The Audiovisual Programme of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France

The audiovisual collections of national libraries are in general relatively undeveloped, they are still largely dominated by collections of printed materials. However, a rapid development in audiovisual materials and multimedia is occurring, as evidenced recently by the extension in some countries of legal deposit to such materials. In France a law of 1992 distributed responsibility for audiovisual materials among three institutions, of which the Bibliothèque nationale de France is one, dealing with sound recordings, videotapes and multimedia, both multi- and single-carrier. The library's new building provides a special opportunity to completely rethink the means of conservation of audiovisual and multimedia collections and of access to the information they contain. One big issue is whether to organize the collections within a special department or in relevant subject departments according to their contents, since it is now theoretically possible to transmit the contents of any audiovisual document to any location within the library. The library has therefore been conceived so that in future all work areas can be equipped with multimedia workstations. The Audiovisual Department will, like other departments, have two reading rooms, one for the general public and one for researchers, and 450 workstations will be provided.