Libraries of Paris
Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF)
Quai François Mauriac
Originally housed in the historic 2nd arrondissement, it moved very controversially in the 1980s to the industrial, semi-derelict riverside of the 13th arrondissement as part of President Mitterrand’s great works. The Arche of La Defence in the west and the Pyramid of the Louvre were all built as part of the same presidential project. He naturally named it after himself.
Hated by many, loved by me, it is an extraordinary building constructed around a garden tended by goats. The upstairs reading rooms (Haut de Jardin) are open to all with a reader ticket and the downstairs (Rez de Jardin) is open to researchers with a yearly research ticket.
It is sinfully comfortable for readers. Perfect lighting, huge reading tables and superb chairs. In the Rez de Jardin, books are in open stacks or available to order. It is very easy to access what you need and to reserve a reading space. The librarians are always helpful and charming.
The Haut de Jardin has a dozen reading rooms each with different specialised collections accessible via open stacks. If you don’t want to use the reading rooms, the corridors and balcony are lined with chairs, and the coffee spaces also have seating.
When the Baccalaureate revision season opens (April-June), these spaces to sit become as rare as hen’s teeth and the Haut de Jardin reading rooms will blink the dreaded words Saturé for hours. Unless you have a research card and can descend into the Rez de Jardin, you will join the zombie ranks of sweaty teens stalking the corridors for a space to study.
The original building in the 2nd arrondissement, now called BNF Richelieu, reopened in 2024 with renovated rooms and galleries full of treasures. One of the original reading rooms – the domed Salle Labroust – is an architectural work of art.
Bibliothèque publique d’information (BPI)
The Centre Pompidou houses one of the most useful libraries in Paris. Open all year round until late, including Christmas day*, it is very often filled with students cramming, and Deliveroo drivers charging up their phones. It isn’t very glamorous, and sometimes the buskers outside the museum get quite loud, but it is often the only place to study you can find open on a Sunday and you have free access to the stacks. I’m very fond it, and of the huge red rhino that welcomes you as you come in.
UPDATE: The Pompidou Centre will close from 2025 to 2030 for renovations. The BPI will move to the 12th arrondissement for the duration.
* However, always closed on Tuesdays. We are still in France.
Public Libraries
Various locations
Paris has an excellent network of public libraries across the city, with 57 general libraries and 15 specialist libraries. They all have different opening hours and facilities. Some are tiny, housed in three rooms above the town hall of an arrondissement and are open for 10 minutes every third full moon, while some are huge specially built facilities like Médiathèque Marguerite Yourcenar in the 15th and the Médiathèque Françoise Sagan in the 10th. The latter opened in 2015 on the site of a medieval leper hospital and houses an impressive collection of children’s books.
Access is free and open to all, and you can spend as much time as you like. Books are all in French, but most have a selection of English books and many have books in other languages. Library cards are free to residents and allow you to borrow books from the whole network. This can be dangerous if you have a fondness for amassing library fines, like I do.
As you would expect, the library at Place d’Italie has a specialised collection of book in Italian and about Italy, Bibliothèque Francois Truffaut (1st) is specialised in TV and cinema while Bibliothèque Oscar Wilde (20th) houses a collection of books about theatre. Less obviously, Bibliothèque Francois Villon (10th) named after the medieval poet and outlaw, is specialised in all things digital, while Bibliothèque Charlotte Delbo (2nd), named after the writer and résistante who survived Auschwitz, has a specialised collection of erotic literature.
Because they are municipal libraries, they are never, ever open on a bank holiday and are always downing tools in solidarity with someone or other. Never have I felt more Anglo-Saxon despair than standing in front of a library closed for a strike, holding a stack of overdue books and with the out of hours return box sealed because of “le covid”.
Bibliothèque Mazarine
23 Quai de Conti, 75006 Paris
Cardinal Mazarin (1602 – 1661) was an ambitious and committed book collector, as well as being the Chief Minister to Louis XIII and Louis XVI. His talented librarian Gabriel Naudé assembled one of the greatest collections in Europe which he may or may not have used public money to fund. Cardinal Mazarin’s first library was dispersed during the Fronde uprising by furious Parisians. However, once the political situation calmed down he picked up where he left off, and assembled a second renowned collection. This time he had to do it without Naudé’s assistance as he had moved to Sweden to help Queen Christina assemble her library. He died on the way back to France, making him the second important French intellectual that this cross-dressing Swedish Queen had a hand in killing.
Knowing the Parisian habit of uprising against the elites, Mazarin decided that instead of losing a second collection, he would donate his library to the nation and open it up to researchers once a week. This means that this contender for the most beautiful library in the world also happens to be the first public library in France.
It can be visited on request (ID needed during the week). However, a reader card is available to Paris residents for small yearly fee. This allows you a desk space in the reading room and rights to request books. The staff are delightful, and it is never not a thrill to sit reading surrounded by Mazarin’s books.
To know more about Gabriel Naudé’s adventures assembling the library read “Cardinal Errors”, a chapter in the superb history “The Library: A Fragile History” by Andrew Pettegree and Arthur der Weduwen.
American Library in Paris
10 Rue du Général Camou
This is a Parisian expat institution – founded at the end of the First World War when Americans sent English books to France to amuse and edify the troops. It is now a public, but privately funded library sitting in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. Members have free access to the stacks and they host a impressive programme of talks and events, all in English. These events are usually free and open to all so booking recommended
Membership is yearly, weekly or daily. A library card also gives you free access to e-books a huge number of magazines and JSTOR. Their reading rooms and meeting rooms can be booked by members.
You can do serious research in the library and none of my walks would have been possible without their resources to pillage. Their cookbook section is inexhaustible.
