Bookcase
Bookcase
Teachers, children, students, researchers passionate about reading or casual readers, the departments of libraries of all ages, needs and desires to read. There are more than 16,000 libraries in France. Thanks to this immense network, 67 million French people can have access to reading and its teachings, no matter where they live in the territory. The Ministry of Culture and local and regional authorities work on a daily basis to facilitate its access and to evolve its offer as practices evolve.
From municipal libraries to the BNF, a very wide range of libraries in the territory
There are different types of libraries in France. They can thus depend on the trusteeship of the Ministry of Culture or of local and regional authorities according to their specificities, their mission, their staff or even their users.
Not one but libraries: definition and specificities of reading and research institutions
Indeed, that differentiates a bookcase of a media library or a documentation centre ? For the user the differences are minimal in that they depend mainly on the respective missions of the institutions: public or private, such or such field (scientific, literary, historical...) or the type of documents: from the book to the media. Nevertheless, the definition is often unchanged: the library is a place with the dual purpose of conservation and the consultation, on-site or in the form of loans, knowledge documents according to a given organizational method.
The major libraries of France managed by the Ministry of Culture
Within the Ministry of Culture, libraries are administered by the Directorate media and cultural industries and its Book and Reading Service. In addition to its role in regulating and evaluating the book chain, it is responsible for three public reading libraries or study and research libraries :
- the National Library of France (BNF)
- the Public Information Library (BPI)
- the National Book Centre
Moreover, this service aims at the application of the French cultural policy on libraries and book economy (booksellers, publishers...) both on these three major national libraries and on those supervised by local authorities.
Local authorities responsible for many types of libraries
Different types of libraries in the territories of the communities. These include:
- Departmental Libraries
- Municipal Libraries
- Libraries of associations
- Enterprise libraries;
- Enterprise libraries;
- Prison libraries
- Hospital libraries
The Higher Education Library, an important non-specialized library, a school library and a specialized library are under the supervision of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research.
Departments or territories have the dual mission of managing, funding and modernizing these unique places of culture.
Follow the evolution of reading practices to make the library evolve
If the origins of the library idea go back to antiquity or even pre-dating, its model has evolved over the ages and needs of its visitors, with the primary mission always to be a place of knowledge accessible to all citizens.
An observatory of public reading to follow the activity of libraries in the territory
Since 1960, thepublic reading observatory has the mission to "collect, analyze and disseminate the activity data of all the municipal, intercommunal and departmental libraries." With the help of departmental advisors, the observatory publishes annually a summary of activity data of tens of thousands of departmental libraries. These data collected each year give rise to a synthesis, generally over three years, notably available here.
However, the whole purpose of these complex analyses is simple:
better understand the real uses of libraries to perfect an offer in the most appropriate way possible. We see the example in the "Library map" in recent years.
A library plan to expand library opening hours and offer more services
Is the library open? Will I find the book I’m looking for? When to go to the library ? These are all questions that can hinder citizens to invest these places to read a book, studying, cultivating, learning or escaping.
Conscious of these obstacles to access to culture, Minister Françoise Nyssen, launched in 2018, the "Library Plan". A plan to transform these infrastructures with two watchwords: "Open more" and "Offer more". Leaving their walls, widening the opening hours, offering more services and "reading spaces", many solutions have been found to revitalize these places of public reading through partnerships between national initiatives and communities.
To learn more about the "Library Map":
Far beyond the preconceived image of the library, the renovation of these places allows more attractiveness with a modernized reception: much more than these books, films, music, games-Videos and other multimedia content fully integrate collections for both social and intergenerational inclusion. Digital and the diversity of the media offer is indeed a crucial for these places of knowledge in the 21st century.
The digital library as a tool for promoting the public library
A true mirror of the evolution of society, the consumption of cultural goods is transformed by the Internet and libraries must take part. From 2010, the 14 proposals for the reading development Frédéric Mitterand, then Minister of Culture, highlighting the importance of digital technology to attract new readers and contribute to the modernization of practice. A need for digitalization that libraries could not escape. One objective emerges from this: to become digital reference libraries (BNR).
Accompanied by the financial support of the Ministry of Culture in partnership with the action of local authorities but also associations that work for the development of reading among young people and with populations remote from reading, 39 libraries receive the label in 2019.
Thanks in particular to digital technology, but also to many other developments in access to libraries, these places of culture are transformed through associative and public actions, both national and local. While maintaining their primary mission, they now also become the territory of animations and games, exchanges and sharing like the Reading nights, a national event created in 2017 by the Ministry and offering programming for all ages and families.
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