In 1894 the nationally aware Slovene workers in Maribor established The Workers’ Reading and Singing Society in Maribor under the auspices of Slovene catholic and' liberal townspeople. It was modelled after the middleclass Slavonic Reading Room. The Society’s extremely poor library was supposed to contribute to the education of the workers and the cultivation of Slovene. When the Society grew weaker after 1919 unsuccessful attempts were made to strengthen the reading room for Slovene papers in the Germanized suburban Studenci.