Three days at the ABF congress: what Rennes taught us about welcome

From 17 to 19 June, the Riven team was in Rennes, at the Couvent des Jacobins, for the 71st congress of the Association des bibliothécaires de France. More than 900 professionals spent three days on a single theme: welcome and hospitality in libraries. We were there with a stand. Here is what stayed with us.

A theme that lands

"Welcome and hospitality" is not an abstract slogan. On the ground it means very concrete things: that a visitor finds their way without asking, that they understand what the place offers before they even walk in, that no one needs to be an insider to feel they belong.

That idea came up in nearly every conversation at the stand. Many teams invest heavily in the quality of human welcome. But part of the welcome happens elsewhere: in the signage, on the website, in the way services make themselves visible. A reader who does not know a service exists will not use it, however good the team is.

What we heard at the stand

We spent three days talking with network directors, library managers, and colleagues working on heritage and digital services. A few observations came back often.

The first: the catalogue is still the main entry point, but it mostly speaks to people who already know what they are looking for. For everyone else, what a library offers stays largely invisible.

The second: teams have neither the time nor the appetite to switch tools every two years. The question is never "replace everything", it is "how do we make what we already have easier to read".

The third: digital hospitality matters as much as physical hospitality. A warm space with an unreadable website sends a contradictory message.

Where Loupe fits in

This is exactly what we are building Loupe for. The platform makes a library's services more visible and easier to use, without replacing the catalogue or the tools already in place. It complements them rather than substituting for them.

Showing a live instance during a conversation was often the moment that resonated most. Seeing, rather than describing, changes the discussion. Several teams recognised their own problems in what they had in front of them: a public that walks past a service, information scattered across three channels, wayfinding that rests entirely on staff.

We are leaving with good conversations, some already turned into scheduled demos, from Brittany and beyond. Thank you to everyone who stopped by.

What we keep from Rennes

One idea, above all. Welcome is not only a matter of attitude or goodwill. It is also a matter of tools. A library can be deeply hospitable within its walls and still feel opaque to anyone discovering it online or stepping in for the first time.

That gap is what we want to close. Not by adding another layer, but by making what already exists easier to read.

If you were in Rennes and we did not get the chance to talk, or if the topic speaks to you, write to us. We will show you a live instance, which says more than a long pitch.