The Reading Library - An International ConceptTuula H. Laaksovirta
There were dozens of reading libraries in Europe at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, so that the idea of the Vaasa Reading Society (1794) may in fact have been taken as well from Karlskrona, Sweden, as from Edinburgh in Scotland or any of the French reading cabinets (cabinet de lecture). Benjamin Franklin's library in Philadelphia, America, was also known in Europe at that time.
The common concern behind the reading societies was very similar throughout Europe. The idea of the Enlightenment was at the background, especially aiming at civilising the bourgeoisie. Book shops, which offered reading from entertainment to politics, were becoming more common, and this also affected the birth of libraries. There were 273 novels and 113 travel books in the Vaasa Reading Society. Travel books were fashionable reading, fighting for popularity with novels. TheVaasa Reading Society also collected biographies and nonfiction books, which totalled up to 226 volumes.
Although many of these early reading societies and libraries died out, reading did not die, but spread ever wider. Even women became avid readers, and soon they themselves began to write. The books of these early libraries, part of which ended up in later libraries, today form a valuable part of our rich cultural heritage.
Translated by Liisa Salmi