Katarzyna Jarzyńska

University of Warsaw

“He lived the life of his library.” Egodocuments of Janusz Krajewski (1908–2000), First Former Director of Joint Libraries as a Source to Reconstruct the Development of Professional Scientific Librarianship in the Polish People’s Republic

The Joint Libraries of the Faculties of Philosophy and Sociology of the University of Warsaw, the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, and the Polish Philosophical Society were founded in the 1950s. The task of organizing them and merging three complementary book collections into Joint Libraries fell to Janusz Krajewski, who devoted nearly 20 years of his life to the library. The first former director of Joint Libraries was a person with a rich biography. He was passionate about archery, represented Poland in the national team, took part in the Warsaw Uprising, and studied philosophy. He also undertook bibliographic work in this discipline, supporting the collection of sources for the 3-volume “History of Philosophy” by W. Tatarkiewicz. Before his death, he bequeathed a rich collection of books and archival resources to his library. Its ego-documents include life diaries, CVs prepared for professional purposes, as well as small notes. All this material will be used to recreate his role in building the research workshop for scientists in the field of humanities and social sciences, and will also make a contribution to the reconstruction of the history of professionalization of scientific librarianship in the early postwar period.