The Legally Mandated Deposit of Books in France: A Historical Approach

The legally mandated deposit of books, an old institution created in France by Francois I in 1537, was originally designed to collect in the Royal Library, the precursor to the National Library, all books printed in France. As printing and reproduction techniques not only for texts but also of documents evolved, so did the legally mandated deposit of books. In the course of the centuries, this included all document types according to their time of arrival up to the digital documents of today. This practice thus constitutes an essential basis for historical research precisely because of this comprehensiveness.