Libraries and reading points in Mayotte: a national priority

Accessible to all, libraries help prevent and combat exclusion.  A place where people want to go and not a place where they spend, a place for exchanges and meetings, a place of life, the challenge for communities today is to build a cultural policy adapted to the needs of the population. As the first local cultural equipment, libraries are now seeking to adapt their services to the real needs of their public, transforming into real “cultural public service houses” Information and services aimed at combating illiteracy, job-search, vocational integration and school support.

The approach of the book and reading in the library is therefore complementary to that of the school, it rests above all on the pleasure and the play in order to adapt to the different audiences that it hosts.

And for the 101^e department?

In Mayotte, libraries open an average of 31.5 hours per week for communities ranging from 5,500 inhabitants (Kani-Kéli) to over 71,400 (Mamoudzou). On the other hand, the time slots chosen to open the library are still too often modelled on those of the town halls. No Mayotte library opens on Saturday afternoons, and they close at 5 p.m. In order to support elected officials and book professionals in the transformation of Mahora libraries into a local cultural service, DAC Mayotte and its partners offer decision support tools. 

The implementation of public reading policies in France is the responsibility of three levels of territorial administration:

• the State determines the broad national guidelines set by the Direction of book and reading and implemented in each region by the Cultural Affairs Directorate (DAC);
• the Department exercises this competence through departmental lending libraries (BDP);
• municipalities and communities of municipalities exercise their responsibilities over municipal or intercommunal libraries.

Public reading is a mandatory competence of the department. Each department defines its own objectives in this area and the means allocated to achieve them. The latest data published in the BDP guide show that a growing number of French departments have public reading development plans in their territory. These plans provide for the development of a structured reading network at the departmental level, close to the public and offering adapted and quality services.

In Mayotte, the Departmental Directorate of Books and Public Reading (DDLLP) concentrates its actions around five essential missions: project assistance, document lending, network animation, network formation, legal deposit.

Departmental Directorate of Books and Public Reading
Contact: Alain Kamal-Martial, Director
Cavani, rue du Stade | 97.600 Mamoudzou 
Tel. 02 69 64 93 50

The creation of theRegional Agency for Books and Reading (ARLL), listed in plan Mayotte 2025, an ambition for the Republic » whose missions have been defined in the cultural development agreement signed between the Department and the State (2014), made it possible to have a common operator DAC/local authorities on which to rely for the construction of a public reading offer adapted to the needs of the territory.

In this context, the ARLL accompanies municipalities who wish to implement their communal scheme of public reading. This support translates into the implementation of a diagnosis, a decision support tool for the drafting of a cultural project that is as close as possible to the needs of the population, a follow-up of requests for General Decentralization Endowment (DGD) in connection with the DAC, support on any grant application for the implementation of animations around the book in the municipalities (National Book Centre, national calls for projects of the Ministry of Culture, etc.).

In addition to supporting communities, the ARLL is positioning itself as a resource centre and a forum for exchanges for book professionals. The ARLL aims to structure the sector throughout the territory, it accompanies projects related to the book economy and the animation of literary life in partnership with the actors of the book who wish: librarians, ViceRectorate, popular education associations, etc.).

Regional Agency for Books and Reading of Mayotte
House for all in Ongoujou | 97.660 Dembeni | Tel. 06 39 04 16 68
 

• Interregional Book and Reading Federation
• Association internationale des libraires francophones
• National Publishing Union
• Poets' spring
• House of Writers and Literature (MEL)
• Société des gens de lettres (SGDL)
• Society of Playwrights (SACD)
• Association pour la gestion de la sécurité sociale des auteurs (Agessa) and Maison des artistes
• The house of the tale