Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Bibliothèque nationale de France (National Library of France)--July 9, 2010

Over the weekend, a group from our program went on a short visit to Paris. It was largely a non-academic trip, but we couldn't resist visiting a few libraries. We started out with the old and new locations of the Bibliothèque nationale.

The Richelieu Library is the old location of the National Library. The main location is now at a different site, but this space has reading rooms and exhibit space. Unfortunately, we were not able to see much beyond the few public spaces, but we were able to get a sense of the atmosphere of the place.






The new location is the Francois-Mitterrand Library. It is an enormous and imposing facility. Each building is designed to look like a book. Unfortunately, we did not have time to tour this location, but a virtual tour is available on the BNF website.




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