City’s Grande Bibliothèque thrives online
Membership spikes as facility offers a wide variety of activities virtually
Libraries are dark and silent places in a pandemic.
But if you think the locked doors at the Grande Bibliothèque on Berri St. mean there’s nothing going on, you’d be wrong.
There are guitar lessons and story time; books and movies; genealogical research and live readings by authors; workshops on digital music-making and courses on car repair; music for every taste and magazines for every interest.
What’s changed is that all those activities are now available only online.
The library has reinvented itself since the Quebec government shut down provincial libraries on March 14, two days after Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante closed municipal libraries.
Online demand has exploded, with three times as many new members signing up every day as before the pandemic, a 35-per-cent rise in online visits and a 40-per-cent increase in use of online resources, from e-books, to games, to movies to stream, to archival documents.
“The library has changed profoundly,” said Jean-louis Roy, the CEO of Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec.
“It hasn’t just changed a little bit: it’s changed profoundly.”
The BANQ pivoted quickly during the crisis to develop new online offerings to keep kids and adults engaged while people are confined to home, Roy added.
“I’m really amazed by the speed and a quantity of digital products that have been created and put online in the last month,” said Roy, whose 450 employees rose to the occasion with creativity and resourcefulness despite having to adapt to working from home.
“We already knew we had 7.7 million visits a year, but with the new offerings for little ones, teens and adults, these are substantial increases.”
A new home page called BANQ à la maison provides a daily calendar of activities for all ages. It’s in French only, but many of the e-books, films, music and archival documents available through it are in English.
There’s a daily quiz, with such questions as: What is the average diameter of the front wheel of a penny-farthing bicycle, known in French as a vélocipède? (120-130 centimetres), or What is a ouananiche? (a landlocked Atlantic salmon found in Eastern Canada). The answer is posted each day at 5 p.m.
You can pick up a new language or learn how to knit.
There’s an interactive map where you can send in images of rainbows you’ve created as a symbol of hope during the pandemic.
The library, which first opened on April 30, 2005, quietly marked its 15th anniversary last month.
Among its best-kept secrets is free online access to all kinds of magazines, with some 42,000 titles of newspapers and periodicals.
“There’s a vast collection of movies and a huge music collection,” Roy said.
Members can access movies and documentaries through Kanopy, an on-demand streaming video platform, or browse e-books, digital audio books and music through Overdrive or Hoopla.
Meanwhile, during the pandemic, the main floor of the contemporary landmark is serving as a day centre for the homeless.
“I’m very pleased that this beautiful space, which is the great hall of the Grande Bibliothèque, is being used by people who are our fellow citizens, and who have the right to be in a nice, comfortable and safe environment,” Roy said.
Roy said that once the crisis is past, the library might well continue with some of the innovations it has developed to meet the needs of people cooped up in their homes. It will also study the possibility of continuing to allow employees to work from home.
“I’m not saying we will keep this system permanently, but we’ve shown we can work a different way,” Roy said. “We will certainly study the added value of working this way.”
For more information, visit the BANQ’S website at banq.qc.ca.
Membership is free and open to all Quebecers.
Montreal’s local public library network also offers e-books, newspapers and online courses, said Gabrielle Fontaine-giroux, a public relations officer with the city of Montreal. Membership is free to all Montrealers.