The Roubaix multimedia library: A step ahead?

A quantitative survey of library use in Roubaix, a relatively deprived community near Lille, has demonstrated a conjunction of several sociological phenomena, including a young population, a low rate of reading, an outdated multimedia library, and a high rate of internet use in the local community. For the first time, these factors indicate that library use is being replaced by internet use, rather than the two going hand-in-hand. For the people of Roubaix, internet access makes the library redundant. The challenge for librarians is to redefine their services to bring readers back to public libraries.
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