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FOREIGN COUNTRIES AND DANISH PUBLIC LIBRARIES_________121
hagen Library in 1912 and the year following, the grants from the State
flowing in and gradually becoming more ample had the effect, when the
time was ripe, that a Danish Public Libraries Act had to be and could be
carried through. The Anglo-American Library Spirit had gradually become
so strong that the Legislation also became affected by it and in 1920 we
received the first proper Libraries Act ön the European continent. At the
same time Prof. Steenberg retired on account of ill-health and was succeeded
by the present Director of Libraries, Th. Dessin g, who since 1912 had
been Steenberg’s assistant in the central administration of the public
libra-ries. The act, which only applies to Public-Libraries, fixed already
de-veloped practice, made fast rules for grants (strongly influenced by a
Norwegian proposition that had as yet not been carried through), formed more
or less concretely formulated claims upon the Libraries’ activities and stock
of books, adopted the Central-Libraries and allowed them special grants
for their particular purposes, re-modelled the existing Adviser Service into
the State Library Commission (according to American pattern) and
appo-inted its Director to the post of Head of a State Library School for
Public-Library Assistants. The act has now been in force 9 years and the
development the libraries have gone through under it is far beyond
com-parison with what took place during the previous 25 years.
Although the extension of smaller country-libraries leaves much to be
desired, it is apparent that the tendency of the act has been the right one,
containing the possibility for a rational book-supply to all the country’s
inhabitants.
The Danish law is, therefore, also an object of keen interest to other
countries. The Finnish act (of 1928) before mentioned, is directly
influenced ön many points by it, as is also the Swedish law proposal, which is to
be dealt with this year. The Belgian act (of 1921) shows many points of
similarity to the Danish one and in the Lettish Library Council’s first
An-nual Report (1926) the whole of the Danish Library Act is reprinted
to-gether with the accompanying Circular from the Director of Libraries,
probably not without the object of drawing attention to points worthy of
imitation.
For a number of years it can be said that Denmark has been purely
recipient of the Library ideas of other countries and during this time to
have adopted the technic of the English-speaking nations practically
un-altered. After the ideas had found admittance, independent forms of
orga-nization and independent laws followed, which made their influence felt
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