Supply of shelves, return of books, disinfection of premises ... Many gray areas still weigh on the reopening of libraries from May 11. Professionals fear a hasty recovery. "It would be totally irresponsible," says a librarian interviewed by Europe 1. 

Libraries and media libraries will be able to reopen on Monday 11 May. But in this sector, as in many others, barrier measures will also be required to limit the spread of the coronavirus. For the librarians of France, after the surprise, it is the spite of a too rapid recovery which dominates. Even if they do their best to organize themselves for the fateful date.

Reading on site prohibited?

"For me it is not possible to open on May 11. It would be totally irresponsible," says Julie, librarian who must return to work in six days but who plans to "exercise [his] right of withdrawal" during the week next due to the lack of information and visibility offered by this recovery. In its structure, nothing has been planned, so nothing is ready.

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Should we prohibit reading on site or disinfect the chairs after each pass? Condemn the loan machines? "People will take a book, browse it, put it back on the shelf, and other people will handle the same documents", anticipates Thomas, who works in a library in the Paris region. "These are risk multiplying factors." His team is thinking of a quarantine imposed on the 25,000 books and CDs still confined to the inhabitant.

"Left to our own devices"

In this library, as in others, everything will not be ready on the date of the start of the deconfinement, as the elected officials would like. The Association of French Librarians (ABF) has just published a guide for all libraries, but it will not solve everything: "We find ourselves a bit left to ourselves, things have been a bit rushed", deplores Alice Bernard, President of ABF. "We must not reopen them urgently and in any way. We are not a week or two away, we can start to put things in place little by little."

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This is the reason why many libraries only provide a system of withdrawal after order, at the beginning. The reception of the public, meanwhile, will come much later.