Collections

Our collections in figures  

The BULAC's collections give access to:

• 1.5 million documents some of which are accessible for the first time. There are documents from 180 countries in nearly 350 languages - with around 200 languages represented to a significant extent - and in over 80 different scripts.
• 2100 subscriptions to paper journals.  

With 6000 m² on three floors and 7000 linear metres of bookshelves, our reading rooms provide you with free access to:

• 10% of all the BULAC's collections. Our objective is to eventually provide free access to 225,000 volumes.

The documents available in free access are classified according to 6 geographical areas along with a "Documentation générale" (general documents) section with documents classified according to 10 disciplinary fields corresponding to different fields of knowledge.

• Over 7000 online journals which are accessible using library workstations or via readers' portable computers.
• Numerous digital periodicals and audiovisual documents.  

The BULAC's "Reserve" collection has a wealth of 10,000 rare and precious print documents and over 4000 manuscripts. These notable include:

• A thousand volumes in Arab and a large number of fragments,
• 197 volumes in Turkish,  
• 133 volumes in Persian,  
• 55 volumes in Hebrew,  
• Around 50 volumes in different Indian languages,  
• Other sets of volumes in Pali, Sanskrit, Cham, Khmer, Burmese and various Indo-Chinese languages,  
• Other collections in languages like Russian, Armenian, Chinese, Japanese, Malay, Lolo, etc. 
• Archives and collections of correspondence.

The collections according to geographical sector