Bibliothèque de Genève
The Bibliothèque de Genève is the principal library of the City and Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. Founded in 1559, it is among the oldest libraries in the world to operate a legal deposit system, serving as the legal deposit library for the Canton of Geneva.
The library occupies several buildings across the city, including its main site in Parc des Bastions, the Musée Voltaire, La Musicale, and the Centre for Iconography. It also manages the library in Villa La Grange.
It focuses on the humanities and the social sciences with special emphasis on the Reformation, the Enlightenment and Genevensia.
History
Geneva established a system of legal deposit as early as 1539, making it one of the oldest such in the world. At that time, publications produced in Geneva were deposited with the Chambre des comptes. John Calvin created the library twenty years later to serve the Académie in what is now Collège Calvin. The earliest mention of the library goes back to 1562.In 1720, the Genevan theologian Ami Lullin acquired the Petau collection of illuminated manuscripts and left it to the library in 1756.
In 1872, the library moved to its current building in Parc des Bastions alongside Uni Bastions.
The Institut et Musée Voltaire was founded in 1954, Geneva's music library, now called La Musicale, in 1962, and the Centre d'iconographie in 1993.
In 1999, the library was added to the Swiss Inventory of Cultural Property of National and Regional Significance. In 2011, its Jean-Jacques Rousseau collections were included, jointly with those of the, in the Unesco Memory of the World Register.
The main site (Bastions)
Books
In 2014, there were more than two million print volumes in the library's collections. Since the 20th century, the library has focused on the humanities and social sciences. Many of its incunable and other early modern books are available on e-rara.ch.Manuscripts
As well as 1,500 papyri and 380 medieval manuscripts, the Bibliothèque de Genève holds the papers of such Geneva personalities as John Calvin, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Horace-Bénédict de Saussure, Édouard Naville, Emile Jaques-Dalcroze and Nicolas Bouvier. Some of these manuscripts are available on .;See also
Maps
The map collection was begun in 1893, when the Genevan cartographer, who drew most of the maps for Élisée Reclus's Nouvelle Géographie universelle, gave approximately 7,000 items to the library. It now has about 45,000 maps, dating from the 16th to the mid-20th century.Maps of the city and canton of Geneva are kept at the Centre d'iconographie. The evolution of Geneva over the centuries can be seen on the website using some of these maps.