Preparing your visit

BULAC is open Monday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., including during the holidays, except for bank holidays as well as one week in December and two weeks in August.

The ground floor is open Monday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. The second floor and bassement floor close at 8 p.m. Seats do not need to be booked.

The "Réserve" reading room, dedicated to heritage documents, is open Monday to Saturday from 2 p.m to 6.30 p.m.

The nighttime library is open both at night and during the day, from Monday 10 a.m. to Sunday 8 a.m. Booking is required.

The BULAC library is located at the heart of the Languages and Civilisations Centre (Pôle des Langues et Civilisations), next to the French National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilisations (Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales).

You can access BULAC using public transportation:

• Metro: line 14, stop at “Bibliothèque François-Mitterrand”
• RER C: stop at “Bibliothèque François-Mitterrand”
• Buses: 27, 62, 89, 132, 325, N131
• Tramway: T3, get off at “Avenue de France”

Registration is free and open to anyone over 18.

• In order to register, you will first need to fill the online form, either from your own device or from the computers located at the entrance of the library.
• You will then be able to complete your registration at the front desk with one of our librarians.
• Once they have confirmed the information you have provided through the form, asked you a few questions to determine the services you will have access to, they will deliver your reader’s card.

Foreign students registered at BULAC can access all the floors of the library and order up to 15 documents a day from our closed stacks.

Foreign teachers and researchers registered at BULAC may:

• book a seat;
• book a carrel (small rooms containing one or two seats located on the basement floor, which can be booked online as long as seats are available);
• put a hold on up to 15 documents per day from the closed stacks.

Teachers and researchers invited by one of the nine institutions belonging to the BULAC Public Interest Group (GIP BULAC) benefit from an accreditation that allows them to borrow up to 5 documents for a period of 21 days. This accreditation is approved by the institution’s president, director or laboratory director if the teacher or researcher is invited to stay for at least a semester.

The BULAC Public Interest Group institutions are:

• Université Panthéon-Sorbonne;
• Université Sorbonne Nouvelle;
• Sorbonne Université;
• Université Paris Cité;
• The École française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO) [The French School of AsianStudies];
• The École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) [School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences];
• The École pratique des hautes études (EPHE);
• The Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales (Inalco) [French National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations];
• The Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) [French National Centre for Scientific Research].

Authorised teacher and researchers registration are able to:

• book a seat;
• book a carrel (small rooms containing one or two seats located on the basement floor, which can be booked online as long as seats are available);
• borrow up to 5 documents for a period of 21 days;
• put a hold on up to 15 documents per day from the closed stacks.

As soon as you receive your reader’s card, you will get access to your library account using your account login (firstname.lastname). When you log in to your user account, you are able to:

• order documents from the closed stacks at anytime. They will be made available to you at the reception desk on the basement level for 7 days;
• book a space.

The library has three floors:

• the ground floor (rez-de-chaussée), intended for undergraduate students, contains more general and easier-to-understand documents, as well as print newspapers;
• the basement floor (rez-de-jardin), intended for more advanced students as well as teachers and researchers, contains more specialised, in-depth documents. This is where you will find the “Réserve” reading room, used only for the study of rare, fragile or ancient documents.
• the second floor (mezzanine), contains DVDs, self-training methods for learning languages, and the “General Works” section.

The library hosts 910 work places with electric mains supply and Internet links, language self-training workstations, an audiovisual space and work rooms.