TY - JOUR
T1 - “Spreading the Word” in the Polish People’s Republic: the British Council and the English Reading Room at the Jagiellonian Library in Kraków, 1946-1989
T2 - The British Council and the English Reading Room at the Jagiellonian Library in Kraków, 1946-1989
AU - Sroka, Marek
N1 - Funding Information:
48. One of the first posts funded by the Council included a lecturer at the Catholic University of Lublin.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 CILIP.
PY - 2020/12
Y1 - 2020/12
N2 - The British Council's library work in Communist Poland remains relatively unknown. This paper contributes to a better understanding of British cultural influence in that part of Europe by examining the British Council's efforts in sharing the works of British culture, literature, and science with Polish society in the context of sometimes turbulent Cold War cultural relations between Poland and Britain. Particular attention is given to the Jagiellonian Library English Reading Room, which for decades remained the only British Council-sponsored regional reading centre outside Warsaw. It offers insight into the Council's library work in the university setting, reassuring, if only indirectly, the principles of academic and intellectual freedom.
AB - The British Council's library work in Communist Poland remains relatively unknown. This paper contributes to a better understanding of British cultural influence in that part of Europe by examining the British Council's efforts in sharing the works of British culture, literature, and science with Polish society in the context of sometimes turbulent Cold War cultural relations between Poland and Britain. Particular attention is given to the Jagiellonian Library English Reading Room, which for decades remained the only British Council-sponsored regional reading centre outside Warsaw. It offers insight into the Council's library work in the university setting, reassuring, if only indirectly, the principles of academic and intellectual freedom.
KW - British books
KW - British Council
KW - British Council Reading Room
KW - Jagiellonian Library
KW - Jagiellonian University
KW - Periodicals
KW - Poland
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85124340667&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85124340667&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3366/lih.2020.0031
DO - 10.3366/lih.2020.0031
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85124340667
SN - 1758-3489
VL - 36
SP - 175
EP - 193
JO - Library and Information History
JF - Library and Information History
IS - 3
ER -