Rare books collections in French libraries

Summary of a dissertation of one of the Ecole nationale supérieure de bibliothécaires students, Les réserves dans les bibliothèques françaises : un service comme un autre? To answer to such a question and draw up a general picture of nowadays rare books collections, it has been made use of a questionnaire on various aspects of these departments : buildings, staff, rules, collections, different kind of policies. The resulting picture shows heterogeneous and contrasting realities, stressing how specific rare books collections are, and in which way. They might be one of department amongst others, but in no way one like others.
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