Bibliothèque nationale du Québec

The Bibliothèque nationale du Québec (BNQ) is the Crown corporation acting as the national library of Quebec. Its mission, defined by law B-2.2, An Act respecting the Bibliothèque nationale du Québec, is "to assemble, preserve permanently and disseminate Quebec's published documentary heritage together with any related document of cultural interest, and documents relating to Quebec that are published outside Quebec", as well as "to offer democratic access to Quebec's national documentary heritage, culture and knowledge and to act as catalyst in relation to Quebec documentary institutions, thus contributing to the personal development of citizens". The BNQ receives approximately M$16 yearly financing and is obliged by law to offer free, universal access to all its collections.

It was created on 12 August 1967 thanks to the collections and assets of the Saint-Sulpice library , which was originally incorporated in 1910. The general collection of reference works is still located in the historic Beaux-Arts building of the old Saint-Sulpice library, erected in 1915 on Rue Saint-Denis , in the centre of Montreal. However, most of the 240,000 books in the general collection are currently in the new head office and preservation centre, opened in 1997 in the premises of a disused factory, on Rue Holt, in the Rosemont neighbourhood of Montreal. An additional collection of over 55,000 government publications is mostly hosted on Rue de l'Esplanade, across from Mont-Royal Park.

Most of those documents, along with all of the central branch of Montreal public library's collections, following an agreement between those institutions, are now being relocated in the new Grande bibliothèque du Québec (GBQ) building due open 23 April 2005 in time for the World Book and Copyright Day . This new library, a M$90.6 project by Patkau from Vancouver, British Columbia and Croft-Pelletier/Gilles Guité from Quebec City, under construction since 2001, will make approximately four millions documents, including one million books, more freely available to the general public. The GBQ will be located on Boulevard de Maisonneuve, in the heart of University of Quebec's campus.

Among other BNQ's tasks since 1979 is to assign ISBN prefixes in first group identifier "2" to all French-language publishers in Canada and all non-English publishers in Quebec. As a successful incentive towards the use of ISBN, the government of Quebec has removed provincial sales tax from all monographs bearing an ISBN since 1991. The BNQ has also published a monthly bibliography since 1969, as well as an extensive 26-volume bibliography covering the period between 1821 and 1967, when legal deposit deposit was established. The library catalogue, IRIS, has been available online since 1994.

The president and general director of the Bibliothèque nationale du Québec is Lise Bissonnette, a respected author and journalist. She is seconded by four general directors:

• Claude Fournier, preservation (including acquisitions)
• Hélène Roussel, diffusion (including cataloguing)
• Robert St-Jean, information technologies
• Monique Goyette, administration

See also

• Library and Archives Canada

External link

• Official Website (French, with English summary)