This is one of the most ambitious changes in recent years. Public libraries and media libraries, which are the first local cultural service in the country, are undergoing an unprecedented transformation of their activities. This transformation, accompanied by the “library plan” launched in 2018 by the Ministry of Culture, brings new ways of working with audiences, combining continuity and strong transformation of practices.
After “opening up more”, which was the extension of their opening hours, and “offering more”, which was the extension of their missions in the educational, social and digital fields, the third part of the plan, which was the subject of the second national meetings held on November 15 at the Public information library of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, focused on a new angle of this transformation: «better training» in library professions.
To illustrate this aspect, we looked at the publication of Territorial libraries, state support mechanisms and testimonies of elected officials a brochure developed by the National Federation of Communities for Culture (FNCC) in partnership with the Ministry of Culture, on the careers of five library professionals, which reflect the evolution of their skills and the renewal of public reading, indispensable conditions for a true cultural democracy ».
Libraries for children and toddlers
In Rennes, as everywhere else, we like to make children read, and we also like to make them read as a family. How do we do it? In the first place, early childhood should be included in the project developed jointly by the city librarians, elected officials and the advisor, who is responsible for the book and reading of the regional cultural affairs directorate (DRAC). This project, firmly embedded in a Contract territory reading (CTL or CDL, departmental contract) , one of the accompanying measures of the Ministry of Culture, allows to support a set of mediation actions, especially those that benefit early childhood.
For Malik Diallo, director of the library «Les Champs libres», in Rennes, nothing replaces « a continuous dialogue between elected officials, librarians and DRAC advisors, which reinforces the strictly political dimension of libraries. » It is because the commitment is huge and must be vitalized, reflected, improved, constantly reinvented.
Groups and early childhood professionals meet regularly in Rennes for animated reading sessions (“Early Childhood Fortnight”, “Doudou Week”, etc.). Families are also welcomed, as during «Summer in Rennes», in family meetings that are held in the evening, in the social common space, to promote the intergenerational.
All these initiatives can be supported by the programme Front Pages ” that provides financial support to communities to raise children’s awareness of books from an early age, and that allows departmental libraries to work with “early childhood” services departments, in particular the Centres for Maternal and Child Protection (PMI), or the Self-books ” designed by the Ministry of Culture, which trains parents for 8 to 10 months in children’s literature and shared reading.
Libraries for young people
Nancy has many remarkable initiatives, as Juliette Lenoir, general curator of the city’s libraries, explains. Icing on the cake, this ' inverted residence ” (you had to think about it!) who saw a fifth-grade class from a suburb set up for a week in a beautiful room in the heritage library, with 18th-century woodwork. Students had lunch at the nearby university restaurant and had their recreation in the library gardens. A comedian, a visual artist, a librarian came to animate a presentation of old collections around the theme of travel. The children were the object of a true testimony of hospitality that will mark them noticeably, without doubt.
Because not all children and parents have the chance to read books. Arts and Cultural Education (EAC) has this advantage of being able to reach children and young people whose parents have moved away from reading, in classes, at school, in middle school and in high school. As a result, the annual "Diving in Reading" operation, which affects almost all children in this age group, was launched at the CP address in Nancy: each one receives a sheet to complete with available stickers that he will go to all libraries and bookstores of the city.
Again, support from the DRAC, the CTL or CDL framework, and things like “First Pages” are valuable. In addition, there are other state mechanisms to encourage partnerships, particularly with schools. The National Book Centre (CNL) helps libraries purchase appropriate books and supports their mediation efforts. culture passAs for him, he is not outdone, since his “collective share” allows librarians to offer their teachers their cultural offer, so to speak, turnkey (meetings with authors, workshops, concerts, etc.). Libraries also include their individual offers for 15-20 year-olds. Another scheme, ' Young people in bookshops » which makes it possible to organize a series of exciting highlights with all partners (authors, publishers, book fairs, libraries, etc.).
Libraries for all
Librarians do not hide in their books, far from it! For years now, they have developed strong relationships with social actors in the territories. The challenge, of course, is to ensure access to books and reading not only for young people and families, but also for those in the hands of the justice system, in health or medical-social institutions, or with disabilities. They include this concerted policy in a CTL or a CDL and can also call on the National Book Centre (CNL) which finances with them specific projects, mediations and acquisitions of works adapted to these audiences.
In the municipality of Vannes, for example, there is a town with a 200-seat prison, to which will soon be added a 700-seat penitentiary centre, the culture assistant, Fabien le Guernevé, and the libraries, work closely with the Service penitentiaire d'insertion probatoire (SPIP) of Morbihan, and with the Ligue de l'enseignement, the well-known association of popular education. As Françoise Le Viavant, Director of the Vannes Media Libraries, explains, our media libraries offer presentations of books to inmates as well as selections of documents related to cultural projects set up by the Ligue de l'enseignement. Some actions in libraries are also offered to inmates. I think for example of this musical encounter on the Blues, in the form of workshops. Or to meetings with authors and illustrators, in the Maison d'Arrêt, on the occasion of the Livre'à Vannes festival. »
Vis-à-vis the prevented public, the four media libraries of Vannes are organized mainly around the device Easy to read ». This label indicates spaces open to all audiences and especially to people who have never really mastered the learning of reading or who have unlearned to read. Acquisitions and mediations are then considered and financed in connection with the regional agency Livre et lecture in Brittany, and through a grant from the CNL supplemented by a financial effort of the City. « We also experimented with a human library, adds Fabien le Guernevé. A media library invites people to tell their personal stories. One of the themes was discrimination, with very strong stories: the elderly, the young… The story of one of our agents, with a cognitive disability, was exciting! »
Digitized digital libraries
« Today, digital technology is a powerful tool to help social integration, vocational retraining, language learning, administrative assistance, etc. Hence the interest of the label Reference Digital Library » (BNR), awarded by the Ministry of Culture, explains Yoann Bourion, Director of Libraries of the City of Bordeaux : the accompaniment of a political project of public reading and not only of development or equipment. In Bordeaux, our approach is based on accessibility and inclusion in digital everyday life. This does not prevent us from promoting our heritage collections (the digitization of the Montaigne, Montesquieu, Mauriac, Port of Bordeaux archives, etc.) that make Bordeaux today France’s candidate for the Unesco label “ Memory of the World » ! »
Thanks to the BNR label, which it hopes to renew in 2023, and which often covers more than 50% of the costs of a project, the City of Bordeaux develops a true digital convergence between the libraries of the Metropolisexplains Dimitri Boutleux, Deputy Mayor of Bordeaux for Culture. It allows data sharing that increases the network effect and a stronger sense of territorial belonging. In this way, we can put digital at the heart of our public policy strategies. For example, our cycle of critical thinking conferences, the “Citizen’s Factory”, is based on video recordings for podcasts, the creation of a YouTube channel, downloads of e-books, digital resources for researchers, teachers… Through this we also try to fight against the digital divide and illiteracy. »
A good public policy is obviously based on good tools capable of supporting a range of services adapted to users' needs. They now expect to find quality equipment in a media library (computers, tablets, game consoles, 3D printers, etc.). ), but also online resources and digitized works, to educate, inform, train, communicate, and also entertain… They are interested in initiation, for example, to digital creation (books in augmented reality, sound and visual creation, etc.). In this sense, the transformation of libraries has been powerfully engaged. It commissions investments in equipment and training to strengthen the skills of professionals (business software, wifi, RFID…). These are all costly and complex operations where the State accompanies the investments of the communities, thanks to the special assistance «Libraries» of the General decentralisation allocation (DGD), one of the devices of the Ministry of Culture to accompany libraries.
Libraries without walls
If you’re not going to the library, why wouldn’t the library go to you? When you are at the beach, for example, or elsewhere, or even at home, but far from the city? Unrealistic? Not at all. Libraries, as we know, are “outside the walls”. Their way of inventing new ways of getting in touch with citizens: services for carrying documents at home, especially for vulnerable people, who do not or rarely travel, and a wide variety of actions and activities that range from travelling exhibitions to outdoor activities, including mediation in prison and EHPAD…
For Cécile Helle, Mayor of Avignon, revitalizing cultural policy at the city level requires libraries, which are the only public cultural facilities present in all neighbourhoods. » But far from stopping there, the municipal team, with the support of the DRAC and the DGD, took to the game of developing a library outside the walls. « During the lockdown periods of the health crisis, we developed click & collect and audio playback, and then outdoor playback in parks. Then, to put this action into effect over time, we called upon the company that created a mobile library for the NGO Bibliothèque sans frontières: Ideas Box. These are several modules (young audiences, adults, magazine-press, toy library, tablets with digital books) stored in pedestals with wheels.
« Starting in the spring, we are deploying these Ideas Box with great success in the parks of the city. A cultural picnic atmosphere on a hundred square meters! With two more mediators in our team, we try to go to the end of our proposal: not to stick to cultural consumerism or "occupational" but to bring people to discover, through time of readings or workshops, the real cultural contribution of a library and to rediscover the pleasure of reading. It must, in my opinion, be thought of as a gateway to the more traditional network of libraries in the city. »
Note: the new repository of library skills and key figures are resources proposed by the Ministry of Culture.
Find all the useful information on the website of the National Federation of Local Authorities for Culture, and in particular his "Libraries" guide available online.
Skills, innovation, digital… 10 objectives to better train professionals
1. Continued consultation with all stakeholders.
2. Publishing statistics about library professionals and their access to training.
3. A shared and evolving national competency framework.
4. Better coordination of training delivery at the regional level to make it more readable and accessible.
5. Arrangements for access to competitions better suited to future vocational skills and taking into account the reform of several university degrees.
6. Enhanced and extended post-recruitment training to provide employers with better trained managers for their new responsibilities.
7. A reflection on the development of basic training that is freely available online.
8. Innovative and adapted training methods in overseas countries.
9. Encouragement to develop library learning.
10. An annual meeting, allowing the profession to discuss these training issues and to follow the progress of the various projects.
To be noted: these objectives, identified within the framework of a broad consultation involving the National Centre of the Territorial Public Service and all the partners (professionals, elected officials and actors of the training), were presented at these Assizes and are being implemented.
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