History:La Contemporaine

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Short description: French library, archive center and museum
La contemporaine
CountryFrance
TypeResearch library
Established1918 (1918)
LocationNanterre
Other information
DirectorXavier Sené (since 2022)
Websitehttp://www.lacontemporaine.fr

La Contemporaine. Bibliothèque, archives, musée des mondes contemporains (The Contemporary. Library, archives and museum of contemporary worlds) is a French cultural and scientific institution composed of a library, an archive center and a museum, specialized in the history of the 20th and 21st centuries [1][2]. Founded in 1918, it is located since 2021 in a new building on the campus of the Paris Nanterre University [3].

Collections

Le Bois de la Gruerie et le ravin des Meurissons (1917), painting by Félix Vallotton on the battlefields of the Argonne (Meuse, France) during World War I, part of the collections of la Contemporaine.

The collections of La Contemporaine focus on the following areas [4]:

The collections encompass a wide variety of types of documents, in several different languages (French, English, but also Russian, German, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Serbian and others) [5]. La Contemporaine holds close to 3 million text-based documents - books, newspapers and journals, as well as written and audiovisual archives [6]; and nearly 1,5 million works in its image-based collections – posters (around 80.000), photographs (over 1 million units), paintings, drawings, objects, postcards…[7][8] Its collections are recognized as unique due to the diversity of their origins, the range of topics covered, and the variety of the types of documents that are preserved [9].

Activities

La Contemporaine acts as a preservation and research facility, ensuring its collections are made available to researchers, organizing scientific events [10] and training sessions and workshops[11] for students [12] and pupils[13], but also as a cultural institution for the general public through a permanent exhibition[14][15] as well as yearly thematic exhibitions [16]. It also develops partnerships with institutions both in France (for example as a member of the research libraries' network CollEx-Persée [17][18] and of the CODHOS network of archive centres on social history [19][20]) and internationally (for example as a member of the IALHI network of labour history institutions [21][22]).

La Contemporaine created in 2014 its own digital library, L’Argonnaute, which gives free access to 200.000 digitized documents from its collections[23].

History

Director of the Bibliothèque-Musée de la Guerre Camille Bloch in his office at the Château de Vincennes.

The institution was founded in 1918 as the « Bibliothèque-musée de la Guerre » (BMG - Library-Museum of the War) on the basis of a private collection put together by French industrialists Henri and Louise Leblanc during World War I to document the ongoing conflict [24][25][2]. In 1934, the BMG is administratively linked to the University of Paris and renamed « Bibliothèque de documentation internationale contemporaine » (Library of international contemporary documentation) or BDIC [26]. It retains that name through several location and status changes, until it becomes « La Contemporaine » in 2018. Starting in 1970, the institution has two centers, the main one, hosting the archives and the library was located in the Paris Nanterre University campus, that was founded in the outskirts of Paris in 1964, while the museum was seated within the premises of the Hôtel National des Invalides in the 7th arrondissement of Paris.In 2021, both centers are relocated in a new facility created by architect Bruno Gaudin [27], at the entrance of Paris Nanterre University campus [28][29].

See also

  • List of museums in France

References

[ ⚑ ] 48°51′24″N 2°18′47″E / 48.85667°N 2.31306°E / 48.85667; 2.31306

  1. ↑ "La contemporaine - Comprendre les mondes contemporains - La contemporaine". http://www.lacontemporaine.fr/the-bdic. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "A Nanterre, un bel écrin pour l’histoire contemporaine" (in fr). Le Monde. 2021-11-22. https://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2021/11/22/a-nanterre-un-bel-ecrin-pour-l-histoire-contemporaine_6103117_3246.html. 
  3. ↑ Verrier, Antoine. "La Contemporaine - Bibliothèque, archives, musée des mondes contemporains" (in fr-FR). https://www.parisnanterre.fr/notre-organisation/la-contemporaine-bibliotheque-archives-musee-des-mondes-contemporains. 
  4. ↑ "La contemporaine - Comprendre les mondes contemporains - Mondes contemporains". http://www.lacontemporaine.fr/collections/quelles-thematiques. 
  5. ↑ "La contemporaine - Comprendre les mondes contemporains - Une documentation internationale". http://www.lacontemporaine.fr/collections/quelles-aires-geo-linguistiques. 
  6. ↑ "La contemporaine - Comprendre les mondes contemporains - La contemporaine". http://www.lacontemporaine.fr/the-bdic. 
  7. ↑ "La contemporaine - Comprendre les mondes contemporains - Bibliothèque, centre d'archives, musée". http://www.lacontemporaine.fr/collections/quels-documents. 
  8. ↑ "La contemporaine. Bibliothèque, archives, musée des mondes contemporains. Nanterre" (in fr). https://ccfr.bnf.fr/portailccfr/ark:/16871/0027902. 
  9. ↑ à 20h08, Par Florence Hubin Le 8 mars 2018 (2018-03-08). "Nanterre : les trésors de l’histoire contemporaine se dévoilent au public" (in fr-FR). https://www.leparisien.fr/hauts-de-seine-92/nanterre-les-tresors-de-l-histoire-contemporaine-se-devoilent-au-public-08-03-2018-7598028.php. 
  10. ↑ "La contemporaine - Comprendre les mondes contemporains - Colloques et journées d'étude". http://www.lacontemporaine.fr/activites-de-recherche/colloques-et-journees-d-etude. 
  11. ↑ Baron, Frédérique (2017). "La politique de formation à la BDIC" (in fr). Matériaux pour l’histoire de notre temps 125126 (2): 36–39. doi:10.3917/mate.125.0036. ISSN 0769-3206. https://shs.cairn.info/revue-materiaux-pour-l-histoire-de-notre-temps-2017-3-page-36. 
  12. ↑ "La contemporaine - Comprendre les mondes contemporains - Enseignement supérieur". http://www.lacontemporaine.fr/formation/enseignement-superieur. 
  13. ↑ "La contemporaine - Comprendre les mondes contemporains - Enseignement secondaire". http://www.lacontemporaine.fr/formation/enseignement-secondaire. 
  14. ↑ "La contemporaine - Comprendre les mondes contemporains - L' Atelier de l'histoire". http://www.lacontemporaine.fr/action-culturelle/l-atelier-de-l-histoire. 
  15. ↑ Kintz, Salomé (2024-06-17). "L’Atelier de l’histoire de La Contemporaine : une rencontre avec l’histoire et ses sources" (in fr). https://bbf.enssib.fr/consulter/bbf-2024-00-0000-008. 
  16. ↑ "La contemporaine - Comprendre les mondes contemporains - Expositions passées". http://www.lacontemporaine.fr/action-culturelle/expositions. 
  17. ↑ "CollEx-Persée" (in fr), Wikipédia, 2025-11-12, https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=CollEx-Pers%C3%A9e&oldid=230580654, retrieved 2025-11-20 
  18. ↑ "La Contemporaine – Bibliothèque, archives, musée des mondes contemporains < CollEx-Persée" (in fr). https://www.collexpersee.eu/acteur/universite-paris-nanterre-la-contemporaine/. 
  19. ↑ "Collectif des centres de documentation en histoire ouvrière et sociale" (in fr), Wikipédia, 2024-10-14, https://fr.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Collectif_des_centres_de_documentation_en_histoire_ouvri%C3%A8re_et_sociale&oldid=219443870, retrieved 2025-11-20 
  20. ↑ "Membres – Codhos" (in fr-FR). https://codhos.org/qui-sommes-nous/membres/. 
  21. ↑ "La contemporaine, Paris – IALHI Social History Portal" (in en-GB). https://ialhi-foundation.org/2025/08/08/la-contemporaine-paris/. 
  22. ↑ Admin, L. C. (2024-12-24). "54ème Conférence annuelle de l’International Association of Labour History Institutions (IALHI) – 54th Annual Conference of the International Association of Labour History Institutions (IALHI)" (in fr-FR). https://lcbam.hypotheses.org/2089. 
  23. ↑ "L'Argonnaute - Bibliothèque numérique de La contemporaine" (in fr). https://argonnaute.parisnanterre.fr/. 
  24. ↑ Becker, Jean-Jacques (2010). "La Grande Guerre et la naissance de la BDIC" (in fr). Matériaux pour l’histoire de notre temps 100 (3): 5–6. doi:10.3917/mate.100.0002. ISSN 0769-3206. https://shs.cairn.info/revue-materiaux-pour-l-histoire-de-notre-temps-2010-4-page-5. 
  25. ↑ Brandt, Susanne (1994). "The Memory Makers: Museums and Exhibitions of the First World War". History and Memory 6 (1): 95–122. ISSN 0935-560X. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25618663. 
  26. ↑ "La contemporaine - Comprendre les mondes contemporains - The history of La contemporaine". http://www.lacontemporaine.fr/the-history-of-the-bdic/. 
  27. ↑ "La Contemporaine | Bruno Gaudin architect" (in de). https://archello.com/de/project/la-contemporaine. 
  28. ↑ "A Nanterre, l'histoire contemporaine se raconte dans un tout nouvel écrin". Les Echos. 2021-12-10. https://www.lesechos.fr/pme-regions/ile-de-france/a-nanterre-lhistoire-contemporaine-se-raconte-dans-un-tout-nouvel-ecrin-1371554. 
  29. ↑ à 20h08, Par Florence Hubin Le 8 mars 2018 (2018-03-08). "Nanterre : les trésors de l’histoire contemporaine se dévoilent au public" (in fr-FR). https://www.leparisien.fr/hauts-de-seine-92/nanterre-les-tresors-de-l-histoire-contemporaine-se-devoilent-au-public-08-03-2018-7598028.php. 



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