Presentation of the selected French libraries and the French library system

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe Selected French libraries (Bibliotheque nationale de France, Bibliotheque publique d’information, multimedia library of the Cité des sciences et de l’industrie as well as Paris public libraries) are presented in the article. France does not have a union catalogue at the national level, therefore libraries use different platforms for shared cataloguing and compile more union catalogues. According to their needs, French libraries join into consortia for the acquisition of electronic resources, which can be either geographically or thematically delimited or formed by the institutions of the same status. The author believes that the Slovenian library network works well considering much smaller budget for culture and higher education in comparison with France. To improve its performance, more funds would have to be allocated and higher reputation of the library profession achieved, comparable to the situation in France. Digitization of resources is the area where the Slovenian librarianship lags most behind the French one.