The médiathèques municipales de Saint-Étienne is a group of libraries in

Saint-Étienne Saint-Étienne (; Franco-Provençal: ''Sant-Etiève''), also written St. Etienne, is a city and the prefecture of the Loire département, in eastern-central France, in the Massif Central, southwest of Lyon, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regi ...

, France. It consists of a central library located in the Tarentaize area, six smaller libraries and two

bookmobiles A bookmobile, or mobile library, is a vehicle designed for use as a library. They have been known by many names throughout history, including traveling library, library wagon, book wagon, book truck, library-on-wheels, and book auto service. Boo ...

. The libraries hold more than 527 000 documents. Each year, close to one million documents are borrowed by about 15 000 users.

History

The library gathered its first documents during the French Revolution, when the libraries of the clergy were seized. At the time, these books and manuscripts were stored but not made available to the public. In 1831, the collections were moved to the

city hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or municipal hall (in the Philippines) is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses the city o ...

, where the population was allowed to consult them one day a week from 1834 onwards. In 1842, Jean-Antoine de la Tour-Varan became the city librarian and expanded the collection holdings, causing the library to move to the Palais des Arts in 1861, where it remained until 1959. Throughout the 19th century, the different librarians made it a priority to acquire as many documents about the local region of

Forez Forez (; ) is a Provinces of France, former province of France, corresponding approximately to the central part of the modern Loire (department), Loire ''département in France, département'' and a part of the Haute-Loire and Puy-de-Dôme ''dépa ...

as possible, leading to the opening of a room dedicated to local literature and books about local history in 1889. At the beginning of the 20th century, the lack of room to store and display the documents became a critical issue, which was not solved by the enlargement of the Palais des Arts in 1919. Therefore, in 1959 the library was moved to the Hôtel Colcombet and became open to the public every day of the week. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, following a nationwide movement of libraries trying to come closer to the population, the library of

opened its first annex in Beaulieu in 1966, and launched a bookmobile in 1968. In the 1980s and the 1990s, other annexes were opened and the central library moved to its current location in Tarentaize in 1993.

Libraries

The library network consists of a central library in Tarentaize, six smaller libraries and two bookmobiles.

Médiatheque de Tarentaize

The central library of Tarentaize was designed by Danish architect

Henning Larsen Henning Larsen (20 August 1925 – 22 June 2013) was a Danish architect. He is internationally known for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building in Riyadh and the Copenhagen Opera House. Larsen studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Ar ...

in collaboration with the

architectural firm In the United States, an architectural firm or architecture firm is a business that employs one or more licensed architects and practices the profession of architecture; while in South Africa, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark and other countr ...

Arch from Saint Etienne. They used the same blueprints that the library of

Gentofte Gentofte () is a district of Gentofte Municipality in the northern suburbs of Copenhagen, Denmark. Major landmarks include Gentofte Town Hall, Gentofte Hospital and Gentofte Church. Gentofte Lake with surrounding parkland and nature reserves form ...

, Denmark, was built upon. The library of Tarentaize opened to the public on 19 October 1993. At 6000 sq m, it is the largest library in Saint-Étienne. The collections are located on the first floor, while the offices and an exhibition space are located on the second floor. The library of Tarentaize also houses the

Cinematheque A cinematheque is an archive of films and film-related objects with an exhibition venue. Similarly to a book library (bibliothèque in French), a cinematheque is responsible for preserving and making available to the public film heritage. Typically ...

of Saint-Étienne.

Smaller libraries

Bookmobiles

Bookmobiles were launched in 1968 in order to grant the population an easier access to culture. Two

vehicles A vehicle () is a machine designed for self-propulsion, usually to transport people, cargo, or both. The term "vehicle" typically refers to land vehicles such as human-powered vehicles (e.g. bicycles, tricycles, velomobiles), animal-powered tr ...

currently exist : one intended for the youth and the other one for adults, which has slightly changed over the years and is now targeting all audiences. These two bookmobiles tour the areas which are deprived of library buildings, with the youth bookmobile also visiting schools.

Collections

The central library of Tarentaize and the smaller libraries all hold both youth and adult collections, except the library of Solaure, which collections are solely youth-oriented. The library of Tarentaize also manages patrimonial collections, including about 6 000 books published before 1810. Since the 19th century, the library has been

collecting The hobby of collecting includes seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining items that are of interest to an individual ''collector''. Collections differ in a wide variety of respects, most obvi ...

and curating as many works about the Forez and its history as possible, including books written by authors born in Forez. For example, the library owns a collection of original

sheet music Sheet music is a handwritten or printed form of musical notation that uses musical symbols to indicate the pitches, rhythms, or chords of a song or instrumental musical piece. Like its analogs – printed Book, books or Pamphlet, pamphlets ...

of composer

Jules Massenet Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet (; 12 May 1842 – 13 August 1912) was a French composer of the Romantic music, Romantic era best known for his operas, of which he wrote more than thirty. The two most frequently staged are ''Manon'' (1884 ...

's works. The library also holds an important collection about

industrial history The Industrial Revolution, sometimes divided into the First Industrial Revolution and Second Industrial Revolution, was a transitional period of the global economy toward more widespread, efficient and stable manufacturing processes, succee ...

and

mineralogy Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical mineralogy, optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifact (archaeology), artifacts. Specific s ...

, stemming from the industrial history of the city of Saint-Étienne. A process of

digitization Digitization is the process of converting information into a digital (i.e. computer-readable) format.Collins Dictionary. (n.d.). Definition of 'digitize'. Retrieved December 15, 2021, from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/ ...

of these collections has also begun, starting with old

postcards A postcard or post card is a piece of thick paper or thin Card stock, cardboard, typically rectangular, intended for writing and mailing without an envelope. Non-rectangular shapes may also be used but are rare. In some places, one can send a ...

and photographs from Saint-Étienne and its region, and ancient manuscripts.

Cultural action

The libraries of Saint-Étienne hold many diverse cultural exhibitions, including

readings Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of symbols, often specifically those of a written language, by means of sight or touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word re ...

conferences A conference is a meeting, often lasting a few days, which is organized on a particular subject, or to bring together people who have a common interest. Conferences can be used as a form of group decision-making, although discussion, not always d ...

with guest authors,

concerts A concert, often known informally as a gig or show, is a live performance of music in front of an audience. The performance may be carried by a single musician, in which case it is sometimes called a recital, or by a musical ensemble such as an ...

or other shows. They also work closely with the Cinematheque for film projections. The library of Tarentaize also has an exhibition space on its second floor. They also participate in the annual Fête du Livre in Saint-Étienne. On this occasion, they take part in the Heure du Conte, which is storytelling for children, and they also organize youth

literary awards A literary award or literary prize is an award presented in recognition of a particularly lauded Literature, literary piece or body of work. It is normally presented to an author. Organizations Most literary awards come with a corresponding award c ...

Services

The libraries de Saint-Étienne are part of the Brise network (Bibliothèques en Réseau Informatisé de Saint-Étienne). The Brise network was created in 1988 and aimed at gathering all the holdings from close to 40

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

and college libraries of Saint-Étienne in two online catalogs. The public libraries of Saint-Étienne also have implemented a shuttle system in 2011, thanks to which a user who has borrowed documents can return them in any of the libraries, including the bookmobiles. The central library of Tarentaize provides a service dedicated to teaching users about

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms, such as Text (literary theory), writing, Sound, audio, images, animations, or video, into a single presentation. T ...

technology, for example how to use the Internet or

word processors A word processor (WP) is a device or computer program that provides for input, editing, formatting, and output of text, often with some additional features. Early word processors were stand-alone devices dedicated to the function, but current word ...

. Since January 2016, the library has launched an

e-book An ebook (short for electronic book), also spelled as e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in electronic form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Al ...

lending service. Its e-book catalog currently holds 167

digital books An ebook (short for electronic book), also spelled as e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in electronic form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. A ...

. The library also grants access to 1D Touch, which is a

streaming Streaming media refers to multimedia delivered through a network for playback using a media player. Media is transferred in a ''stream'' of packets from a server to a client and is rendered in real-time; this contrasts with file downl ...

platform which offers independent cultural content.http://1dtouch.com/ By this means, library users can listen to about 1 million music tracks.

Cinématheque

The library of Tarentaize is also home to the Cinematheque of Saint-Etienne, which is one of the oldest cinematheques in France. This is the only occurrence in France of a cinematheque being located within the public library's walls.

List of curators

*1831–1842: Auguste Brun *1842–1864: Jean-Antoine de la Tour-Varan *1864–1866: pas de bibliothécaire *1866–1870: Ephrem Candy *1870–1873: no librarian *1873–1874: Javelin Pagnon *1874–1881: Claude-Philippe Testenoire-Lafayette *1881–1888: Jean-Baptiste Galley *1888–1896: J-M Canel et Joseph Maissiat *1896–1906: Joseph Maissiat *1906–1947: Pierre Lévêque *1947–1950: P. Julian *1950–1955: F. Ménard *1955–1965: Mauricette Simon *1966–1986: Annie Monginoux *1986–1991: François Larbre *1992–present: François Marin

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mediatheques de Saint-Etienne Organizations based in Saint-Étienne Libraries in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes 1993 establishments in France Libraries established in 1993 Public libraries in France