Friday, December 2, 2011

ALA's WWI Library Sun Parlor in Coblenz, Germany


One of my library postcard collecting interests is postcards that the American Library Association produced to promote its Library War Service during World War I. Most of my postcards depict camp and hospital libraries in the United States. Postcards showing Library War Service activities in Germany and France are rare. I was pleased to add a postcard of ALA's library in Coblenz, Germany (shown above) to my collection even though its not in great shape. It is unused. The postcard depicts the sun parlor of the library, and one of the captions reads, "For men off duty, the sun parlor in the American Library at Coblenz furnishes a comfortable place to look over the newspapers from home."  Another caption reads, "The American Library Association is maintaining a Library at Coblenz, all service being free to the entire personnel of the Army of Occupation." The postcard shows a large rack of newspapers in the background and three soldiers engaged in reading.

1 comment:

Jon Eaker said...

You can find more WWI library photos at the Library of Congress:

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2004668919/

http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/00650022/