Presse on paper and microfilm

The French press collections available at the Research Library are characterized by their great diversity, and include the following:

• national press (political and general news press, popular press, gossip press, etc.)
• regional and local press 
• overseas press (colonies and former territories under French dominion and overseas communities) 
• specialist press (feminine press, recreational press, economic press, legal press, sports press, etc.) 
• readers’ press (children’s and young people’s press, fantasy press, religious press, association-based press, etc.) 
• free press 
• official publications
  

These collections are all available for consultation on both paper and microfilm. In order to improve the conservation of its press collections, the Library regularly adds to its film library (which includes more than 100,000 rolls covering the press). The film library includes leading French press titles as well as themed sets (illustrated young people’s press, press from former colonies, etc.).

Leading foreign daily newspapers are available on microfilm from 1990 onwards: The New York Times, The Times, El País, The Washington Post, Pravda, Le Soir, Die Frankfürter Allgemeine Zeitung, etc. This collection covers almost 88 countries.

The Library also holds a large number of foreign press titles in paper form covering periods prior to 1990.

Material covering the history of the press up to the 20th century may also be consulted in the Arsenal Library (Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal). The founder of the Arsenal Library, the Marquis of Paulmy, whose aim was to create an encyclopedic collection, naturally sought to collect newspapers. The Arsenal Library’s old collection thus includes more than 200 mainly French gazettes and newspapers from the early modern period (“official” newspapers of the Ancien Régime, specialist periodicals, gazettes from Holland, etc.), as well as almanacs and several thousand mazarinades. The Arsenal Library also holds 17th and 18th century handwritten newsletters in the Bastille Archives (Archives de la Bastille) collection.

In 1880, Jules Ferry, Minister for Public Instruction, decided to create at the Arsenal Library, by way of legal deposit, a complete collection of all political journals in Paris. The remit of this collection soon exceeded the Minister’s initial ambitions, extending to provincial, colonial and specialist papers. The result is a major collection of 19th and 20th century periodicals, within which the period from 1880 to 1914, which saw the golden age of the French press, is particularly well represented.