Bruno Liesen
Professional historian, scientific editor and author, I share my activities between the history of the printed book and of reading, on the one hand, and the history of blindness, on the other. For more than 20 years, I have worked part-time as a researcher and communication advisor at the Ligue Braille, a Belgian association dedicated to the cause of visually impaired people. At the same time, in the field of antiquarian books, I work with Arenberg Auctions (merger of the Brussels auction houses Henri Godts and Romantic Agony). In addition, I am a scientific collaborator of the sociAMM (Ancient, Medieval and Modern Societies) research unit at the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB, Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences).
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Event by Bruno Liesen
Pour faire le point sur ces évolutions, le Groupe de contact du FNRS « Documents rares et précieux » organisera, le 13 mars 2015 à la Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, une table ronde réunissant sept conservateurs de réserve précieuse, en charge de collections publiques, universitaires et patrimoniales.
Papers by Bruno Liesen
In Belgium, the first intention was to create a reading room for children in Leuven called "L'Heure Joyeuse". However, it was in Brussels that the first Heure Joyeuse was inaugurated on 24 September 1920, four years before the one in Paris. Why Brussels? Mainly because of the tenacity of a remarkable woman, Lilly Elisabeth Carter, a pedagogue of English origin born in Brussels and naturalized Belgian, director of the Brussels City's "Cours d'éducation".
Pour faire le point sur ces évolutions, le Groupe de contact du FNRS « Documents rares et précieux » organisera, le 13 mars 2015 à la Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, une table ronde réunissant sept conservateurs de réserve précieuse, en charge de collections publiques, universitaires et patrimoniales.
In Belgium, the first intention was to create a reading room for children in Leuven called "L'Heure Joyeuse". However, it was in Brussels that the first Heure Joyeuse was inaugurated on 24 September 1920, four years before the one in Paris. Why Brussels? Mainly because of the tenacity of a remarkable woman, Lilly Elisabeth Carter, a pedagogue of English origin born in Brussels and naturalized Belgian, director of the Brussels City's "Cours d'éducation".
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As its name indicates, the popular library was aimed at "the people", i.e., originally, the most modest people: workers, craftsmen, peasants, etc. Its avowed objective was to continue the work of education and instruction begun at school. This institution of reading developed in our country at the beginning of the 19th century and took off in the 1860s, thanks to several converging factors: public education became more widespread, democratic ideas gained ground, and industrialisation progressed in leaps and bounds. The book market was also transformed and books, once a luxury product reserved for the social elite, became a mass market product.