Canada, la Grande Bibliothèque du Québec (National Institute)

There was a major construction project in Montréal―la Grande Bibliothèque du Québec. The two largest Québec libraries, La Bibliothèque nationale du Québec (in 3 different buildings) and La Bibliothèque Centrale de Montréal (where many books are stored in a warehouse) had space problems. The proposal to merge the two libraries was first formulated in 1997.

The construction has been completed and the new library is about the size of the Toronto Reference Library. It is named La Grande Bibliothèque. See the BAnQ website for information about visiting the Grande Bibliothèque.

This modern library has an impressive collection of genealogical works, hundreds of computers freely available, many reader-printers for microfilms,.

Statistics on the production of genealogical works in Québec from 1990 to 2000―in the decade, 2031 titles of genealogical works including magazines, books and periodicals were produced on average of 184 per year. There are 976 monographs, i.e., biographies of ancestors, historical books, family dictionaries, guidebooks and similar works. There are 455 répertoires indexing baptisms, marriages, and sepultures compiled from parish registers prior to 1994. Also many monographs such as histories of municipalities, parishes, and regions include whole chapters devoted to the genealogies of families in the area; there were 312 during the period. In the period, bulletins published by genealogical societies jumped from 18 in 1990 to 35 in 2000, a 100% increase. There are also 140 periodicals published by family associations containing a large amount of genealogy. By law, all publishers have to make a legal deposit of every publication to the Bibliothèque nationale du Québec. Other libraries have to purchase the publications.

Accordingly, these associations have created research tools and databases restricted to genealogy associations, not to be distributed to other library. This is the case right now with the BMS 2000, the Parentèle, BSQ, etc...

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Information in this Wiki page is excerpted from the online courses offered by The National Institute for Genealogical Studies. To learn more about these courses or other courses available from the Institute, see our website. We can be contacted at [mailto:wiki@genealogicalstudies.com wiki@genealogicalstudies.com]

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