L'Heure Joyeuse, the First Children's Library in France: Its Contribution to a New Paradigm for Public Libraries

Abstract

L'Heure Joyeuse, the children's library set up in Paris in 1923 as a gift of an American philanthropic group, played a unique role in the transformation of French public library service. Because the establishment of l'Heure Joyeuse preceded the acceptance of the open-access, user-centered public library in France, the model children's library served as an exemplar of a new paradigm of librarianship. This article analyzes the way in which the l'Heure Joyeuse was used as a means of testing the viability of adapting the Anglo-American approach to public library service in France