Tuesday, November 18, 2:00pm
SML International Room
In recent years, library research in France has focused increasingly on participation and, in particular, what institutions can do to generate higher levels of participation in the programs and services they offer to patrons. This talk will be about how participatory projects conducted in French libraries are changing our relation to the public and the services that we are proposing, our definition of the skills of librarians, and perhaps even our role in the development of new forms of democracy.
Raphaëlle Bats is "conservateur de bibliothèques" (head librarian) and has worked at Enssib, the French National School for Library and Information Science, since 2011. She is in charge of Enssib’s International Relations Office and also teaches on such topics as communication in libraries, signage and wayfinding, comparative international librarianship, and participation and new relations to the public. At the Université Paris 7 (philosophy - sociology), she is preparing a PhD, "From Participation to Collective Mobilization: Libraries in Search of Their Democratic Vocation." Raphaëlle Bats is also involved in many international associations, including IFLA, EUCLID, CFIBD, AIFBD, and CIFNAL.
All are welcome to join us for this SCOPA forum.