Consult the press archives
Are you looking for an article from an old newspaper? Do you want to look up events of the 19th or 20th centuries through newspapers of the time? The Bpi allows you to browse newspaper archives thanks to microfilms, databases or websites of other libraries.
Press microfilms
You can consult French and English press microfilms from the end of the 17th century to today, that have been emblematic in the history of the printed press:
- Contemporary newspapers and magazines: Le Monde, Le Monde diplomatique, Courrier international, Le Figaro, L’Équipe, Jeune Afrique, Le Canard enchaîné, La Croix, Télérama, Elle…
- Parisian press publications: L’Écho de Paris, Le Matin de Paris, Paris soir, Le Petit parisien, Le Parisien libéré, Le Parisien.
- National daily newspapers from the end of the 17th century (Le Mercure galant), the 18th century (Le Moniteur universel), the 19th century (Le Globe, Le Gaulois, Le National, Le Siècle…) or the 20th century (L’Aurore, Les Échos, France soir, l’Œuvre…)
- English publications: Newsweek, Time, The Times.
To see the microfilms you’re interested in, ask the librarians of the Press desk on level 1 of the library. Several microfilms readers are available for your use in the Press space. Two digital readers allow you to look at microfilms, zoom into part of a page, and adjust the contrast and brightness to read the articles comfortably. You can scan one or several newspaper pages and/or send them to your email address in PDF format, then print the scanned pages.
See the full list of microfilms available at the Bpi.
Press database
Europresse gives access to national and international news with 10,000 sources of information for 139 countries and in 16 languages, as well as several decades of archives. Articles can be downloaded in pdf format and sent by email.
You can look at major national (Le Monde since 1944, Le Figaro …), regional (Le Parisien…) and international (The Economist, Die Tageszeitung, The New York Times…) publications as well as the specialist press (L’Équipe, Télérama…)
The PressReader news stand has 3,500 international publications in more than 60 languages, from The Washington Post to Glamour and also the Novaya Gazeta, Le Point, Têtu, Le Petit Quotidien… It’s also an app that allows you to download magazines on your smartphone, by connecting to the wifi-bpi network and going into the Digital Bpi section.
The press archives database Bpi doc provides articles on cultural and social news in France and abroad for the period 1997-2013, as well as articles on personalities in the world of arts, literature and shows since 1978.
Articles are provided as full text or in photo mode, and grouped by press files. You’ll find articles on the Amazonian forest, the climate, May 1968… for example.
Elsewhere on the web
RetroNews, the BnF press website, provides access to more than 400 press publications between 1631 and 1950. This website complements the resources available on Gallica, and is a digital space for consulting archives, a search tool and a magazine for discovering history through press archives.
Gallica is the digital library of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF: French national library) and its partners. Thousands of new items are added to it each week, with access to several million documents.
Presse locale ancienne (old local press), the other BnF website, gives access to local magazines published in France from their beginnings to 1944.autre site de la BnF, donne accès aux journaux d’intérêt local parus en France des origines à 1944.
Europeana newspapers is a European project proposing digital press archives the BnF is taking part in.
Publié le 30/01/2022 - CC BY-SA 4.0
