L’espace Nouvelle Génération à la Bpi: de l’enquête au projet

Abstract

The Public Library of Information (Bpi) currently offers no services to young adults, even though 65% of its users are composed of students who specifically come to study. It is now time to develop new, non-academic services for teenagers and young adults. That is the “New Generation project” which is more about creating a place which corresponds to the young adults’ cultural practices: digital natives, reading as important as watching or making, transmedia etc.

The Bpi conducted a survey to know better about young people in order to adapt the project to young adults’ needs and desires.

Before sounding out youth public opinion about a department for teen and young adults, we have to know better who we are talking to.

The first goal of the survey was to know about the main differences and similarities between teenagers and young adults: who they are, what they want and what they do not want. What about their cultural practices? What is the most important for them: meeting their needs or fulfilling “wants”? They don’t want a place which reminds them of school but they need a place to do their homework. They reject authority but they don’t want a place which looks like a kindergarten? How can the library fix these contradictions?

On the other hand, the survey helped us understand which category of young people is the most receptive to the project of a department dedicated to them and why.

Finally, I will talk about the “New Generation” project of the Public Library of Information and what kind of services, collections and cultural events we think about considering the results of the survey.