Profession: Librarian

• Co-operation Activities
  • Mission for Disabled Persons
  • National Co-operation
  • International Co-operation
    • Agreements
    • International Seminars
• Collections and Services
• Studies and Research
• Training
• Bpi Founding Decree

International Seminars

In order to facilitate the international exchange of ideas and experience, the Bpi organises seminars with its partners. Below you will find a short summary of the last of these seminars.

The library as a place of social cohesion

French-German seminar organised by the Bpi, in partnership with the Goethe Institute in Paris (8-9 October 2009).

Today libraries are only seen, by decision-makers and public opinion, as places where one can obtain information and where cultural activities are organised. But in fact, they have adapted in response to economic pressures and new expectations of the public, and are developing other services, notably in the social field and in training. This approach obliges libraries to envisage a different relationship with their users and to develop networks with partners in the social field. The creation and promotion of services in libraries that help job-seekers is thus contributing to professional integration and success.

These issues represent a set of challenges for libraries: to diversify what they provide by proposing services linked to economic and social changes; to establish new relationships with their users; to create a "space" to discuss with the institutions and organisations active in the social field; to define the role that librarians can play in promoting social cohesion ("living together") and professional integration. It is important to state and explain that the contribution of libraries to social cohesion can be specific, even unique. 

The Bpi, in the framework of its modernisation plan "Bpi 2012", identifies the social dimension as one of the important elements in its evolution and wants to engage in exchanges with other libraries on this issue, and especially with German libraries, which have actively developed their competence and services in this area. 

The aim of this seminar was to make possible an exchange of knowledge and experience – examining what had succeeded but also the difficulties and even what had not worked –, a collection of practices that could be considered as "models", and a reflection about how to justify the existence of such services in public libraries.