1920

ALA opened a library for American military personnel in Paris during 1918. This library was later established (1920) as the American Library in Paris

In response to pressure from Americans in Paris, ALA agreed to leave the books and equipment, and to provide a $25,000 "endowment," to continue the wartime library in Paris.

"During the closing years of World War I, when the United States entered the conflict, hundreds of American libraries launched the Library War Service, a massive project to send books to the doughboys fighting in the trenches - by the Armistice, nearly a million and a half books.

The American Library in Paris was founded in 1920 by the American Library Association with a core collection of those wartime books and a motto about the spirit of its creation: Atrum post bellum, ex libris lux: After the darkness of war, the light of books. Its charter promised to bring the best of American literature and culture, and library science, to readers in France." Read More from the American Library in Paris