Historical background

France has a long library tradition. However, the historical mission of French libraries has been conservation, not circulation, which was an obstacle on the path to true public library service. Eugéne Morel was instrumental in the history of French public libraries in the early twentieth century and advocated for public libraries in keeping with the models of the United States and the United Kingdom. In the decades following the Second World War, French public libraries grew at a rapid pace. Decentralization in the late twentieth century means that France operates its public libraries at several levels of government, from municipal to national. France’s public library system is robust, but lags behind other developed countries in several key statistical areas, such as digitization and physical visits.

France’s strong library tradition stems from the confiscation of libraries of the clergy and the nobles during the French Revolution, which were eventually transferred to municipalities. The works in these libraries represented a massive amount of France’s national heritage. The first duty of these municipalities was therefore to protect and conserve their holdings, and the collection was consequently assumed to be more important than the reader. In such an archival setting (in fact, many of the municipal libraries were run by professionally trained archivists), closed stacks were the norm, and public service was never a large consideration.

The twentieth century saw somewhat of a relaxation of the idea that the librarian is principally a scholar whose main task was to preserve a stash of treasures without much thought to making them more accessible. In 1906, the creation of the Association of French Librarians (Association des Bibliothecaires Fran^ais (ABF)) perhaps marked a major turning point in attitudes toward public librarianship. From this time forward, public service began to receive emphasis alongside the scholarly attitude that had always been assumed in this role (Maack, 1993).

At this time, Eugène Morel (1869–1934), who was a librarian at the Bibliothèque Nationale (National Library), was promoting the idea of free public libraries based on the English and American models. Morel was especially familiar with libraries in the United Kingdom and strongly advocated many types of reform. In 1910 Morel published a seminal work called La Librarie Publique in which he forecast the development of public librarianship for the future. Recognizing the need to break with very strong past traditions, Morel even used the unusual word ‘librairie’ for his model instead of the French word for library, ‘bibliothèque’ (translated literally, ‘librairie’ is actually ‘bookstore’).

French public library from an institution of conservancy to an institution of public service was the creation of a special children’s library in Paris in 1923. This library, L’Heure Joyeuse (Joyful Hour), was the gift of an American philanthropic group that wished to help children recover from the horrors of the First World War. L’Heure Joyeuse was actually the very first children’s library in France, and this free library was a great success for its time (and still exists today). Eugène Morel supported this experimental and innovative effort, and the Dewey classification system that he had introduced to France in 1911 was instituted here. It was not the fact that this was a children’s library that proved influential, however. Instead, L’Heure Joyeuse introduced the revolutionary model of user-friendly open-access, to which the French were not entirely accustomed.

The great promise in the growth of French public libraries was, unfortunately, largely interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War. Library development was set back by many years, and the slow progress of the decades following the war are sometimes referred to as the ‘retard français’ (the French delay). The divide increased between the libraries of France and more advanced nations (Bertrand, 2009) and the established tradition of the library (Bibliothèque) being a locus of collection rather than a public service institution did not disappear quickly.

Extensive post-war changes, such as mass urbanization and growth in schools, had reached a point by the 1960s that French political leaders in its very centralized governmental structure were successful in turning some focus onto the need for library expansion and modernization. Prime Minister Georges Pompidou, in 1966, established a committee that was tasked with formulating ideas for improving public libraries (Bulletin). In the following years, during a period of decentralization in France, local municipal authorities gained increased funding and autonomy to tackle issues related to urban planning, among which was the need for improved library service. At this time, by 1971, France had a mere 715 public libraries and counted only 1,182,000 users. By 1977, that number had risen to 924 public libraries serving 2,251,000 patrons. In contrast the United States, with four times the French population, had 8,037 public libraries by 1978.

Current framework

French librarians themselves could not fail to recognize the advancements made in public libraries around the world, especially in the United States. Many innovative librarians realized the need to modernize their profession, starting with the very idea of the Bibliothèque. Whereas Eugène Morel once tried unsuccessfully to replace ‘Bibliothèque’ with ‘librairie’, the 1970s saw the wide acceptance of a new term – mèdiatheque – which attempts to reflect the modern role of the library: going beyond just a simple collection of books by allowing access to other media such as videos, CDs, DVDS, etc. Although this term never replaced the traditional Bibliothèque and all its connotations, it was a popular political term that represented a modern direction for French libraries – and is still popular. Statistics gathered since the 1970s do show a rapid growth in public libraries. By the early 1980s, France had more than 1,000 public libraries, and this number doubled in the mid-1990s (2,795 libraries in 1999). By 2002, the number of public libraries surpassed 3,000 (Bertrand, 2006). From serving just over a million users in 1971, public libraries were serving 6,672,000 users at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

In spite of efforts to decentralize, France can still be in many ways a very centralized nation, and the government has often supported cultural pursuits, including reading. The Centre National du Livre (National Book Center) in France evolved from its simple post-Second World War mission of simply promoting publishing to become, after 1993, a public institution under the French Ministry of Culture and Communication concerned with encouraging the creation and distribution of high-quality works of literature. As part of its mission, the National Book Center occasionally publishes overviews of library practices.

In 2007 the Center released key figures for the landscape of public libraries based on statistics accumulated up to 2004. The Center noted 2,913 public libraries (an increase of nearly 300 percent since 1979), of which 80 percent were computerized and 65 percent were offering Internet access. Of the population aged 15 years and older, 40 percent were public library users (Centre National du Livre ‘Public Libraries’, 2011). Four years later, another report by the same agency claimed 4,318 public libraries, but it is simply a way of counting and classifying libraries that make these numbers so different (Centre National du Livre: La Lecture Publique en France, 2008).

When speaking of a ‘public library’ in France, one must understand that there are several types of public libraries, all grouped under the term ‘Bibliothèque publiques’, each type with its own needs and objectives. The most common type of public library is the original model, the Bibliothèque municipal (BM). In addition to the important initial mission of preserving the country’s written heritage, these libraries are now tasked with the development of reading activities. When counting only the Bibliothèque municipales, the Center reduces this number to 4,213 which is still a large number compared to the 2004 report, until one looks for further divisions within the category of Bibliothèque municipales. According to the most recent address listing of Bibliothèque publiques by the Center, among these Bibliothèque municipales can be found, for example, 54 Bibliothèque municipales classees (BMCs, public libraries with a special classification); 6 Bibliothèque municipales a vocation regionale (BMVRs, public libraries belonging to a special program of regional development in areas of more than 1,000,000 residents); and 230 Bibliothèque intercommunales (public libraries governed by more than one commune, or a small administrative division of which there are more than 36,000 in France). This diversity makes it difficult to come up with a ‘total’ number of public libraries in France (Centre National du Livre: Adresses des Bibliothèque, 2011).

The next level of public library in France consists of the Bibliothèque départementales de prêt (BDPs), or departmental lending libraries. French ‘departments’ are large administrative divisions of which, excluding the overseas territories, there are 96 departments in France. A total of 97 departmental lending libraries serve all of France, excluding Paris and the three departments in its region. Unlike the municipal library model, the departmental lending library is a recent concept. The BDP idea was formulated in 1945, with the intention of serving a network of municipalities of less than 10,000 residents. Professionals manage some of these libraries, but for the most part they are controlled by volunteers. Simply because these are public libraries, however, does not mean that they are open to the public. A departmental lending library is principally used to house books for the libraries of their networks and to provide services to this network. The large network of library book buses (bibliobus) connects the network (Association).

Finally, there are the three public institutions with special status: la Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF, the National Library of France), la Bibliothèque publique d’information (Bpi), and the Médiathèque de la Citè des sciences et de l’industrie, all located in Paris. Of these three special libraries, the Bibliothèque publique d’information is the most important to French public libraries because it is the main public library of Paris. However, although public, this is not a lending library and all works must be consulted on site. Because it does not have the means to store books, this library was by necessity a pioneer in France for the concept of ‘weeding’, a common procedure for American public libraries but not intrinsic to French libraries with their long tradition of conservation. One of the original intents of the Bpi, as the head of a network of libraries, was to furnish a current catalog of the collections contained in other French libraries, but this ambitious objective was never fulfilled. The popularity of the Bpi and its influence on public libraries is strong, however, and this institution is ready to partner with Bibliothèque municipales (Bibliothèque publique, 2011).

French libraries are not alone in wondering about the effect of the Internet on library statistics. The National Book Center has tracked library loans for several years, and between 2002 and 2009 the rate of borrowing fell in 2007 to 151 million loans, down from a high in 2005 of 164.6 million loans. The rate began to climb again the next year, however, increasing some 3.25 percent to 155.9 million loans (Centre National du Livre: Chiffres clés, 2011).

In 2006, the Centre de Recherche pour l’Etude et l’Observation des Conditions de Vie (Crédoc, Research Center for the Study and Observation of Life) reported that the percentage of public library users had nearly doubled since 1989, going from 23 percent to 43 percent, and that the Bibliothèque municipales, among all other types of libraries, enjoyed the largest percentage of the French population (15 and over) visiting such an institution at 72 percent (Maresca, 2006). The competition of the Internet even seems to have served as a model for public libraries. The growth of the mediatheque concept, with an emphasis on cultural activities and new media, appealed to users. The Bibliothèque municipales, transformed by name or simply by philosophy into mediatheques, has helped change the way that the French use public libraries. The traditional model assumed an enrolled borrower who took books on loan back home to consume. The mediatheque, on the other hand, has been more popular with free, onsite usage. Libraries have thus become more of a place to go to read or engage in other activities. Internet access has certainly been a factor in drawing users back to the library, but some credit must also go to the practice of including cultural activities, lectures, exhibits, etc. Between 1997 and 2005, the number of users with a library card grew only 2 percent, but during the same time the number of library users without a card grew 7 percent.

As with any other nation, France has also had to come to terms with the need for digitization and allowing access to digitized documents. The Bibliothèque Nationale de France (French National Library) has taken a leading role in this effort because one of its missions is to ensure access to France’s heritage and to permit off-site consultation, as reported by Bruno Racine in 2009 (Racine, 2009). This library began to digitize in the early 1990s, and has in past years increased its efforts, especially in the creation of its online library Gallica, which has become the most important digital library in France, with more than a million items by 2010 (National Library of France, 2011).

Gallica not only provides access to documents digitized by the National Library, it also takes advantage of public partners whose collections Gallica can index and provide access to via the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH). Public libraries are, indeed, included in this effort. Through the online catalogue of Patrimoine Numerique, whose objective is to track and describe the digitized heritage collections of France, one can discover that 135 public libraries (Bibliothèque municipales) have been included in this collection. Public libraries are also investing more heavily in their own electronic resources. Racine reports that between 2004 and 2007 the number of Bibliothèque municipales purchasing an online subscription rose from 82 to 211 libraries, an increase of some 157 percent. In 2005, 27 Bibliothèque municipales acquired digitized documents; in 2007 that number had risen to 47 (Racine, 2009). It was estimated that 87.6 percent of Bibliothèque municipales were computerized by 2007 (up from 81 percent reported in 2004), with free Internet access for users rising from 51.2 percent to 65.1 percent over the same period. Of these Bibliothèque municipales, however, the number having a website was, by most standards, somewhat low. The number of libraries in this group that had a website in 2007 totaled 973, some 34.4 percent – up from a paltry 22 percent in 2004.

For the Bibliothèque departementales de pret, the numbers concerning digital efforts in 2007 were proportionally much higher, given the nature of this type of library where only 10 percent were actually open to the public. One hundred percent of these BDPs were computerized, and the 10 percent open to the public all allowed free Internet access. Sixty seven of the BDPs enjoyed a website (some 74.5 percent), and of these BDPs, 57 allowed online catalog access, 42 allowed access to user accounts, and 36 allowed online reservations.

Legislation and legal structure

After the onset of decentralization in 1983, the 100 French departements (including four overseas) assumed responsibility for the Bibliothèque departementales de pret. The municipalities took on the support of the Bibliothèque municipales, and of the 36,000 municipalities, some 3,000 have a public library. Around 200 municipality partnerships have created their own public libraries – the 230 Bibliothèque intercommunales.

By 2007, the Ministere de la Culture et de la Communication (Ministry of Culture and Communication), based on statistics gathered up to 2004, had recognized the major trends occurring in French public libraries. For the Bibliothèque municipales, the foremost trend was allowing access to digital media as part of an overall diversification of documents offered to the public. Next, the effort to serve a more diverse public was noted, including more effort towards children’s services as well as school, hospital, and prison populations – which had never been a strong area in French public library development. The Bibliothèque municipales were said to be ‘participating in the battle against exclusion’. An effort toward modernization was also highlighted, with special emphasis on libraries that were extending their services beyond traditional roles. The report also mentioned that many Bibliothèque municipales were being designed by noteworthy architects, such as the opening in 2006 of a Bibliothèque municipal a vocation regionale in Rennes designed by Christian de Portzamparc. Finally, mention was given to the increased role of cultural activities (exhibits, author visits) of the Bibliothèque municipales, often in partnership with different cultural institutions (Ministry of Culture and Communication: Les Bibliothèque territoriales, 2011).

The same report also observed the evolution in the mission of the Bibliothèque departementales de pret. The original mission was to make library materials available to rural areas of less than 10,000 inhabitants, primarily by library book bus (bibliobus). This objective was followed by the creation of small Bibliothèque municipales or reading centers out of some Bibliothèque departementales de pret. These Bibliothèque departementales de pret also took on the role, at the departmental level, of encouraging reading. By 2004, 75.3 percent of rural inhabitants had access to their services, including schools, prisons, and retirement homes.

The Ministry of Culture and Communication and the Direction du Livre et de la Lecture (which became the Service du Livre et de la Lecture in 2010) are setting the national policy for public libraries via the objectives they set for the Bibliothèque Public d’Information, which itself coordinates the public library network. France is divided into 27 administrative regions, 22 in Metropolitan France and 5 overseas. The Directions Regionales des Affaires Culturelles (DRAC) – a service of the Ministry of Culture and Communication – helps to implement government policy in library construction/ renovation, computerization/Internet access, conservation of written texts, and literary events. French regions do not have a direct role in managing public libraries but do work with municipalities on funding and professional training. Regions also support Centre Regionaux du Livre (CRL) – Regional Book Centers – which have been tasked with promoting reading and thus cooperate with libraries.

Conclusion

In some ways, France had to undertake the same struggle as some non-Western countries on the way to establishing a national network of public libraries. Because French libraries were originally concerned mainly with historical preservation, it took a major philosophical shift in the attitudes of librarians and government to accept the concept of a true lending library. French libraries have since come a very long way, spreading throughout the country and becoming integral to French society. A large factor in this growth has been the thoughtful implementation of a national plan for public libraries in France. The United Kingdom and Scandinavian countries enjoy a rate of some 50 percent of their population using public libraries. The rate in France has always lagged behind this number, but if France maintains its recent growth pattern, it may reach these levels very soon (if it has not already).

References

Useful websites