French libraries resources - organization, management, human potential, new media

Abstract

The article is an attempt at presenting French libraries with respect to their positioning in the state’s structures, along with outlining legal and financial determinants of their activity. Additionally, the text depicts librarians as a part of libraries’ intangible assets, with a special consideration of their educational path, and the methods of gaining knowledge and qualifications that they have to possess to work in different types of libraries in France. Moreover, the article indicates specialized data sets and computer networks as new ways of gaining and sharing knowledge. From that perspective libraries (understood as places of gathering, storing, and sharing knowledge and information), were shown as institutions that open some new possibilities to their employees and users. Thanks to their nature, new media can be easily used by everyone for broadly defined communication, with no time nor location limitations.