I started my research with the history of the Bibliotheque Nationale with a basic Google search. The main problem I found with doing this, which I had not thought was that being a French library, many of the results were in French rather than English. This meant that although some of the results might have relevant to what I wanted, I couldn’t use them unless I tried to translate them.
The Bibliotheque Nationale de France, is the state library of France, and was originally founded from the royal library at the Louvre art gallery, which was founded by Charles V in 1368 (Wikipedia, 2010). The libraries collection increase during the reign of Louis XIV, and then again during the French revolution when many private collections were taken.
The library itself underwent a brief name change, to the Imperial National Library, after several regime (?) changes in France, and with this, the library itself moved as well in 1868. The new buildings were designed by Henris Labrouste, and the library was again expanded after Henri’s death in 1875 by Jean-Louis Pascal, an architect. In 1988 the then president Francois Mitter announced that a new library would be constructed. This was designed by an architectural firm, Dominique Perrault, and was eventually completed in 1995. Much of the collection was moved here, although some still remains at the old site.
'Bibliothèque nationale de France' 2010, Wikipedia, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, viewed 27 August 2010
2. http://www.bnf.fr/en/tools/lsp.site_map.html
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