie publique lays out an ambitious training programme. The conferences for the section of modern libraries, held between 1910 and 1914, were just one aspect of his project. They offered a rich forum for debate for forward-thinking librarians of the day as well as the opportunity to develop an extremely modern vision of libraries and librarianship as a profession, which is still highly relevant today.
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