Public libraries are slowly, but surely, recovering from the pandemic, after difficult months, which would have been even more so had it not been for the immense success of the digital book at the height of the crisis. Today, the number of loans on site is picking up again, although the figures remain slightly below the pre-pandemic level for the time being.
Currently, borrowing is up to 80% of what it normally is, according to the Quebec Public Libraries Association, which optimistically believes things will return to the pre-COVID situation a priori sooner rather than later. For libraries, the gap that persists between the current number of borrowings and that at the same date in 2019 is partly explained by the fact that visits by school groups remain rarer than usual.
“They are starting to come back. If we remove several groups that borrow a lot in a week, it is sure that it affects the borrowing rate, ”continues the general manager of the Association, Ève Lagacé, who showed an unwavering enthusiasm while s ‘Public Library Week began on Saturday. In all, and everywhere, public library traffic is currently 25% lower than it was before March 2020. Because of the fewer school groups, but also activities, such as readers’ meetings with writers, who remain more complex to organize because of persistent sanitary measures.
The fact remains that the pandemic will have been an opportunity for public libraries to reach a new segment of the population that they had previously lacked. Many young adults have taken advantage in recent months of private rooms in libraries, the only outlet for teleworking and remote schooling during confinements. “Traditionally, people in their late twenties, we lost them a bit, but there, as everything was closed, several discovered our facilities”, rejoices Mr.me Lagacé, who says he hopes this new clientele will continue to use libraries at the end of the pandemic.
Digital book
One thing is certain, certain behaviors of library regulars have changed definitively during the health crisis. Starting with borrowing books in digital format. At the height of the first wave, when all libraries were closed, the BiblioPresto.ca service received approximately 15,000 requests per day for digital editions. A phenomenon fueled at the time mainly by children’s literature.
Since libraries resumed service in the fall of 2020, that number has dropped back to around 8,000 daily digital borrowings, which remains considerably high compared to the 5,000 virtual books that were distributed on average every day before the spring 2020 cataclysm. .
“There are uses that were created during the pandemic, which will remain and which will continue to develop. We were already on an upward slope, but the pandemic has accelerated all that, ”analyzes Jean-François Cusson, general manager of BiblioPresto, which today offers digital services for subscribers of most libraries in Quebec.
What to make lie several bad tongues, which gave the digital book for dead a few years ago because of the number of sales considered disappointing compared to the very high expectations during the arrival on the market of tablets and e-readers. “Those who believed that the digital book would replace paper were not from the book world. No one in the literary world thought that, ”nuance Mr. Cusson, who is firmly convinced that the two formats have a bright future.
With Catherine Lalonde