Collections
BULAC's collections span a wide range of disciplinary fields and geographical areas.
General overview
BULAC's collections give readers access to approximately 1.5 million documents, some of which have never before been made available to the public. These documents cover 180 countries and are written in nearly 350 languages and 80 different scripts.
With its three floors totalling about 6,000 m2 of surface and 7,000 linear metres of bookshelf space, the open access part of the library contains around 10 % of BULAC’s collections. The documents located on these floors are categorised according to the area they are from or about, as well as the disciplinary field they deal with. There are seven main sections:
0 - General works, covering books that deal not with a specific region but either several areas or the entire world;
1 - The Balkans, Central and Eastern Europe;
2 - The Maghreb, the Near East, the Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa;
3 - Sub-Saharan Africa;
4 - Asia;
5 - Pacific Oceania;
6 - America and Greenland.
Balkans, Central and Eastern Europe
The BULAC is notably a reference library for Slavic studies.
Languages covered are: Albanian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, Greek, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Czech, Slovakian, Ukrainian, Ex-Yougoslavian, Romani, Sorb, Finno-ugric…
Le domaine caucasien est constitué d’ouvrages répartis sur plusieurs aires géographiques : la Russie du Sud (Républiques d’Adyguée, du Daghestan, d’Ingouchie, de Kabardino-Balkarie, de Karatchaievo-Tcherkessie, d’Ossétie du Nord, de Tchétchénie) et la Transcaucasie (Arménie, Géorgie et Azerbaïdjan).
Maghreb, Near East, Middle East, Central Asia and North Africa
This section is the oldest. It contains documents on North Africa, Arabic and Berber peoples, the Middle-East, Iran and Turkey. The library's Arab section is among the finest collections in Europe while the Turkish and the Iranian sections have become references in their fields.
Languages covered are: Arabic, Armenian, Berber, Georgian, Hebrew, Iranian, Turkic…
Sub-Saharan Africa
The African section contains collections written in languages from the South of the Sahara to South Africa. Two of those collections are particularly rich: the Ethiopian and Malagasy collections.
Languages covered are: Ethiopian, Fula, Hausa, Malagasy, Mandingo, Swahimi, Wolof…
Asia
This vast section contains holdings that have been developed since the 19th century. The oldest and richest holdings are the Chinese reference collection and the Japanese collection.
Languages covered are: Burmese, Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Malay, Mongolian, Nepalese, Oceanian, Tamil, Thaï, Tibetan, Urdu, Vietnamese…
Pacific Oceania
This section is divided into two parts: the Australian continent and the archipelagos (Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia). Although this collection is relatively modest in size, it does include a group of 19th century documents recounting expeditions and journeys, as well as documents written by missionaries in the region’s languages, and linguistic studies.
Languages covered are: Belep, Drehu, Houaïlou, Nengone, Tahitian…
America and Greenland
This section is divided into two parts: South America and Mesoamerica on one hand, the North American Arctic on the other. It covers fields of study related to the original civilisations of Latin American countries, the Greater Antilles, and the Canadian Arctic. The heritage collection mainly contains accounts of expeditions and journeys, missionary documents, and linguistic studies, but also includes several works from the 18th and 19th centuries.
Languages covered are: Aymara, Guarani, Inuktitut, Mayan, Nahuatl, Quechuan…