Electronic resources
The Bpi makes general electronic resources available for visitors to use, which it subscribes to for a fee.
This significant offer includes 110 generic databases. They seek to represent digital editorial production, resources likely to be of interest to those who use libraries.
For more information, see the Digital Bpi section.
Databases, digital books, online press
The Bpi’s general digital offer is currently constituted of databases, books, newspapers, press articles, images and bibliographies. It is a multimedia and encyclopaedic collection.
Works are mainly in French, followed by English for more specialist databases, then by various languages for press aggregators and international databases.
An offer constantly developing
Most of these databases are used for study purposes: the business to business editorial offer (destined for libraries in particular) does not really exist in the sectors of literary and leisure news, give or take a few exceptions (digital comic books and ebooks of certain platforms).
The Bpi closely follows this rapidly changing market.
Studying, lifelong learning, everyday life
The digital offer is split between academic databases and databases that are more aimed at the general public. Since the editorial offer has enabled it, the general public aspect is being brought up to a more equal footing, as it was very poor as little as three years ago.
This great variety intends to embrace the diversity of audiences and their needs: studying, lifelong learning, practical questions, personal development. It also makes the Bpi an important library for those members of the public who do not have access to university libraries or specialist libraries.
For a non-interrupted digital chain
The benefits of digital are not optimised when using results requires needing to print them out. So that these digital collections can be used as they are, a non-interrupted continuum of the digital chain is a goal to reach.
Several means or services (virtual storage, bibliographic reference annotation and management, etc.) are already in place for certain databases. Extending and deploying them in the Bpi environment are part of the library’s objectives.
