State academic libraries in the Second Polish Commonwealth of Nations : specific formal-legal regulations

The article presents the formal-legal regulations relating to the functioning of state academic libraries in the Second Polish Commonwealth of Nations. The paper has the character of a source material and is fundamentally based on an analysis of state legislation from the years 1920-1939, supplemented with examples taken from the statutes of the Jan Kazimierz University in Lvov and the Academy of Mining in Cracow. The article has been divided into six chapters. In the introduction, the author discusses briefly the origin of the institution of the library as a necessary unit of every higher school of learning. He presents the legal grounds on which the activity of academic institutions is based and discusses briefly the system of state academic education. Subsequently, he characterizes the place of the library in the organizational structure of a state academic institution in the Second Polish Commonwealth of Nations and comes forward with a proposition of a classification of such libraries. He discusses the problem of the so called "obligatory copy" with regard to the university libraries and the status of such libraries within the national network of regional libraries, established officially in 1934. He also presents the basic issues relating to the functionaries of academic libraries, paying special attention to the post of library manager. Subsequently, he analyzes the institution of the library commission, an obligatory advisory organ operating within each academic library. The author concludes his paper with the presentation of the major trends as regards the attitude of the state legislator to the issue of the functioning of academic libraries