About the standards elaborated by the working party on the central lending libraries.

In 1982, a working party has prepared a standards project about the resources of the central lending libraries in personnel, vehicles and collections, according to the public involved. That project had not been published yet. In this article, the author did not only stick to a strict review of the group's work, but attempted to point out the problems faced while establishing such standards, as well as the reasons pleading for their publication, such as : the direct application of the devolution measures stated in 1982 and 1983 to the public libraries in 1986; a necessary and clear statement about the costs of a normal running of the services. It is obviously impossible to set up standards of resources without having a clear view of the missions to be carried out. In a first part, the development of the missions of the central lending libraries is outlined : what documents, for what kind of public, and how... Then the author introduces the various development policies which have been elaborated by the central government since 1967. The figures of these policies - some of them unpublished - were the first normative access to the means to be used as well as the quantitative programm of the buildings which development between 1945 and 1980 is studied too. After introduction of the work, some notes are made about the proposed standards : distribution of the resources between the central and the branch libraries, comparison with the municipal libraries standards and with various studies on central lending libraries, costs of running... Following the article, a survey of : - how regional centers have been established in 1945, together with the central lending libraries, and abolished one year later. - the results of the enquiry held in 1982 on the branches of the central lending libraries.
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