Pour le maintien à Paris des livres asiatiques de la BNFEnglish version (full and unexcerpted):
“Cette logique est absurde à plus d’un titre :
― Constituée au fil des siècles, les collections mises en dépôt sont un patrimoine pour l’humanité qu’il convient de partager et de valoriser. Elles réunissent des fonds acquis dès le règne de Louis XIV et au fil des siècles, au prix de mille difficultés. Ces livres sont le témoin d’une époque où l’Europe commençait à s’ouvrir aux cultures les plus lointaines.
― Nombre d’ouvrages ont complètement disparu en Asie. Dans les pays orientaux, les nouvelles générations d’Indiens, de Chinois, de Coréens, de Japonais, etc., se réapproprient leur patrimoine littéraire et inventorient les ouvrages rares que recèlent aussi bien leur propre pays que les bibliothèques dispersées de par le monde. La BnF se distingue par la richesse exceptionnelle de ses fonds et est constamment visitée par des spécialistes étrangers.
― La rareté des livres mis en dépôt rend leur protection d’autant plus nécessaire. Cela risque de compromettre leur communication régulière dès lors que celle-ci nécessite un transport. La contradiction entre conservation et accessibilité ne devrait pas exister. Elle est encore aggravée par la qualité déplorable, indigne d’un établissement comme la BnF, du catalogage de certaines collections parmi les plus importantes.
Nous comprenons que le site de la rue de Richelieu est en travaux pour une durée d’environ dix ans et ne dispose plus d’autant d’espace de stockage qu’autrefois. Nous considérons en revanche comme inacceptable que la partie la plus précieuse du fonds historique soit reléguée hors de Paris.
Les soussignés demandent instamment à la direction de la BnF de reconsidérer la décision qu’elle a prise et de rapatrier dès que possible ces fonds mondialement connus qui lui donnent sa spécificité.
Fait à Paris, le 2 juillet 2014″
__________________________________________________________________________Pétition for the protection of the collections of chinese, mongolian, tibetan, vietnamese sanskrit, pali and other indian works in the Manuscript Department of the Bibliothèque nationale de FranceThe Oriental Reading Room of the Bibliotheque Nationale’s Manuscript Department, founded over fifty years ago, was closed for good in September 2013. Over the following months, the bulk of the BnF’s historic collection of Oriental works was relocated to external depositories in Bussy-Saint-Georges, in conditions that we have reason to believe are less than ideal for both consultation and conservation.
These collections comprise a unique assemblage of tens of thousands of volumes in Chinese, Mongolian, Tibetan, Sanskrit, Pali and other Indian languages, Malayo-Polynesian, Indochinese and Vietnamese, as well as Cambodian and Nepalese inscriptions, and also a part of the BnF’s Japanese works. From now on, readers will have neither a proper room nor the facilities for consultation that they are entitled to expect.
We are concerned that these measures, which have been adopted without consulting researchers, and according to a deliberate policy, will lead to the near-elimination of an Asian presence in the BnF. They were adopted without considering the consequences either for the collections themselves or for international research. There is no guarantee that this situation will end with the conclusion of the work that is being carried out. The decision can be explained only in terms of a managerial logic: since this material is used only by a small number of specialists from all over the world, it has been considered as « unprofitable » and therefore of low priority.
This reasoning is flawed in several respects:
— Assembled over the course of centuries, the works that have now been warehoused far from Paris have an inestimable value, and constitute a part of world heritage that should be shared and promoted. The corpus includes works acquired with great difficulty over the centuries since the reign of Louis XIV. These books are a testimony to an era when Europe was opening up to the most distant civilisations.
— Many of the books concerned have completely disappeared from their countries of origin. In East Asia, the present generation of scholars from China, Korea, Japan and elsewhere are reappropriating their literary heritage and inventorying rare works in their own countries as well as in libraries across the world. The BnF is exceptionally well endowed with such collections, and is constantly visited by specialists from overseas.
— The rarity of the books concerned makes their protection a matter of priority, but access to them will be compromised since this will require transport: there should be no contradiction between conservation and accessibility. This situation is further exacerbated by the deplorable quality of cataloguing for some of the major collections, something that should surely not be expected of an institution such as the BnF.
We understand that the rue de Richelieu site will be undergoing renovation for about the next ten years, and therefore no longer has as much storage space as it used to. However, we consider it unacceptable that the most valuable part of the historic collection should be relocated outside Paris.
We, the undersigned, urge the management of the BnF in the strongest possible terms to reconsider its decision, and to bring back, without further delay, this internationally known collection that is central to its distinctiveness.
Paris, 2 July 2014
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