Preservation services

Bussy-Saint-Georges technical centre

The technical centre in Bussy-Saint-Georges

© Alain Goustard / BnF

Printed and audiovisual collections are preserved and conserved at the BnF technical centre built in 1995 and located in Bussy-Saint-Georges, 30 kms from Paris.
Designed by Dominique Perrault, the architect of François-Mitterrand Library, the building is located in an urban development zone, with other industrial buildings similar in style and aspect. Bookstores and workshops linked up by gangways are distributed around an inner street. Various processes are used in workshops to safeguard the printed documents: microfilming, conservation, disinfection. The centre is also involved in the digitization programme of the press and in various mass digitizations transactions.

The Joël-le-Theule technical centre in Sablé-sur-Sarthe

The Joël-le-Theule technical centre

© BnF

250 kms from Paris, not far from Le Mans, Angers and Laval, the Joël-le-Theule technical centre is housed in a castle built in the early 18th century along the Sarthe river. Since the beginning of the eighties, this delocalised centre has been carrying out the BnF’s preservation activities connected to the safeguard of printed documents threatened by paper acidification. At the end of the nineties, activities have been diversified and now concern all the BnF’s collections.

Various preservation techniques are used: conservation of bound volumes, conservation of loose-leaf documents, mass-deacification with an equipment unique in France, medium transfer, micro-reproduction and since 2004, digitization. A staff of 62 persons carries out the preservation programmes entrusted to the centre.

The preservation department also includes other specialized services in charge of various operations that provide access to, preserve and conserve the BnF’s collections.