Media library network

With 14 establishments (13 media libraries and 1 library) located in Montpellier and in 8 communes of the territory, the network of media libraries and scientific culture is an essential element of the cultural mesh of the territory.

More than a million books, comics, magazines, CDs and DVDs are available from the Montpellier Metropole media library network. With a digital version that continues to grow, enabling reading on tablet or e-reader, access to VOD or online training. All with the same subscription.

Each year, nearly 70,000 people subscribe to the network to take home reading, music and cinema.

Books, videos, digital kiosks, online courses... Numerous online resources are offered by the network of media libraries and scientific culture, aimed at all audiences.

Digital books and audios

The Metropole media library network allows you to borrow 5 digital books and audios simultaneously (maximum 12 titles per month), from the 5,300 references. Books can be downloaded onto a computer, tablet, e-reader or smartphone. Digital audiobooks can be listened to on your browser, and require an internet connection. Borrowing time is 21 days.

Readers

Readers are available to borrow for a period of 3 weeks, extendable once. The media library network has more than 60 e-readers spread across the territory. For more information, make an appointment with a librarian

Videos on demand

The subscriber card gives free access to several thousand films, via various services:

• The Digital Media Library with Arte and Universciné gives each subscriber 3 tokens per month. Subscribers can watch a film in exchange for half, one or 2 tokens, depending on the conditions set by the publishers. For example, films released in cinemas less than a year ago count for two tokens.
• Les Yeux doc: VOD service from the Bibliothèque Publique d'Information du Centre Pompidou, consists of documentary films. The films on offer have been shown at international festivals, but have not necessarily been released on DVD or broadcast in the media. They are therefore not very visible. Restricted to subscribers, with a limit of 15 films per month.
• Review the meetings: an online service open to all, unlimited and free of charge. An opportunity to relive the visits of writers, poets, sociologists, historians and politicians to the Emile Zola multimedia library from the comfort of your own home. With, among others: Marcel Rufo, Jean d'Ormesson, Michel Butor, Amin Maalouf, Olivier Adam and many others...

Kiosk online

News, politics, international, women's, culture, leisure, sport... More than 1,500 magazines from the French and international press are available online, from the day they hit the newsstands. Cafeyn also offers themed magazines, such as travel books:

• Détours en France, the magazine for discovering the French regions, with reports, photos, tips and original ideas.
• Grand reportages - Explorer le Monde, a monthly magazine illustrated with numerous photos that lets you discover foreign places, peoples and cultures, while offering practical fact sheets.
• Animan, a magazine that combines long-form reports and a portfolio of images.

Philharmonie

70,000 music and sound documents are available to listen to unlimited from home. Video on demand, discovery tours and music applications are also available. Consultation is secure and available on all media (computers, tablets and smartphones).

Online courses

More than 120,000 hours of content and 10 thematic catalogs (creative hobbies, tutoring, highway code, computer software, languages...) are available with unlimited access on PC, tablet and smartphone.

Digital heritage library

The Network's digital heritage library, Mémonum, provides access to almost a million digitized pages of documents held in the médiathèque Emile Zola. Among the collections available: precious books, manuscripts, prints and drawings, medallions, bindings, literary collections and old regional press.

10,000 games, toys and video games are available in the media library network. Board games, investigation games, construction games, escape games... are available in a dedicated area.

The media libraries offer games for all tastes with 2 toy libraries (médiathèques Émile Zola and Jean-Jacques Rousseau), a collection of over 6,000 games and toys, and a wide range of fun activities. The network's toy libraries are open to all subscribers and welcome a varied public: families, children, teenagers but also, on specific slots, specialized institutions, schoolchildren, leisure centers, crèches and nursery assistants.

On the video-games side, 85 consoles are accessible during opening hours or on specific slots. The médiathèques Albert Camus (Clapiers) La Gare (Pignan) and Émile Zola (Montpellier) also offer Gaming PCs dedicated to multiplayer online gaming and e-sports.

Virtual reality activities are also organized throughout the year.

Throughout the year, the 14 media libraries offer a rich and diversified program for all publics. Events may be organized by the media libraries themselves, by the Metropole, or coordinated by several establishments nationwide.

Among the highlights:

• Les nuits de la lecture
• Festi' Petits, the festival for 0/3 year olds
• Les Mycéliades, a festival bringing together cinemas and media libraries
• Graphims, the graphic design festival
• International Women's Rights Day
• The Poets' Spring Festival
• Press week and Media and Information Education meetings
• Thematic cycles
• CSTI highlights
• The Histoire(s) de voir festival
• La Comédie du Livre - 10 jours en mai
• La grande fête du livre pour la jeunesse : Partir en livre
• La journée contre l'illettrisme
• Les Journées Européennes du Patrimoine
• La Fête de la science and scientific culture events (Bar des sciences, festival Sud de sciences, Agora des savoirs)
• The Fête du Cinéma d'animation and the Mois du film documentaire
• The Semaine Européenne de la Réduction des Déchets
• The Journée internationale des personnes en situation de handicap
• The 4 seasons of Agroécologie et de l'Alimentation durable

In addition, the Réseau offers residencies for authors, illustrators and journalists. Objectives: to participate in the Metropole's cultural policy for artists, and to amplify cultural programming. These residencies provide an opportunity to discover a personality who takes part in a program of meetings, workshops and debates.

The media library network works to be accessible and inclusive for all.

Access:parking spaces reserved for people with disabilities are located near the media libraries.

Adapted reception

Several facilities have been set up for the visually impaired:

• Pedotactile strips, signage on shelves, loan of magnifying glasses of all sizes
• Reception in French sign language
• Reception by reservation of groups from specialized institutions for accompanied or self-guided visits, or even talks in the institutions.

Services for all

Services and activities facilitating the inclusion of all:

• A website for remote consultation of the catalog of collections, including over 17,826 titles in special formats: Braille, large print and audio.
• Digital collections for users with failing eyesight or mobility difficulties.
• The Digital Library Lending service: 1,650 digital book titles and 277 digital audio books can be borrowed remotely, via the media library website.
• The loan of e-readers with a choice of royalty-free books and the possibility of loading books borrowed online.
• Access to adapted editions: production and provision of digital files on site and for remote consultation for disabled beneficiaries. Information from the Homère/Lire autrement service - médiathèque Émile Zola.
• Films available with audiodescription or subtitling (AD/ST).
• Film screenings for visually impaired audiences.
• Home delivery service for disabled or hindered people who can't get around, offered by the William Shakespeare multimedia libraries (Montpellier), La Gare (Pignan), Françoise Giroud (Castries) and Jean Giono (Pérols).
• Home delivery of audio books and Braille for people with disabilities who are unable to travel.

Specific services for people with disabilities

People with disabilities benefit from specific services:

• The reader's card is free for people with disabilities in receipt of the Allocation aux adultes handicapés.
• The Cinéma & Rencontres room and the Mezzanine Cinéma room at the médiathèque Émile Zola are equipped with the Twavox device, which aims to make conferences, cinema, theater.., to people with hearing and visual disabilities. Three functionalities are deployed: sound reinforcement for the hearing impaired, audiodescription for the visually impaired or blind, and subtitles for the deaf. All these features are available free of charge on IOS and Android.

Awareness-raising for all audiences

The network has set up several awareness-raising activities:

• "Bébés signes", a workshop to discover gestural communication before learning language through readings and rhymes in sign language. Ages 1-3.
• "Braille through play", workshop to raise awareness of Braille and visual impairment for children who can read and write (8-12 years).
• "Je lis avec les doigts" (I read with my fingers), tactile book and Braille discovery workshops for 18-month-3-year-olds accompanied by an adult.
  French sign language initiation for the general public.
• Youth shows dubbed in French sign language.
• Biannual disability awareness events for all audiences in the Salon de lecture at the Espace Homère/Lire autrement - Émile Zola multimedia library.

L'espace Homère/Lire autrement de la médiathèque Emile Zola

In the médiathèque Emile Zola, l'espace Homère/Lire autrement provides documents, services, equipment and activities adapted for people with disabilities:

• Reading room with a tele-enlarger and reading machines.
• 2 multimedia booths with computers equipped with software adapted for the visually impaired (access to character magnification software, voice synthesis), as well as an embosser, a large-print keyboard and a Braille keyboard.
• Access to adapted editions, consultation and borrowing of recorded texts, large-print, tactile and Braille works for young people and adults.
• Visits of the space, accompaniment in the use of specific tools.
• Voice-reading.
• Monthly screenings of films with audio description.
• Hospitality, manuals, awareness-raising workshops and presentation videos in French sign language.
• Specific collections for people with learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, dysphasia, dysorthographia, dyspraxia, etc.
• New in 2025: a reading corner adapted for DYS (specific language and learning disorders) with a reading aid lamp.

French as a foreign language collections (learning methods, textbooks, various teaching aids) and services are offered by the media library network.

The aim? To diversify its learners and promote access to an allophone public living in France. Online resources are also made available to them: learning tools, interactive courses and materials tailored to their needs.

Other resources and learning methods are also offered by the network of social and linguistic outreach associations in Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole.

Conversation workshops

New arrivals, foreign students, migrants, refugees.... Since 2019, the media library network has been offering French conversation workshops for the allophone public.

These workshops enable groups of people to meet in a more or less formal way and discuss one or more given topics as freely as possible. The conversation workshop comes to meet learners' needs: improving their oral language skills, meeting people for a chat, making it easier to meet foreigners...

A free reservoir of documents, know-how and ideas for teachers, nursery assistants or students in the teaching professions. This is the vocation of La Ruche des Livres, a service aimed at the educational partners of the media library network.

Books for educational professionals

Romans, comics, audio books, games, kamishibais, professional documentation... A whole range of books is available, by appointment, to nursery assistants, teachers and students preparing for careers in education and teaching.

Appointment times:

• Tuesday, Thursday, Friday: 12 noon - 2pm / 5pm - 7pm
• Wednesday and Saturday: 10am - 6pm

Discovery visits

Discovery visits are offered to elementary school classes to familiarize children with the collections and services.

For CM2 children who do not have a media library network card, it is possible to fill in and sign a parental authorization form for the child before the visit, so that he or she can collect it afterwards.

Cultural offer for middle and high schools

The Emile Zola mediatheque also offers themed tours for middle and high school students. Topics include: "On the Roads of the World", "Humanity and Nature", "Orality and Rhetoric", "The Factory of Information"... Find out more by clicking here.

These visits take place by appointment at: contact.scolaires@montpellier3m.fr