Catalog and website of collections
L’Atelier du Livre d’art & de l’Estampe was tasked in 2017 with the implementation of a catalog intended to identify all the pieces constituting the collections of the Imprimerie Nationale.
This will ultimately make it possible to improve the management of this vast heritage (700,000 engraved pieces, 35,000 books, 300 tons of characters, more than a hundred presses and printing equipment), to better follow the movement of works (inventories, loans, restorations, etc.) and to offer researchers, specialists, students and anyone interested in the history and techniques of printing access to them via a dedicated website.
In parallel with this important project, fully assumed to date by IN Groupe, a campaign to digitize the engraved heritage and the most significant works of the library was undertaken in 2019, with the help of the Ministry of Culture and the Hauts-de-France Regional Directorate of Cultural Affairs. Nearly 336,000 engraved items (typographical punches and matrices as well as 18th century Chinese woodcuts, largely classified as historical monuments) have thus been digitized, as have some fifty specialized works on the history and technique of typography, works which were not previously included in other digital libraries and which were chosen on the basis of their link with the objects kept in the collections of the Imprimerie Nationale.
By digitizing its written and engraved heritage, the Imprimerie Nationale thus wishes to highlight its collections on a dedicated portal and on other digital libraries such as Gallica, the digital library of the National Library of France, or the Armarium, the library digital heritage of the written, graphic and literary Hauts-de-France.
Each of the digitized works will be supplemented by a complete descriptive note in which will be mentioned the name of the author, the year of creation or publication, and all useful information on the history of the work in question.
The Internet user will also be able to carry out more or less extensive research in just a few clicks using the links between the various objects kept in the collections of the Imprimerie Nationale, whether they are engraved items or various documents and works. All the digitized books can already be viewed on the L’Armarium website.