Actions of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF)

Read in French: https://c.bnf.fr/QEH

In cooperation with the international initiative “Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online“, this summer the BnF proceeded to store several thousand endangered Ukrainian websites. A total of 36.3 Terabytes, representing 6649 collections of websites in the WACZ archiving format, were saved using the infrastructure of the BnF digital repository, thus ensuring an important step in the preservation of these data.

This action is part of an ongoing effort by the BnF to provide ad hoc assistance for the urgent preservation of endangered cultural heritage. Examples include the training of librarians in Mali for the digitization of Timbuktu manuscripts (2013-2014), and the safeguarding in 2022 of “artisanal” but valuable digitization of Syrian Baybars manuscripts, which are now freely accessible via Gallica, the BnF’s digital library, to researchers from around the world.

In addition, at the French Ministry of Culture, with the participation of the BnF and other institutions, a workshop for a sober cultural environment was held today to prepare the 2023 roadmap for national cultural institutions, fruitful exchanges took place on how to optimize the use of digital technology while preserving our energy resources.

Happy Digital Preservation Day 2022 to all!