Bruno Racine, former President of the National Library of France, on the Role of National Libraries

Bruno Racine was President of the National Library of France from 2007- 2016. Prior to this he held a variety of senior positions within the French government including: Director General Cultural Affairs for the City of Paris (1988-1993), Director of l’Académie de France à Rome (1997-2002), and Chairman du Centre Pompidou (2002-2007). He is also a writer. Non-fiction titles include his best-selling: Art of living in Rome and Art of living in Tuscany. His novel The Governor of Morée (Grasset) won France’s First Novel Prize in 1982. We talk here about the role of a national library, about scanning and digitization, Google, the Lyon library (France’s second largest), Europeana, the value-added offered by Librarians, amalgamation of Canada's National Archives and Library and the unlikelihood that France will follow suit, public servant novelists, Stendhal, and failure and success in work and love. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thebibliofile.substack.com/subscribe