The Bibliothèque Nationale

Photo courtesy J.R. McCain->

And so my work begins.

All academics, because of the nature of our profession, develop a narrow area of research in which one specializes in what many outsiders (well, and even insiders) consider to be an esoteric topic. Certainly, some academics write with a broad brush but that is mostly when they write for the general public and not in a professional forum. The reductive formula for my work might look like…

French History>20^thC France>Business History>Advertising History

Of course, even advertising history is not the only thing I cover (for those of you who are bored--or my students Logan and Anthony--the page down button is to your right) for to understand advertising one has to understand the interrelated areas of the economy including the producers, the advertising agencies, the media, and the consumers. I am sure there is something else I am leaving out but you get the idea. Change fascinates me and it is no surprise that I became a historian as I like to try to understand how and why that change transpires. France after 1945 underwent an incredible social revolution: mass migration to the cities, rapid rebuilding and industrialization, an explosion of consumption, and, like in the US, a baby boom that produced a youth culture. French advertising mirrored and documented those changes.

For me, the best way to understand this era is not just by reading the advertisements, but I have to comprehend the agencies that created those advertisements. Just as an art historian must study an artist to understand the genesis of a painting I need to do the same thing with advertising. Who were these people? What was their background, training, and values? How did these attributes shape their advertisements?

So, where do I begin? My best sources are trade journals of the advertising profession. Nearly every profession produces trade journals and they are a rich source of information of the status of the trade. As a result, for the next several weeks I will be reading journals that I have read before in my last trip here, taking notes, photocopying, and improving upon what I collected in my first trip. Beyond that, I will be interviewing major actors in the French advertising profession (more on a later entry) for their own experiences.

These trade journals reside at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (the “BN”). The BN is a venerable and nearly ancient institution, dating from the 13^th Century, having originally been a royal depository. Now, like the Library of Congress, the BN is dedicated to collecting any document or book printed in French (and a number of other languages as well). The current collection is well over ten million books with countless other documents and other printed material. On my last research trip I did not use the old BN proper, at the Rue de Richelieu, but instead the BN Annexe near Versailles. The Annexe held a good number of the periodicals that interested me and I have to say that I have never had a better commute. My morning routine would see me leave my place in Belleville, take Métro to Le Chatelet, walk across the Ile de la Cité, passing by Notre Dame, take the RER (the faster Métro) to Versailles, walk in front of the chateau, and plop myself in a small reading room. The BN Annexe was small, friendly, and efficient. I would request my journals and an employee would go to the storage room and get them in about five minutes. It is similarly efficient for photocopying (one cannot photocopy the documents oneself).

In the fourteen-year gap since my last research trip the French government contracted for a new BN as the old facilities were, frankly, old. Space had also become a problem. The new BN was going to be a model for libraries of the future and also a cultural showpiece for France’s President, François Mitterrand during the Parisian building spree of his second presidential term.

From a design standpoint the building is stunning (for a far better description, see the essay within the book Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik, staff writer for the New Yorker—thanks, Jim, for lending that to me). When one first approaches the BN from a distance one sees four twenty-five story towers (or ‘L’s) that appear like the legs of a table turned upside down. The upside-down table is on a platform of stairs that surround the building. As one takes the stairs up to a flat area (the underside, if you will, of the table top) one is in a flat, windswept plain with each tower a good two hundred yards or more apart. One certainly feels insignificant as a human considering the scale. In the center of the plain is a forest of pine trees that are recessed in a sunken garden, some eighty feet below the surface of the plain. As one strolls the plain of gray wooden planks one can just see the tips of the tallest trees emerging from the forest, perhaps the size of two football fields. To enter the library one has to take an escalator down to the garden level.

On my first day there last week I had to first obtain my “carte de recherche” allowing me access to the collections. Library bureaucrats subjected me to two levels of screening (no laughing, please) as I had to prove my academic bona fides to be allowed to use the collection. Honestly, I found the bureaucrats much more helpful and pleasant than the ones I encountered when I had my last screening as a graduate student. I guess having a Ph.D. and title of professor does open some doors.

During this initiation though, as usual, I found my reserves of French beginning to wear down. I think I have a French attention span of about ninety minutes. At minute 91 sharp those neurons go on strike (how French!). Various instructions came to me in French on the library’s use and rules (nothing in print) and as the interviews went on the French came faster and faster. Gopnik’s essay had warned me about the difficulty of use of the BN and suddenly it came to me that I barely had an idea of what the bureaucrats had told me. After going to the cashier to pay my $60 for my “carte de recherche” I decided it would be prudent to return to the library the next day when my reserves were replete.

The next day I returned and did what I do best: watch other people. When the library opened I went with other researches and stood in a line at a “vestiaire” where one exchanges their coats, bags, etcetera. One is given a clear plastic satchel in which one puts one’s laptop, books, notes, and other belongings (to help protect from theft) and then enters the beast. With your card you go through a turnstile and go through two steel double doors that would make a bank proud. From there one takes a double escalator down four floors in a large, airy corridor that is covered with steel-gray wall hangings (reminiscent of medieval chain mail) until one reaches the basement. I actually felt I was on my way to a place of ritualistic sacrifice as the ambiance was, to say the least, cold. One uses one’s card again to access another turnstile and then yet again two more steel doors. We are almost there! We are now at the true “garden level” and one can see the forest beside us enclosed in glass on its sides. On this garden level are different reading areas based on one’s area of research: law, economics, history, literature, philosophy, et cetera. There are 1650 reading seats. I made my way to the history section (though I actually could read in almost any section).

The previous day, before leaving the library and after my French breakdown, I had to use a computer and reserve the journals I wished to use the next day (so that they would be awaiting me). One also at the same time has to reserve a seat (they are all numbered: mine would be L100 for day number one). I was at least pleased that I could manage that.

I found L100. All of the seats are in rows of large functional tables, perhaps ten seats to a row. From my seat’s vantage point I could see forty to fifty rows stretching into the distance. Another imposing view that was quite different from the old annex that could hold perhaps forty readers. I had heard from some naysayers and critics about the library about the idiotic design: the books were placed in sun basking towers while the researchers became pod people residing in the darkened basement. Well, the books in the towers are shielded from the sun and the readers in the basement actually get a good deal of ambient light from the forest beside them. It is actually quite a pleasant and quiet place to work.

The desk had an outlet for my laptop (thanks, JP!), a light, and a large area for me to spread out my other materials. Perhaps it also has a nap area below: I shall check that out tomorrow and I shall get back with you. I went to the history desk close by and gave them my reader’s card and in return they found the materials that I had requested the day before. I returned to my desk, turned on my laptop, and began to read Vendre, January, 1946.