1 Date : 03/07/2008 PUBLIC LIBRARIES AND MODERNITY IN COLOMBIA: MULTIPLE CULTURES, MULTIPLE REALITIES Diana Carolina Martínez Santos Bibliotecóloga Plan Nacional de Lectura y Bibliotecas Meeting: 118. Library Services to Multicultural Populations Simultaneous Interpretation: Not available WORLD LI BRARY AND I NFORMATI ON CONGRESS: 74TH I FLA GENERAL CONFERENCE AND COUNCI L 10-14 August 2008, Québec, Canada http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla74/index.htm ABSTRACT This paper aims to present the draft study on the use that communities give to public libraries in the municipal department of Nariño, implemented by the National Plan for Reading and Libraries in 2003. This study is interested in the understanding of the relationship that is generated in that department among libraries, understood as modern structures, and rural and urban communities, thereby determining their role as modernizing agents. INTRODUCTION In 2003 the National Government of Colombia set up the National Plan for Reading and Libraries (hereafter PNLB), as one component of the National Development Plan called "Towards a Communal State." The fundamental aim of the PNLB is "to improve standards of reading and strengthen the services provided by public libraries in Colombia, this way it is expected to make easier the access, in an equitable way, for all rural and urban communities to information, knowledge and entertainment through books, developing the principles of