Institutional Mission & Territorial Impact

Foundational Charter

Our Formal Public Interest Mandate

CHAMP-LIVRES advances public literacy, cultural accessibility, and lifelong learning by managing and animating the municipal library of Champrond-en-Gâtine. Operating as a public-benefit cultural organization, our association curates, organizes, and circulates a diverse collection of books, educational media, and literary resources for residents of all ages and backgrounds. We deliver direct community benefit by providing free and equitable access to information, encouraging early childhood literacy, and supporting educational development across the territory. Through hosting public reading workshops, literary discussions, and community cultural events, our organization combats social isolation, fosters intergenerational dialogue, and strengthens civic identity by maintaining a welcoming, vibrant hub for learning and community life. All public programs, reader consultations, and educational loans are delivered free of charge, funded strictly by public grants, municipal facility provisions, and selfless volunteer mobilization.

The establishment of CHAMP-LIVRES answered a profound and enduring civic need within the municipality of Champrond-en-Gâtine. In many rural communes across France, structural centralizations have steadily concentrated educational institutions, state administration, and cultural centers into larger urban agglomerations like Chartres, Dreux, or Nogent-le-Rotrou. While transportation infrastructure allows some mobility, many residents—notably school-age children, non-driving seniors, single-vehicle working households, and low-income families—risk finding themselves geographically detached from everyday cultural enrichment.

Recognizing this territorial reality, a consortium of dedicated local teachers, retirees, parents, and civic-minded residents came together to draft the founding statutes of CHAMP-LIVRES under the statutory framework of the French Law of July 1, 1901. Our association was formally chartered and registered with the Prefecture of Eure-et-Loir, receiving National Directory of Associations identification RNA W284000827 and SIREN registry number 791211329.

The Statutory Pillar: 100% Non-Commercial Public Interest

From its inception, CHAMP-LIVRES chose an organizational trajectory defined by strict non-commercial public service. In an era where online digital platforms monetize consumer reading attention through algorithms, subscription fees, paywalls, and targeted advertising, the municipal library stands as an enduring sanctuary of uncommercialized freedom.

Inside our doors at 72 Grande Rue, no citizen is ever viewed as a customer, consumer, or data point. Every visitor is welcomed equally as a patron, a neighbor, and a fellow member of the democratic public. We charge zero membership fees for standard book borrowing. We levy zero late fees on overdue volumes, choosing instead a supportive reminder system founded upon collective goodwill and shared responsibility. We sell no retail merchandise, no sponsored promotional items, and host no commercial advertising displays.

To ensure permanent institutional integrity, our association operates in close, formal concert with the municipal council of Champrond-en-Gâtine. Through a multi-year municipal partnership convention, the Commune provides the association with dedicated physical premises located within the municipal town hall complex. This municipal allocation includes secure shelving rooms, quiet reading salons, electrical utilities, heating during winter months, and municipal insurance coverage for the premises. In return, CHAMP-LIVRES assumes the full responsibility of staffing regular public opening hours, maintaining catalog integrity, organizing cultural events, and ensuring safe patron reception through its vetted team of volunteers.

Territorial Strategic Roadmap: Five-Year Civic Horizon

Our executive board and volunteer committee regularly re-examine community needs to craft realistic, high-impact operational roadmaps. Our strategic orientation for the 2024–2029 quinquennium centers on four interconnected strategic axes:

Ethical Governance & Public Transparency

Because CHAMP-LIVRES manages public municipal infrastructure and receives public subsidies, we maintain an uncompromising standard of governance transparency. Our executive board members serve on a strictly benevolent basis: not a single euro of compensation, attendance fees, or direct personal advantage is granted to any administrator.

Every expenditure made by the association—whether purchasing new fiction titles from independent regional bookshops, acquiring book repair tape, or printing informational flyers for school children—is recorded with accompanying receipts, categorized according to the official non-profit chart of accounts, and presented to all members at our annual Ordinary General Assembly. Every citizen residing in Champrond-en-Gâtine is entitled to attend this assembly, review our accounting ledgers, interrogate budget lines, and participate in voting for our administrative board.

Partnership with the Departmental Lending Network

A village library cannot function as an isolated island. To provide our 400+ registered readers with a catalog on par with major urban cultural centers, CHAMP-LIVRES is formally affiliated with the Médiathèque Départementale d'Eure-et-Loir (MDEL). Every quarter, the departmental bibliobus stops at Champrond-en-Gâtine, allowing our volunteers to exchange approximately 400 volumes from the departmental central collection.

This rotating loan partnership allows our local readers to request specific specialized works—ranging from advanced scientific textbooks and university philosophy treatises to obscure foreign-language fiction and latest prize-winning literature—which are delivered directly to our village desk at zero cost to the patron. Through this cooperative model, we maximize the public utility of every taxpayer euro invested at both municipal and departmental levels.

How Public Funding & Voluntary Dues Function

Transparency requires clear explanation of how an association without commercial revenues sustains its operations year after year. Our annual funding profile is comprised of three distinct elements:

1. Municipal Operating Grant: Voted annually by the municipal council of Champrond-en-Gâtine, this grant directly funds collection renewals, allowing the acquisition of approximately 120–160 brand-new book titles each calendar year.
2. Departmental Cultural Support: Competitive project-based subsidies obtained through the Conseil Départemental d'Eure-et-Loir for specific cultural events, author readings, or regional heritage exhibitions.
3. Voluntary Patron Membership: While borrowing is entirely free, patrons who wish to show institutional solidarity may join as supporting members with a voluntary annual contribution (typically 10 to 15 euros). As required by our founding statutes: "All membership fees and dues are fully reinvested in the association's public interest missions." Not one cent is diverted to private benefit.

By upholding these rigorous standards of statutory compliance, financial modesty, and human warmth, CHAMP-LIVRES ensures that Champrond-en-Gâtine remains a beacon of civic learning and rural cultural resilience.

Pedagogical Philosophy: The Five Pillars of Public Reading

The pedagogical and cultural strategy implemented by CHAMP-LIVRES is grounded in the principles articulated by the UNESCO Public Library Manifesto and the French Code of Heritage regarding communal reading institutions. Our operational ethos is defined by five foundational pillars that guide every decision made by our volunteer catalogers, program animators, and governance board:

1. Unconditional Universal Access: Public reading is a fundamental democratic right, not a luxury or privilege. We ensure that no resident of Champrond-en-Gâtine encounters economic, social, or physical barriers when seeking knowledge. Our catalog encompasses diverse viewpoints, literary traditions, and reading levels, ensuring that every person—from a pre-kindergarten toddler exploring picture books to an advanced scholar examining local agricultural treatises—finds resources that challenge and inspire them.
2. Neutrality and Intellectual Freedom: As a public-benefit association operating within municipal premises, CHAMP-LIVRES maintains strict political, ideological, and religious neutrality. Our collection development policy rejects censorship and partisan favoritism. We acquire books based on literary quality, historical relevance, educational merit, and patron interest, providing our community with an open, balanced window onto the broader world.
3. Civic Hospitality and Social Cohesion: In an era increasingly fragmented by digital screens and solitary routines, the physical space of the library serves as a vital communal crossroads. We deliberately design our interior space to encourage warm human interaction. Comfortable armchairs, accessible reading tables, and quiet conversational alcoves ensure that visitors feel invited to linger, converse, and build lasting neighborhood bonds.
4. Intergenerational Solidarity: We reject age segregation in cultural spaces. Our library is structured so that children, adolescents, working adults, and senior citizens share common areas and participate in collaborative activities. By pairing senior volunteers with young students during reading sessions, we foster mutual empathy, reduce ageism, and ensure the vibrant transmission of local cultural memory.
5. Continuous Community Consultation: Our catalog is never static, nor is it dictated by external commercial bestsellers lists. Through our physical "Patron Wish Ledger" and regular informal consultations during library opening hours, readers directly propose titles, themes, and genres for upcoming municipal acquisitions. More than 40% of our annual new book orders originate directly from resident recommendations.

Historical Context: Rural Libraries as Guardians of Civic Democracy

The history of public reading in rural France is deeply intertwined with the development of democratic citizenship and public education. Following the establishment of universal secular primary schooling in the late nineteenth century under Jules Ferry, communal libraries (then known as bibliothèques populaires or bibliothèques scolaires et communales) were founded across French villages to ensure that literacy acquired in school was not lost in adulthood.

In Champrond-en-Gâtine, historical records from the late 1880s indicate that an initial collection of several dozen pedagogical works and agricultural manuals was kept in a wooden cabinet inside the communal schoolhouse. Teachers and local municipal leaders recognized that farmers and village artisans needed access to reliable information regarding veterinary care, agronomy, history, and constitutional rights. Over the decades, through the upheavals of two World Wars and post-war modernization, this collection evolved, sustained by the tireless efforts of local educators and volunteer caretakers.

When municipal administration modernized in the late twentieth century, community residents recognized that maintaining a vibrant library required an organized, formalized association capable of securing grants, managing specialized cataloging software, and mobilizing volunteer energy. CHAMP-LIVRES was created to inherit this proud lineage of village enlightenment, transforming a quiet collection of books into a dynamic, responsive cultural center tailored to twenty-first-century challenges.

Cataloging Standards and Professional Collection Management

While our library is staffed entirely by dedicated volunteers, our collection management adheres to rigorous professional library standards. To maintain seamless interoperability with the Médiathèque Départementale d'Eure-et-Loir and regional library consortia, we utilize standard French public library classification systems:

• Dewey Decimal Classification: All non-fiction, reference treatises, biographies, and historical works are cataloged using the standard Dewey Decimal system (000–999), enabling students and researchers to locate works on geography, science, social philosophy, technology, and the arts systematically.
• Juvenile Color-Coding Matrix: To foster independent exploration among young readers who have not yet mastered formal library search tools, our children's section is organized using intuitive, standardized color bands corresponding to reading levels: green for picture books and board books, yellow for first readers, orange for middle-grade adventure fiction, and blue for young adult novels.
• Condition Auditing and De-accessioning (Désherbage): In library science, responsible collection curation requires regular de-accessioning to ensure that shelves remain attractive, clean, and up to date. Twice each year, our committee conducts systematic condition audits. Volumes that are heavily damaged, scientifically obsolete, or hopelessly worn are respectfully retired, while valuable older editions are treated with protective conservation bindings.

Collaborative Framework with Local Educational Institutions

The collaboration between CHAMP-LIVRES and local educational structures is formalized through cooperative planning sessions held before the start of each school trimester. We work hand-in-hand with regional teachers and daycare educators to support curricular priorities through engaging cultural activities:

During each school term, classes visit our municipal library rooms for dedicated thematic workshops. Recent programs have included "Discovering the Forest Ecosystem through Literature", where scientific forestry guides were paired with nature poetry and illustrated animal encyclopedias; "The Art of the Graphic Novel", introducing middle-grade students to historical storytelling through visual media; and "Local Heritage Detectives", where students examined historical photographs and nineteenth-century maps of Champrond-en-Gâtine to understand how village architecture evolved over the centuries.

By introducing children to the municipal library in an educational, joyful context, we demystify public cultural spaces. Children who enter our library with their school class frequently return on Saturday mornings holding the hands of their parents, siblings, or grandparents, eager to show their families the books they discovered during school hours. This ripple effect anchors literacy firmly within the family home.

Statutory Transparency & Public Accountability Summary

In accordance with statutory transparency directives, the full administrative dossier of CHAMP-LIVRES is accessible for public consultation. Citizens, municipal representatives, and partner institutions are invited to verify our legal standing through the following official references:

• Statutory Designation: CHAMP-LIVRES (Association déclarée régie par la loi du 1er juillet 1901)
• National Association Directory Identifier (RNA): W284000827
• Business and Registry Directory Identifier (SIREN): 791211329
• Prefectural Registration: Préfecture d'Eure-et-Loir, published in the Journal Officiel des Associations
• Official Seat: Mairie, 72 Grande Rue, 28240 Champrond-en-Gâtine
• Institutional Supervision: Municipal Council of Champrond-en-Gâtine
• Financial Oversight: Independent internal auditory committee elected by the General Assembly