The Grande Bibliothèque acts like a sun in the metropolis, which shines brightly in the first National Portrait of Quebec Public Libraries. Its light, alas, hardly crosses the borders of the island. The entire Quebec network, with 1,042 public establishments, barely has a passing grade (66%), with disastrous results for the regions that host the two most populous cities after Montreal (91%), namely the Capital -National (57%) and Laval (60%). There is nothing to be proud of here: such regional disparities call for a vast standardization project.
One out of three Quebecers visits a library. It is by far the most popular public service, with around 28 or 29 million visits annually and – this is not insignificant – a wind always in its sails. It could be even more so if we pampered all our libraries with the same intensity. Some provinces require municipalities by law to provide a basic service. Not Quebec, which, with still 283 orphan municipalities, is ripe for such a mechanism.
With 12 out of 17 administrative regions living at level 3 (55 to 69%), the Legault government could take the opportunity to add to a service obligation minimum quality guidelines modeled on the illuminating panorama drawn up by the Association of public libraries. of Quebec and members of the BIBLIO Network. If standardizing turns out to be a minimum, enhancing would turn out to be much better.
For a government like that of François Legault, which has made the defense of the French language and the integration of immigrants the keys to its quiet nationalism, libraries are natural allies to encourage and multiply. Many studies link the dynamism of libraries to significant gains in literacy. The needs in these subjects are undeniable: 2.5 million Quebecers struggle to read complicated texts, which places them just in the category of functional illiteracy.
These important places of knowledge and sharing also prove to be valuable sesames in terms of integration, francization and education in digital and civic culture. This is how, in certain Montreal boroughs, for example, librarians literally go out to meet vulnerable clienteles: children, seniors, teenagers, the unemployed, immigrants, lark! Once outside the walls, we meet them in parks, streets, CHSLDs and even in the line of food banks!
In the electoral platform of the Coalition avenir Québec, which has made reading a national priority that we salute very low, the word library comes up four times, but always in a school context. No one doubts that this fundamental sector needs to be consolidated. But this common trunk needs a healthy municipal network to densify its canopy from its roots to the sky.
For that, it will take more than the $280,000 announced last May by the Ministry of Culture to promote attendance at municipal libraries. The figures give an overview of the dizzying catch-up necessary to reach the expected criteria: 610,356 printed books to be purchased, 150,616 m2 and 15,268 seats to be fitted out and nearly 2,500 jobs. Cities, which already provide 96% of library funding, will likely need a big boost.