Wednesday, October 28, 2009

La Bibliothèque des Sciences et de l’Industrie

The Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie is the science and industry museum of Paris just as the Centre Pompidou is the city’s modern art museum. The heart of the Cité is the Bibliothèque des Sciences et de l’Industrie (Library for Science and Industry), a vast multimedia public library entirely dedicated to science, technology and industry. It has several specialized areas including the Cité de la Santé (health information center), Carrefour Numérique (Digital Crossroads, a digital resources training area), the Salle Louis-Braille (Louis Braille Room), a fully equipped area for visually impaired and deaf readers, and the Cité des Métiers (vocational guidance center). It receives approximately 650,000 visitors in every year.



The museum has many permanent exhibitions on automobiles, aeronautics, energy, mathematics, light, space, sound, man and his genes, the story of the universe, etc. In addition it hosts special exhibits such as Epidemics of the 21st Century, and The Earth: What Is It? It also has a planetarium, a cinema, a theatre and special exhibitions for children. The library often creates displays relating to both the permanent and special exhibits.

The library is open to the public, but it is not free. I believe it costs €20.00 to join. The fee entitles members to borrow books, including e-books; journals; CD-ROMs and DVDs and to access the internet for up to eight hours a month.

You do not have to be a member, however, to use the Carrefour Numérique, which has an autoformation (self-learning center) with free access to hundreds of computerized self-learning courses. Visitors to the Carrefour Numérique can pursue the self-learning courses or their own or they can also attend scheduled practical work sessions monitored by staff members who are available to answer their questions.

The Cité des Métiers
The Cité des Métiers offers employment and training information and advice at any stage of life or profession. The Cité des Métiers at the Library for Science and Industry is organized into five areas: education/professional development; job offers; vocational training; assess your skills/change your professional life; and create your own business. It conducted 22,000 interviews in 2008. It averages 700 visitors a day, many of whom are job seekers.

The Cité des Métiers receives both public and private funding. It started at the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, but out of it has grown a non-governmental organization (NGO) called the Réseau des (network of) Cités des Métiers that has replicated the Cité des Metiérs model at many locations throughout Latin Europe.

Members of this network are located in libraries, museums, unemployment offices and in street corner offices. In Barcelona, the Cité des Metiérs is inside a business incubator. The creators try to put inside “what the future will be,” according to Dr. Oliver Las Vergnas, the founder. It’s a question, Las Vergnas said, of how politicians see the future. Nearly nine of every 10 attempts to create Cités des Métiers fail, according to Las Vergnas. The challenge is trying to get labor and education to work together.

There are not many Cités des Métier in libraries, Las Vergnas said, because politicians don’t think of libraries and vocational guidance centers as being linked. The traditional French library concept was very limited in the kind of information you could give, he said, but now you can give information about everything.

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