Regional cooperation

• Regional resource centers
• BIPFPIG and learned societies

Regional resource centers

Until 2006, cooperation was based upon a bilateral model between BnF and a documentary or research institution or network of institutions, and upon predetermined objectives: topic-based acquisitions, preservation and referencing of documents provided by printers under the legal deposit scheme, catalog computerization, and digitization. From 2006, when BnF became operator of the Book and Reading Directorate (Direction du Livre et de la Lecture/DLL) for the implementation of its Action Plan for Written Heritage (Plan d’action pour le patrimoine écrit/PAPE), a regional cooperation model appeared.

The idea that national printed heritage should be promoted on the basis of both BnF’s collections and regional collections has led to the establishment of new “regional” centers supported by the following:

• Regional Cultural Affairs Departments (Directions régionales des affaires culturelles)
• cooperation organizations
• libraries operating under the legal deposit scheme

These are all administrative and professional organizations that act in concert with BnF in the context of programs to inventory and reference little-known heritage collections, as well as treating documents both physically (dusting, restoring, deacidification, etc.) and scientifically (original cataloging, retroconversion, and potentially digitization).

Various agreements have either been signed over the past two years or are in the process of being signed with the Auvergne, Burgundy, Picardy, Franche-Comté, Rhône-Alpes, Lower Normandy, Upper Normandy, and Languedoc-Roussillon regions.

As well as the objectives quoted above, these agreements generally include plans for a regional portal – which would also be available for searches via CCFr – to provide a unified point of access to the catalogs of libraries within the region, digitized documents (old press titles, regional graphic materials, journals published by learned societies, etc.), bibliographies, etc.

Regional resource centers in 2010

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