Set up during the French Revolution, the Bourg-en-Bresse library opened to the public in 1797, in a secondary school in the town centre which has now become the Lycée Lalande. In 1937, it was housed in the Brou Monastery, where it stayed until 1988, when the Elisabeth and Roger Vailland Multimedia Library was built.
Its book collections were started in 1795, on the basis of works confiscated from the ‘émigrés’ and the libraries belonging to the religious orders in Bourg and the surrounding region. Further items were acquired by means of legacies during the 19th and 20th centuries. Some of these were valuable additions to the documentation relating to Ain department. The acquisitions included the collections known as Chevrier, Depery, Martelin, Eugène Dubois, Edgar Quinet, Sirand, and Vicaire. There were also the collections belonging to the Ain department’s naturalists and archaeologists whose president was Alphonse Mas. It also holds a substantial collection relating to the Brou Monastery which comprises the collection of drawings by the architect Louis Dupasquier, and incunabula from the Brou Augustinian monks’ library. The library also houses the collection that belonged to the writer Roger Vailland, which was bequeathed by his wife Elisabeth in the 20th century. Every year the ‘Roger Vailland Meetings’ are organized on the basis of this collection. The early works held by the library are registered in the complete catalogue of the French National Library (Bibliothèque Nationale de France).
The Elisabeth and Roger Vailland Multimedia Library (surface area 2108 m²), the headquarters of the Bourg-en-Bresse library network, was built in 1988 to a design by the architects Jean-Vincent Berlottier and Patrick Barberot. Its architecture, based on the idea of co-visibility, was designed so that the different areas could be mutually adjustable. The outside gangways lead to a little round garden where a work by Gérard Pascual can be seen.
The Albert Camus library, in the centre of the town, was set up in 1980 in the former Post Office, which was built in the 19th century by Tony Ferret. One of its features is a Language Area.
The Joannès Son library is right in the centre of the Reyssouze district. Its rebuilding, which is part of the plan for urban redevelopment for this district, should be the final operation of the modernization of the Bourg-en-Bresse library network.
In order to encourage everybody in their catchment area to read, the Bourg-en-Bresse municipal public libraries have also developed local services (delivery of books to people’s homes, activities at the local prison), and cultural activities – you can see the schedule for these on www.bm-bourgenbresse.fr. This site also allows you to access the on-line catalogue, the collection of digitized documents, and general information concerning the public library network. It should soon also enable you to consult the resources of the History of Art library in the Brou Museum.
