Special Report

If you are told that a European country knew science, books and libraries five or six centuries a, you might be surprised because Europe at that time was living in the Dark Ages (between 400-1400 AD). Nevertheless, King Charles V sought to establish his own library at the Louvre in 1368 and it contained 917 manuscripts. This library, which almost perished after the departure of its owner, was considered the core of the French National Library, which was actually founded by King Louis XI, who ruled between (1461 and 1483), after merging modest royal libraries that existed especially in the sixteenth century AD. The library was first named the Royal Library and then the Imperial Library before becoming the National Library - which took the name of the street where it was found, namely "Cardinal de Richelieu", the man of state and culture who lived in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

Transformations in the Library's Journey

The French National Library is one of the massive libraries in Europe, located in Paris, and is considered the national library of the French people. It is one of the oldest and most important libraries in the world. Many of the French National Library's manuscripts were moved from Charles V's royal library (the Louvre Library) which Charles established in 1367 AD, while the ownership of others dates back to the library of the ruling Valois family based in Blois, France. In the sixteenth century, King Francis I merged the Blois library with his library (1),.

On July 14, 1988, former French President François Mitterrand announced the construction of one of the largest and most modern national libraries in the world. The construction of this great cultural edifice was completed in 1995 when President Mitterrand inaugurated it, and it officially took the name "National Library of the French Republic". The library, which stands as a cultural monument on the bank of the Seine, is called François Mitterrand, who was behind its construction driven by a desire and will to leave traces of his reign, and his choice was in the cultural field as he was known to be one of the most cultured presidents of France. The idea on which the necessity of building a new library was based was that it was necessary to expand and modernize the National Library with the aim of expanding the ways of knowledge through benefiting from modern architecture and from the contemporary digital informatics and media revolution. Hence his choice to build the library he christened "National," to take the place occupied by the previous National Library "Richelieu".

Library Sites and Sections

The National Library is distributed over several sites, the most important of which are:
-- François Mitterrand Site: It is a study and research library where exhibitions and seminars are held.
-- Richelieu Louvois Site: It includes most of the specialized collections: maps, photos, manuscripts including oriental manuscripts, coins and medals...
-- Bastille: Established in the mid-seventeenth century, it was nationalized during the Revolution to become a public library in 1797, and was attached to the National Library in 1934.
-- Opera Museum Library: Includes models of decor and clothes and archive related to the shows organized for three centuries.
The French National Library consists of four high towers in the form of "four open books" designed by the French architect Dominique Perrault, who won an international competition in which hundreds of architects participated in 1989. It is based on a massive flat base containing book stores, and its roof is reached via huge terraces overlooking the Seine. (2)

Festivals and Activities

One of the most important sites belonging to the French National Library outside Paris is the Avignon site in southern France where the Avignon Theater Festival is held every summer in July since 1947 at the initiative of the world-famous French theater maker Jean Vilar, and it is one of the largest theater festivals in the world in terms of the number of shows and number of attendees. In Avignon, Jean Vilar's house became the site of a library rich in books and documents related to theater and its world and activities, and it became part of the French National Library - the new, François Mitterrand site on the banks of the Seine in Paris. (3)

Contents of the Library

Information about the French National Library confirms that the bulk of the contents of the old National Library were moved to the new National Library (François Mitterrand Library), as it was known by this name. Given the vast content of the library, it was considered unique in the world, as it includes millions of books, publications, manuscripts, engravings, photographs, maps, coins, medals, audio files, videos and audio-visual media…. all intellectual, artistic and scientific disciplines were represented in the form of an encyclopedia. Nearly 150 documents are added to its properties annually thanks to legal deposits, purchases and donations. The library also abounds with rare and old publications dating back to the beginning of the era of writing, and also precious manuscripts written in multiple languages belonging to different cultures of the world, including the Arab and Islamic world, where many French orientalists, travelers, colonialists and discoverers brought rare oriental manuscripts and books that are difficult to find in the libraries of the Arab and Islamic capitals themselves. (4)

In 1537 AD, a royal decree was issued requiring printers and booksellers to deposit a copy of any book sold in the French Kingdom, which is currently known as legal deposit or legitimate deposit, which formed a turning point in the library's history and contributed to the development of its assets. The assets of the French National Library have grown significantly; in 1780 the number of books deposited was 390, to reach 12,414 after a century, i.e., in 1880, then 45 thousand in 1993 AD. Today, the National Library's assets are more than 14 million books and publications, 250 thousand manuscripts, 360 thousand periodical titles, about 800 thousand maps and plans, two million musical pieces, one million audio documents, and several tens of thousands of videos, photos and multimedia, 530 thousand between coins and medals. The library keeps a copy of any publication printed in France. Its collections include about 20 million printed volumes, 500 thousand magazines, 165 thousand manuscripts, 600 thousand maps and 15 million engravings and photos and about 400 thousand types of currency and engraved precious stones.

Visitors of the Library

It is mentioned that the National Library opened its doors to researchers, students and the general public after moving to its new building on December 20, 1996, and since then it has been visited by a diverse audience of researchers, students and readers, while others enter its various websites on the Internet, and their number in 2008 and 2009 exceeded one million and 300 thousand visitors annually. The number of its visitors today has reached more than eight million visitors annually in addition to more than a million and a quarter million visitors to its website.

Arabic Books and Manuscripts

The National Library of France contains a large number of Arabic books and manuscripts, where Arabic manuscripts have been collected for several centuries through French merchants, travelers and diplomats in the Arab and Islamic countries. The first of those manuscripts dates back to the era of Francis I, where he sent envoys to Italy and to the Arab countries to acquire Arabic and Hebrew manuscripts. Between 1671 and 1675, the Dominican missionary Michel Vansleb was able to bring 630 manuscripts from the East alone, then the number of those manuscripts increased especially during the period of French colonialism of a number of Arab countries. The number of Arabic manuscripts currently is 7270 manuscripts, alongside about 45 thousand books and more than 3 thousand periodical titles. One of the most important manuscripts acquired by the National Library in Paris is a copy of the book "Maqamat al-Hariri," the oldest Arabic literary book of short stories, known by the name of its scribe and illustrator "Yahya ibn Mahmud al-Wasiti," a painter born in the village of Wasit, southern Iraq, who completed that manuscript in 1237 AD and provided it with a hundred images expressing the events of its fifty maqamas. Among the important manuscripts in the library is a copy of the book "Kalila and Dimna" produced in Iran during the Timurid era and an Arabic copy of the book "The Theriac" by Galen completed in 595 AH (1199 AD). The library also possesses some personal photos of rulers and ministers from India during the rule of the Mughal emperors, and those photos have historical documentary importance alongside their artistic importance (5).