The Mazarine Library is a study and research library operating under the aegis of the Ministry of Higher Education and Research. It has remained a public library in accordance with its founder's wishes. Its resources are open to all and readers do not have to justify academic research.

The Library has 140 seats in the reading room equipped with wireless Internet and 10 computer workstations in open access. A growing part of its collections (600,000 documents), including all post-1900 acquisitions, is listed in its online catalogue and in SUDOC, the collective catalogue of French university libraries.

Faculty of Arts and Humanities; Preparatory Studies in Literature

Although the library's early collections are encyclopaedic, its current collections are mainly focused on history, as well as Western literature and philosophy. The Library is used for postgraduate research (masters and doctorate level), as well as undergraduate work (L) and also has high-quality resources for the general public (see Collection development). Students and researchers have at their disposal:

• Dictionaries of modern and ancient languages (open access and electronic resources);
• Reference works in literature, philology, heraldry and genealogy, history, written heritage, art history and archaeology;
• Periodicals: general knowledge, history and literary history, French and foreign, with the most recent issue in open access;
• Collections of textual sources and editions.

Electronic resources, periodicals and monographs are available in open access or on request. Waiting time for documents does not exceed ten minutes.

The Mazarine Library will also receive groups of students and/or researchers for research seminars related to the collections or for theme visits. These visits take various forms, depending on the teacher's requirements:

• General introduction to the library (history, buildings, collections) ;
• Presentation of a theme, a corpus or a historical period, based on a selection of works in the collection;
• User training and research methodology in a heritage library (catalogues, specialised documentary resources, including online resources).

In-service training sessions in the field of written heritage are organised in partnership with specialised bodies (Enssib, Mediadix).

Secondary school teaching

Introductory visits can be organised for secondary schools (age-groups: 12-18). According to the teachers' requirements, these visits may consist of:

• A general presentation of the library (history, buildings, collections) ;
• Presentation of a theme or historical period, related to the school's history or French syllabus, based on a selection of works from the collections: medieval culture and society; 17th-century politics and literature; the slave trade and slavery; making books, etc.

To maintain optimal working conditions, visits to the reading room will be organised in the morning before 10 am or in the evening after 5.30 pm.

The staff will be happy to help teachers prepare a school trip, give occasional help with documentary research, or identify a corpus or subjects suitable for an academic research project.

Please contact us (contac[at]bibliotheque-mazarine[dot]fr) or send us your request through the Contact the Library form.