National Policies

The decentralised global allocation allows financial support for various projects carried out by libraries: construction, renovation, acquisition, extension of opening hours.

The Digital Reference Libraries label provides financial support and assistance for library projects related to digital technology (digitisation, digital inclusion, etc.).

A set of measures and actions to enable libraries to better serve all individuals with disabilities.

Opening libraries up more, but also offering more services: these are the two main thrusts of the Libraries Plan, shared by the Ministry of Culture, local authorities and professionals, with the same objective: to modernise libraries and strengthen their role in the regions. Three priorities can be listed : -    Priority 1: Libraries as attractive and welcoming places: renovating, modernising and creating  better connect spaces; -    Priority 2: Libraries as a local public service: supporting the work of departmental policies and encouraging the sharing of libraries with other public services; -    Priority 3: Libraries as agents of social inclusion: promoting digital inclusion and social initiatives.

Territory Reading Contracts represent a financial support system for cooperation projects at local level to promote the development of reading.

An agreement between the Ministries of Culture and Justice dedicated to the development of projects promoting access to books and reading in prisons.

Ministry of higher education and research: “Library Renewal Plan” (2010-2013) and “Open Libraries + plan” (since 2016) Launched in 2010, the purpose of this plan is to improve the services offered to students. The main priority in the short term is a massive extension of the university libraries opening hours. Since 2007, there has been investment in immovable property to build or to rehabilitate university libraries. Beyond that, this plan aims at improving the services where it’s necessary for students and researchers: opening hours, digital access to documentation, a better integration of documentary policy in the institution strategy and more functional libraries.

National licences grant an access to electronic resources natives or digitalised resources, available to a large community under uniform conditions. The idea is to ensure a fair access to documentation for students, teachers-researchers and researchers across all French institutions. The programme focuses only on closed corpus: academic journals archives, eBooks’ collections, digitalised texts corpus. The website licencenationales.fr is a showcase for all the programmes related.

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) promotes libraries by publishing proposals such as "The Vision for Libraries in the Future"(2006) and formulating standards such as "Desirable Standards for the Establishment and Operation of Libraries"(2012).

The overall goal of the Strategy is to develop libraries as a significant resource supporting smart and sustainable development of society, providing equal and qualitative access to Latvian cultural heritage, contributing to reading and information literacy, supporting cultural and educational processes, promoting use of creative potential and national integration processes as well as ensuring wide accessibility of state and municipal services. A set of key actions is defined as part of four strategic directions: 1) Preservation and accessibility of cultural heritage, 2) Access to high quality library services, 3) Contribution to development of knowledge society, and 4) Contribution to economic development.

The overall goal of the Strategy is to ensure digitisation, long-term preservation, wide accessibility and re-use of Latvian cultural heritage. The Strategy sets three strategic directions: 1) Supporting creation of digital cultural heritage in culture institutions (Actions include ensuring sustainability of digitisation processes; improving legal framework; establishing sustainable financial model to support digitisation, long-term preservation and accessibility; ensuring interoperability) 2) Promotion of use of digital cultural heritage (Actions include ensuring use of digital content in education and research, national identity and societal integration processes; promoting re-use in new products and services), and 3) Ensuring long-term preservation of digital cultural heritage (Actions include content digitisation, long-term preservation and promotion of use).

The National Policy on Library and Information Services 1994 sets out broad guidelines for the systematic and planned development of libraries and information services in keeping with the needs of major sectoral areas as well as the needs of all sections of the communities whether in the urban or rural areas.  The scope of the policy is to cover the acquisition, organisation, management and dissemination of library materials and the information contained therein.