American Librarians Opened a Reading Room in Paris in 1918

The American Library Association raised five million dollars for its Library War Service and pushed more than ten million books and magazines out to soldiers across five thousand locations, thirty six of them purpose built camp libraries. April White follows that effort to 10 rue de l'Elysee in Paris, where a reading room of more than seven thousand titles opened on 29 August 1918. Photographs held by the American Library in Paris show the circulation desk, the shipping department and the staff, among them Mary Josephine Booth, forty two that year, who handed out magazines to departing soldiers and then went home to Illinois for twenty five more years.