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Bibliothèque nationale de France

 
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Bibliothèque nationale de France
 
 
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The Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) is the National Library
National library

A national library is a library specifically established by the government of a country to serve as the preeminent repository of information for that country....
 of France
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
, located in Paris
Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine
Bruno Racine

Bruno Racine is a French civil servant and writer....
.

History
The National Library of France traces its origin to the royal library founded at the Louvre
Louvre

The Louvre Museum , located in Paris, is a historic monument, and a national museum of France. It is a central landmark, located on the Rive Droite of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement of Paris ....
 by Charles V
Charles V of France

Charles V , called the Wise, was List of French monarchs from 1364 to his death and a member of the House of Valois. His reign marked a high point for France during the Hundred Years' War, with his armies recovering much of the territory ceded to England at the Treaty of Br?tigny....
 in 1368. It expanded under Louis XIV
Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV ruled as List of French monarchs and of King of Navarre. He ascended the throne a few months before his fifth birthday, but did not assume actual personal control of the government until the death of his prime minister , the Italians Jules Cardinal Mazarin, in 1661....
 and opened to the public in 1692.






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The Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) is the National Library
National library

A national library is a library specifically established by the government of a country to serve as the preeminent repository of information for that country....
 of France
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
, located in Paris
Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
. It is intended to be the repository of all that is published in France. The current president of the library is Bruno Racine
Bruno Racine

Bruno Racine is a French civil servant and writer....
.

History


The National Library of France traces its origin to the royal library founded at the Louvre
Louvre

The Louvre Museum , located in Paris, is a historic monument, and a national museum of France. It is a central landmark, located on the Rive Droite of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement of Paris ....
 by Charles V
Charles V of France

Charles V , called the Wise, was List of French monarchs from 1364 to his death and a member of the House of Valois. His reign marked a high point for France during the Hundred Years' War, with his armies recovering much of the territory ceded to England at the Treaty of Br?tigny....
 in 1368. It expanded under Louis XIV
Louis XIV of France

Louis XIV ruled as List of French monarchs and of King of Navarre. He ascended the throne a few months before his fifth birthday, but did not assume actual personal control of the government until the death of his prime minister , the Italians Jules Cardinal Mazarin, in 1661....
 and opened to the public in 1692. The library's collections swelled to over 300,000 volumes during the radical phase
Legislative Assembly (France)

During the French Revolution, the Legislative Assembly was the legislature of France from October 1 1791 to September 1792. It provided the focus of political debate and revolutionary law-making between the periods of the National Constituent Assembly and of the National Convention....
 of the French Revolution
French Revolution

The French Revolution was a period of political and social upheaval and radical change in the history of France, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudalism for the aristocracy and Roman Catholic Church clergy, underwent radical change to forms based on Age of Enlightenment principles of cit...
 when the private libraries of aristocrats and clergy were seized.

Following the series of regime changes in France, it became the Imperial National Library and in 1868 was moved to newly constructed buildings on the rue de Richelieu
Rue de Richelieu

Rue de Richelieu is a long street of Paris, starting in the south of the Ier arrondissement, ending in the IIe arrondissement....
 designed by Henri Labrouste
Henri Labrouste

Henri Labrouste was a France architect from the famous Ecole des Beaux Arts school of architecture. After a six year stay in Rome, Labrouste opened an architectural training workshop, which quickly became the center of the Rationalist view....
.

New buildings


On 14 July 1988, President François Mitterrand
François Mitterrand

Fran?ois Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand served as President of France from 1981 to 1995, elected as representative of the French Socialist Party ....
 announced the construction and the expansion of one of the largest and most modern libraries in the world, intended to cover all fields of knowledge, and designed to be accessible to all, using the most modern data transfer technologies, which could be consulted from a distance, and which would collaborate with other European libraries. Surprisingly, the library does not maintain a wireless network. In July 1989, the services of the architectural firm of Dominique Perrault
Dominique Perrault

Dominique Perrault is a France architect.He currently heads Dominique Perrault Architecte in Paris....
 were retained. The construction was carried out by Bouygues
Bouygues

Bouygues is a France industrial group listed on Euronext exchange and is a blue chip in the CAC 40 stock market index. The company was founded in 1952 by Francis Bouygues and since 1989 has been led by his son Martin Bouygues....
. After the move of the major collections from the rue de Richelieu, the National Library of France opened to the public on 20 December 1996. It contains more than ten million volumes.

The library retains the use of the rue de Richelieu complex for some of its collections.

Mission

The National Library of France is a public establishment under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture. Its mission is to constitute collections, especially the copies of works published in France that must, by law, be deposited there, conserve them, and make them available to the public. It produces a reference catalogue, cooperates with other national and international establishments, and participates in research programs.

Greek manuscripts

The library holds about 5,000 Greek manuscripts, which are divided into three fonds: fonds grec, fonds Coislin, and supplément grec.

Gallica

In 1997 the digital library
Digital library

A digital library is a library in which collections are stored in digital formats and accessible by computers. The digital content may be stored locally, or accessed remotely via computer networks....
 was established for online users. As of April 2006, Gallica made available on the Web: 90,000 scanned volumes, 1,200 full-text volumes, 500 audio documents, and 80,000 images.

See also

  • Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal
    Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal

    The Biblioth?que de l'Arsenal in Paris is one of the branches of the Biblioth?que nationale de France....
  • Cabinet des Médailles
    Cabinet des Médailles

    The Cabinet des M?dailles, or Cabinet de France, more formally known as Le d?partement des Monnaies, M?dailles et Antiquit?s de la Biblioth?que Nationale, is a department of the Biblioth?que nationale de France in Paris, housed in its former premises in rue de Richelieu....


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