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France |
PULMAN COUNTRY report
INFormation on public libraries
The organisation of public
libraries.......................................................... 3
Innovative projects in French
public libraries.................................... 8
PULMAN COUNTRY Report
information on public libraries
Public
libraries in France have, since 1803, been under the responsibility of the
districts. There are about 36,000 districts in France (32,000 of them being
districts of less than 2000 inhabitants). The district libraries serve the
inhabitants of the district as well as the surrounding localities.
However,
the State is responsible for the equal access of the citizens to culture.
Governmental subsidies to public libraries for the construction of buildings or
for automation are managed by the local directions for cultural affairs
(Directions Régionales des Affaires Culturelles or DRAC).
The
Ministry of Culture and its regional structures (there are 22 regions and
therefore 22 "DRACs"), more generally address issues related to the
written document at several levels:
-
The
regional DRACs finance the creation and the conversion of public libraries;
-
The
regional DRACs work on the optimization of the whole economic sector
represented by the book (interaction with authors, publishers, bookshops,
exhibits);
-
The
regional DRACs work on developing reading for those with special needs
(hospitals, jails, illiterates);
-
The
regional DRACs work on the written cultural heritage;
-
The
regional DRACs participate in the training of librarians (financing, adapting
curricula to meet new needs, such as NITC related matters).
Since 1986, the departmental councils administer certain libraries of the departments. Their mission is to serve the municipalities of the department having less than 10,000 inhabitants, to help constitute their collections, to lend out works and documents, which are made available by through municipal libraries (or their associates) in small communities to the inhabitants of rural areas.
In 1993
the French government created special subsidies for public libraries. These
subsidies are divided into three parts: "the first part finances running
costs; the second part is an equipment grant for public libraries and the third
part is an equipment grant for public libraries with regional extension".
The second part finances "construction, enlargement, furnishing, first
automation and renewal of the library system after five years and also
networking".
Public
libraries are funded by the State when established or when expanded (investing
in or starting very important works), but the local government subsidises 97 %
of the operational costs (staff, acquisitions, and maintenance of buildings…).
Thus, the municipality (the mayor, the local council) has all the powers of
decision concerning the appointments of officials, the budget and the decisions
concerning expenses of all kinds (including the buying of books, disks,
periodicals).
In this
way the elected decision-makers of the communities called ‘territorial’ have
all the authority and all the power to run their institutions according to
their own decisions. The State control is carried out in two ways:
-
As regards
the legality of the administrative measures (in particular the legal form of
the budget, the decisions taken in council) but never whether these decisions
are desirable.
-
As
regards the neutrality of the territorial local authorities towards the private
business sector, which ought not to be favoured when choosing providers of
services (Codes concerning business agreements within the public sector).
As
concerns the libraries, the State control is strictly ‘technical’. It works
through the General Inspection of the Libraries (l’Inspection génerale des
bibliothèques) at the request of the Minister of Culture. It concerns the
administration of the collections, especially in relation to the national
heritage, rare and ancient, regarding the disposals… A regulating clause of the
ordinance establishing this control states that the libraries are to respect
the ‘pluralism’. Yet this text has been provided with no sanctions towards the
communities which do not apply to it, rendering the clause somewhat ineffective.
Here are
a few statistics about libraries usage of ICT, software and Internet included.
All figures date from 2000, and come from the French culture ministry. All
percentages are comparisons with the total of French public libraries (2 888,
100%).
Library cataloguing software
|
Public
Libraries from cities of…inhabitants |
Libraries
with cataloguing software |
%
OF concerned cities |
%
of served population |
|
Paris |
1 |
100% |
100% |
|
More than 300 000 |
4 |
100% |
100% |
|
100 000 to 300 000 |
35 |
100% |
100% |
|
50 000 to 100 000 |
73 |
90.1% |
90.9% |
|
20 000 to 50 000 |
260 |
85.2% |
86.1% |
|
10 000 to 20 000 |
322 |
76.3% |
76.8% |
|
5 0000 to 10 000 |
462 |
71.7% |
72.1% |
|
2 000 to 5 000 |
492 |
53.4% |
54.9% |
|
Less than 2 000 |
222 |
46.9% |
48.1% |
|
ALL |
1 871 |
64.8% |
84% |
1 871
libraries, out of 2888, are using such software (1 622 in 1999), which
represents 64.8 % of public libraries and covers 84 % of the served population:
-
100 %
of the cities with more than 100 000 inhabitants,
-
51.2 %
of the cities with more than 5 000 inhabitants (42.7 % in 1999)
Public access to the catalogue
|
Public
Libraries from cities of…inhabitants |
Libraries
with public access to the CATALOGUE |
TOTAL
Nb of STATIONS |
AVERAGE
NB OF STATIONS/LIBRARY |
|
Paris |
1 |
193 |
193 |
|
More than 300 000 |
3 |
194 |
65 |
|
100 000 to 300 000 |
33 |
1086 |
33 |
|
50 000 to 100 000 |
64 |
861 |
13 |
|
20 000 to 50 000 |
228 |
1 590 |
7 |
|
10 000 to 20 000 |
263 |
1 091 |
4 |
|
5 0000 to 10 000 |
332 |
883 |
3 |
|
2 000 to 5 000 |
353 |
750 |
2 |
|
Less than 2 000 |
166 |
329 |
2 |
|
ALL |
1443 |
9 967 |
5 |
1 443
(50%) public libraries offer 6 967 stations for public access to the catalogue.
The national average figure is 2.5 stations per 10 000 inhabitants.
511
(17.8%) equipped libraries do not provide public access to catalogue. In some
cases, the implementation of computers is not achieved; in other cases, the
public can use the French Minitel terminals which are not considered as
computers and therefore, not evaluated here.
Public access to the Internet
|
Public
Libraries from cities of…inhabitants |
Libraries
with public access to the Internet |
Nb
of public access |
%
of served population |
|
Paris |
1 |
21 |
100% |
|
More than 300 000 |
3 |
44 |
82.7% |
|
100 000 to 300 000 |
25 |
233 |
71.8% |
|
50 000 to 100 000 |
31 |
219 |
38.3% |
|
20 000 to 50 000 |
126 |
510 |
42.7% |
|
10 000 to 20 000 |
117 |
383 |
28.7% |
|
5 0000 to 10 000 |
167 |
366 |
26% |
|
2 000 to 5 000 |
228 |
442 |
25.4% |
|
Less than 2 000 |
130 |
233 |
26.5% |
|
ALL |
828 |
2 451 |
45.7% |
1 151
(39.8%) public libraries are connected to the internet; among them, 828 (28.6
%) libraries offer public access to the Internet (15% in 1999), which
represents 45.7% of the served population (32.6% in 1999). They offer 2 451
public points of access, that is representing 1.4 points for 10 000
inhabitants.
The
proportion of libraries offering free access to the Internet is equivalent to
the ones who charged for it.
165
libraries have selected 23 300 bookmarks for their public.
49
libraries have made their catalogue accessible from the Internet.
196
libraries are “visible” on the Net, because they have their own web site or
because their homepages are hosted by their district.
Conclusion:
On-line
access to databases is as yet not widely available in public libraries (offered
by 49 so far), but growing demand from users to access the Internet is acting
as encouragement. Although there are 21 libraries offering collections of
software, this is not a popular service among public libraries. Public
libraries have started to offer training sessions on the use of CD-ROMs, a
popular medium in many public libraries.
It is to
be noted that only 20 libraries digitise and locally host digital documents
The Internet access is growing
enthusiastically in French public libraries, but the efficient use of the Net
(on-line access to catalogue, digital document…) is very modest.
The
French government has identified culture as being a leading sector for
implementing NITC tools and services. It is therefore quite logical to see
government officials designing plans to define and optimize this implementation
based on the strategic importance of libraries and librarians.
A major
Information Society Action Plan launched in January 1998 by Prime Minister
Jospin has chapters dealing with cultural heritage and with multimedia in which
libraries are to play an important part. An important reference text here is
the speech by Mrs. Véronique Chatenay-Dolto on April 3rd, 1998, assistant
director of book and reading at the Ministère de la Culture. Here are the specific points addressed in the action plan :
§
Defining new mediation in public libraries
-
Training of librarians; new uses
-
Constitution of digital collections and choice of the sites intended for
the users
§
Financial support from the Ministry of Culture
-
Regarding multimedia equipment: Limits of the existing financial tool
when applied to multimedia equipment
-
Extension of the financial tool to meet the specific needs of the
multimedia sector ;
-
Addressing the needs of small libraries in rural areas
§
Addressing digitalization
-
Existing financial tools ;
-
A great federator project: digitalization of the patrimony of the public
libraries
-
As regards to personnel and acquisitions
§
The role of the "directorate of the book and reading" division
in consultancy
-
The diffusion of technical consultancy
-
Collection of information on data-processing equipment and achievements
as regards digitisation
-
Importance of the standardization of the descriptive languages
Among those things, there are also plans to
increase the digital collections of France's National Library and provide
access to more than 50,000 non-copyrighted works on the Internet before the end
of 1998. France will re-launch the "Universal Library" project, in
partnership with UNESCO. Furthermore, multimedia equipment levels in public libraries
will be improved and France's collective catalogue will be put on-line.
N/A
The government helps the local authority when
buying hardware and software for the library. The prerequisites are that they
purchase a multi-functional system for the library only and that the system
supports the UNIMARC format.
The French union catalogue ( Catalogue Collectif
de France ) is an interdepartmental project aiming at providing on-line
access to the Catalogues of the French National Library, of the University
System and to local or regional titles in the 51 public libraries and 31
university libraries. The CCF provides access on the web to the index of the
French libraries and documentation centres. Next phases of the Collective
Catalogue project will be the simultaneous access to the above mentioned
catalogues, according to the ANSI-NISO Z39.50 rule, and the implementation of
the library loan.
Calliope is a joint
project between Inria Rhone -Alpes, Imag and Rank-Xerox Research Centre. It
aims providing the researchers of these three laboratories with document image
storing and retrieval facilities, together with a "scanning on
demand" service, thus allowing them to share their document resources.
Some
other good practices:
-
La Bibliothèque Publique d'Information , Paris (free
Internet access, classification of servers by the librarians, a CD-ROM
collection, on-line access to databases and on-line document ordering
facilities, and special computer equipment for visually handicapped patrons)
-
La Médiathèque
de la Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie, Paris (catalogue available on Minitel,
on-line document ordering facility, special information service for private
companies - providing access to international databases - and teachers -
providing an educational software collection).
-
La Bibliothèque Municipale de Lyon (multi-media
network with access to CD-ROMs and digitised documents, Internet, Multimedia
science and technics department). This library was also a case study
-
La bibliothèque Municipale de
Valenciennes (multimedia catalogue including CD-ROM access, pictograms for
digitised texts, pictures, sound or video, zoom and save facilities.
Participation in a DG-XIII project connecting cultural services, schools and
universities in Valenciennes and with the Belgian city Mons)
-
La bibliothèque municipale
d'Issy-les-Moulineaux (multimedia collections including ca 500 CD-ROMs, a
software library, Internet access, language training area. The policy is to
provide access to any type of information and have the users train themselves.
Cooperation with private companies and the national employment agency)
N/A
N/A