Library
The Library
The library of the Centre de recherche currently contains almost five thousand books. As a working library for researchers, it has to meet their requirements whilst carrying out its associated documentary function as the museum library of the Palace and the Bibliothèque municipal de Versailles (BMV). Apart from indispensable reference books and periodicals, it has taken on the task of assembling a collection of catalogues of French and international exhibitions relating to life at court.
Moreover, thanks to an important donation in 2013 and 2015, the library of the Centre de recherche du château de Versailles has acquired over 2 400 books and 650 documentary records from the Bottineau collection.
In addition to these works, which can be consulted at the library and by appointment at the Research Centre, researchers can also access the 700,000 works of the BMV (around one hundred thousand of which date from before 1800) as well as the 14,000 works in the museum library.
The Collective Catalogue of the National Museums Libraries
In order to make its library catalogue publicly available online, the Research Centre has joined the network of National Museum libraries, which also includes the museum library of the Palace of Versailles.
Following substantial modifications, this collective catalogue is now available online, offering the reader the resources of around fifteen libraries.
Access the online catalogue (in french).
Access to JSTOR
Both the Palace of Versailles and the Research Centre subscribe to JSTOR, a reliable system of digital archives designed to help the libraries of universities and other higher education establishments bring together their academic work, and guarantee its long-term conservation. The JSTOR database, available on subscription, now gives us online access to scholarly works published in over one thousand academic journals from all over the world, in the areas of humanities, social sciences and science. Monographs and other valuable documents for university research can also be consulted here.
Bibliographic Database of the Centre de recherche
Since May 2010, the Centre has, moreover, made its Bibliographical database available to the public. Accessible through the Research Centre’s resources portal, this database already contains 5,300 articles relating to Versailles and to subjects addressed in the Research Centre programmes.
