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• History of the Bpi
  • Construction of the Bpi
  • First Life of the Bpi
  • A 2-year Renovation
  • 2000 and After
    • Grunberg: My Bpi Years
    • A New Look
    • Opinions of Users

The Year 2000 and After

The Library Reopens

The Bpi opened its doors again in the Pompidou Centre building on 26 January 2000. At first, the entrance was on the Piazza (place Georges Pompidou), as for the Museum and exhibitions; but very soon the entrance to the Library was separated from the other activities of the Centre to be able to manage better the flow of visitors. It was moved to the back of the building, on rue du Renard.

Level 2 in the renovated Bpi

The renovated Library could offer 2,000 reading places in 10,000 m2 of space on 3 floors. There was no longer a "current affairs" room in the new arrangement, but specialised areas had been created in order to highlight certain collections:

• The 'Autoformation' ("Self-Learning") area consisted of 120 working places, available after reservation, where the langauge kits and other tutorials and software could be used.
• The 'Son Vidéo' ("Sound & Video") area, with 100 places available after reservation, brought together the collections of documentary films, musical recordings and spoken documents in a space that was enclosed within glass partitions.
• The 'Presse' ("Press") area made available 150 daily newspapers and 250 regional, national and international magazines in different formats (on paper, CD-ROMs, microfilms and via Internet).
• The 'Références' ("Reference") area, near the entrance to the Library, specialising in helping to find documentation, included in particular a section on professions, vocational training and how to look for a job.
• The area where persons with a visual impairment could be received included 5 rooms furnished with vocal synthesis machines and equipment for writing in Braille, etc.

New features and improvements

New features in the Music area

Following its reopening, the Bpi continued its process of modernisation, adapting the documentation and services that it provided to new advances in technology and to the customs and expectations of its users.

• The first issue of the 'Bulletin Bpi', a newsletter that presents the activities and life of the Library, was published in 2001.
• The idea of a digital library, focused on creating a record of current affairs, took shape in 2003. Two years later, it resulted in the provision on-line of audio recordings of conferences and debates.
• The digitalisation of films continued and in 2004 it was possible to view them on all the multimedia work-stations in the Library, without reservation in advance and without a limited viewing time.
• The on-line answering service adopted on-line chat in 2004, and then the QuestionPoint software in 2005, in the framework of a national co-operation network. Given the name of BiblioSésame, this was inaugurated in 2006.
• The documentation portal, a single place where all the catalogues and electronic resources of the Library could be accessed, was made available on the work-stations and on-line via Internet in 2006.

There were further evolutions in the specialised areas: a new 'Musiques et documents parlés' ("Music & Spoken Documents") area was opened in 2004; and, following a closing of the Library for five weeks during the summer, the entrance and Level 1 were rearranged in 2006.