A Librarian’s Stage Dreams
Did the experiments at the Children’s Library push Anne-Marie Redard to take a few steps aside? The records don’t say that. What they reveal, however, is this memorable moment in her career to which she devoted almost the entirety of her speech on October 26, 1995 – guest of honor and then aged 91 – on the occasion of the festivities marking the 50 years of the youth section in Chauderon 9, in the premises it has occupied since 1973.
1954. The municipal library is about to celebrate its 20th anniversary. Anne-Marie Redard suggests to her colleagues that they produce the play written by a bedridden boy of around twelve years old. The proposition appeals. The “Youth Theater of the Municipal Library” was to be born. With three pieces of string, she creates the sets and costumes, which she sews at night. On the day of the performance, in front of an audience of officials and parents, only the young author is missing. Budding actresses and comedians remedy this by performing his creation once again, at home. Galvanized by this first success, the small troupe did not survive a few quarrels and was dissolved some time later.
Anne-Marie Redard dies in her 97e year, in April 2001, shortly before the opening, on September 3 at avenue d’Echallens 2a, of the current Youth Library. But she was a delighted witness, from the end of the 1960s, to the blossoming of youth sections in each of the branches, in the four corners of the city, from Montriond to Entre-Bois. She was fond of “Babar”, but did not hide her aversion to “Tintin” and “Biggles”. Did she measure, at the turn of the last century, the phenomenal publishing success of the “Harry Potter” saga and what did she think of it? And could she have imagined that the 2023 management report would list 40,000 documents for the Youth Library alone and that the loan volume for that same year would reach 237,000 documents?
On October 26, 1995, Anne-Marie Redard concluded her speech in these terms: “Would the Municipality and the Director of the Library, who is one of my brilliant “elders”, agree to study the possibility of providing their institution with a stage, as is done in the United States, to give gifted natures the chance to practice an art and a culture, or even different cultures, sources of enrichment of the heart and the mind? (6) Although she was not granted, she would certainly have approved the wide range of activities, workshops and shows offered by the Libraries of the City of Lausanne. And she would undoubtedly have participated, on December 14, in “The Ideal Expo” of the Youth Library: a creative, participatory and cumulative event which, through the creation of a common and multiple work, celebrates culture, diversity and exchange which lie at the heart of its missions.
