Holy-Genevieve library

See also: Holy-Genevieve

The library Holy-Genevieve is a Parisian library located at 10, place du the Pantheon, in the 5th district of Paris. It is the heiress of the library of the Abbaye Holy-Genevieve of Paris, which it survived after the French revolution, occupying until in 1842 the last floor of the abbey building which sheltered the central École then of the Pantheon, today Lycée Henri-Iv. It occupies since 1851 its current building, built by the architect Henri Labrouste and increased thereafter.

It is today a library of State at the same time inter-University and public, accessible to any major or titular person from the baccalaureat. Its collections are encyclopedic and add up approximately two million volumes. They are divided into three funds: the Reserve, mainly for the old, rare and invaluable funds, the Funds general including/understanding the works, periodicals and other documents published of 1811 to today, and the Scandinavian Library (access to 6, rue Valette), proposing very rich funds fenno-Scandinavian whose origin goes back to the collections of the Abbey.

It is administratively attached to the Université of Paris III.

History

If the foundation of the Holy-Genevieve Abbey of Paris goes back to the 6th century, the existence of a library is attested only at the 12th century, with a Manuscrit, today with the public library of Soissons, carrying its ex libris. At the century following a catalog makes state of 226 volumes. But the abbey knows a certain decline at the 16th century, which involves the dispersion of the collections. It is the cardinal of Rochefoucauld, bishop of Senlis, entered in possession of the abbey in 1619, which re-establishes truly the library in 1624, to which, after an initial deposit of 600 volumes, he bequeaths the whole of his collections and personal records in 1640. The collections increase then until the Revolution, under the impulse of its successive librarians, and grows rich by many gifts: in particular of Gabriel Naudé in 1653, and especially, in 1710, that the archbishop of Rheims, Charles-Maurice Tellier which bequeaths its collection of Manuscrit S and approximately 16 000 volumes, among which 500 volumes at the origin of the collections of the current Scandinavian Library. With this funds Tellier was also introduced the alphabetical classification of Nicolas Clément, still partially of use nowadays.

At the 18th century the library, among the first with Paris, is opened with the public. Second half of the century is marked by the personality of its librarian, the father Alexandre-Guy Pingré (1711 - 1796), member of the Academy of Science, which increases considerably the scientific collections of Holy-Genevieve. Moreover, it is with its entregent that the library, become national property in 1789 with the abbey, must have survived this one and escaped with the dispersion of its collections. Better, it profits, like the National library and some other establishments, of the revolutionary confiscations and the Napoleonean spoils of war, growing rich by a selection of approximately 20 000 works of varied sources.

Renamed Library of the Pantheon until the Restoration, it passes, with dead of Skinflint, under the authority of the administrator Pierre Daunou, who launches the establishment of the catalog of the incunables (published only at the end of the century), then that of the general catalog (in 33 volumes). At that time, the library always profits from regular gifts, and to mitigate the weakness of its appropriations, becomes, by royal decree in 1828, assignee of a specimen of the Registration of copyright in Théologie, Philosophie, Droit, Médecine and Sciences, which enables him to better answer its double vocation of public library and academic.

However, it is with narrow in decayed buildings, on the last floor of the old abbey become college. In 1842 it is installed, on a purely provisional basis, in part of old the Collège of Montaigu, become hospital, then prison, and intended for the demolition within the framework of the installation of the place of the Pantheon. The new library is built on its site of 1843 to the 1850, and is inaugurated on February 4th, 1851.

In 1925, it is attached to the Réunion of the national libraries of Paris (also gathering the National library, the Arsenal, and the Mazarine). However, as of 1930, it is attached to the Université of Paris, and becomes inter-University in 1972.

The Holy-Genevieve Library in figures

Structure

Plans

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