Extension of opening hours
Offering extended opening hours adapted to the expectations of the population they serve is one of the first conditions for libraries to be able to guarantee access to the collections and services they offer to all audiences.
Open more, open better
The President of the Republic having made the opening of libraries one of his priorities, Franck Riester accompanies a broad reflection on access to libraries at the national level.
One mission embassy was entrusted to Erik Orsenna to promote widely open libraries. At the end of a Tour de France of libraries, which made it possible to mobilize elected officials and professionals around the evolution of libraries, the academician submitted his report on 20 February 2018 Travel to Library Country: read today, read tomorrow. Highlighting the fundamental role played by libraries in access to culture, the report urges elected and professional libraries to align library opening hours "with the times of the city", taking into account the specific characteristics of each territory.
Key figures
9pm
This is theaverage hourly range of a library serving more than 2,000 inhabitants. In communities of more than 100,000 people, it is 42 hours (data from the 2018 survey of the Observatoire de la Lecture Publique). Between 2014 and 2018, the average opening amplitude increased by 2%.
218 days
It seact of the number of days in theyear in which libraries serving more than 2,000 people are open. That is 265 for communities over 100,000.
The State’s support system
Since the modification of the special "libraries" competition within the general decentralization endowment (DGD) (Decree 2016-423 of 8 April 2016), local authorities wishing to engage in a project to extend and adapt the schedules of their library(s) may receive financial support from the State. The circular of 15 June 2016 specifies the eligibility conditions for projects and administrative procedures.
Several types of expenditure relating to plans to extend opening hours are eligible for State aid:
- those relating to the establishment of a temporal diagnosis
- additional personnel costs related to the project
- adaptation of premises, equipment or computer systems
- costs related to evaluation and communication around the project
- the animation and mediation actions taking place during the extended hours
In 2018, a target of 400 projects supported by the special "libraries" competition was set. This has been exceeded: since 2016, 440 local authorities of very different sizes have been financially supported to extend the hours of their libraries.