Free admission will be effective on May 1st, Nantes town hall announced on Monday
On the sidelines of the presentation of a support plan for Nantes cultural players, Johanna Rolland announced on Monday the implementation of free Nantes libraries and media libraries from May 1, 2021. This is a promise election that will be accessible to all residents of 24 towns in the metropolis.
Concretely, all borrowing of documents (books, magazines, records, etc.) from the four media libraries (Jacques-Demy, Lisa-Bresner, Floresca-Guépin, Luce-Courville) and four libraries in the city of Nantes will become free. Full-price registration currently costs 12 euros per year for residents and 24 euros for non-Nantes residents. The free will represent a loss of earnings of 112,000 euros in a full year for the community.
Other municipalities have already taken the plunge
Several towns in the metropolis had already switched to free loans for several years (Couëron, Bouguenais, Les Sorinières, Saint-Aignan-de-Grand-Lieu, etc.). Their number of readers increased significantly after the measurement.
Since the start of the health crisis, the city of Nantes has already seen a “great increase in the number of visitors to the documentary and digital services of its media libraries”.
