Renamed the Bibliothèque de l'Hôtel de Ville (BHdV), the library formerly known as the Bibliothèque administrative de Paris has undergone three years of work and renovation.
On 16 September, Bertrand Delanoë, Mayor of Paris, was present for the library's reopening ceremony, during which a plaque commemorating the philanthropist Alexandre Vattemare (1796-1864) was unveiled. It was he who created the American collection at the BHdV and participated in the construction of the first American library, the Boston Public Library.
The BHdV, which was opened to the public on 21 September, had been closed for three years for improvements to access and the installation of fire safety precautions (the original library burnt down during the fire that consumed the Hôtel de Ville in 1871).
The library, whose magnificent reading room is famous for its immense trompe-l'oeil ceiling designed by Edouard Deperthes, now features a entrance direct from the lift to the fourth floor.
A very elegant entrance hall has been installed, which its director Pierre Casselle, whose goal is to make the library even more open to the public, described as “an indispensible portal, particularly for students, which was greatly missing from the building's previous incarnation”.
The library's collections cover administrative science and its history, law, economy, finance and social sciences, as well as works on Paris and the local area.
Livreshebdo.fr, 15 September (tr. H.D.W.)