"The makers wish to thank the Bibliothèque Nationale its Chief Executive, Julien Cain, its directors" "and its staff of librarians, assistants, storekeepers and caretakers for their co-operation during filming" "Because he has a short memory man accumulates countless aide-mémoires." "Confronted with these bulging repositories, man is assailed by a fear of being engulfed by this mass of words." "To assure his liberty, he builds fortresses." "In Paris words are imprisoned in the Bibliothèque Nationale." "Everything printed in France can be found here." "Every mark set down by man's hand is represented here in the richest department of all:" "Manuscripts." "The Periodicals reading room bears witness to the ever-changing world." "Most of the world's newspapers can be consulted here." "In the Etching room, every picture is stored, be it an engraving, a lithograph or a photograph." "This is a museum." "Another museum is the Medals room." "Louis XIV was the first to gather together such treasures." "Stars, satellites and meteors, capitals and their suburbs can all be found in the Maps section." "Built at a time when little was printed, the Bibliothèque Nationale now houses another 3 million volumes each century." "To avoid bursting, it is continously burrowing deeper underground and reaching up higher into the sky." "PRINTS" "ETCHINGS" "MEDALS AND ANTIQUES" "PERIODICALS" "MAPS AND PLANS" "MANUSCRIPTS" "To make it possible to consult this gigantic memory, those in charge of the treasures it contains catalogue them." "They sort them, analyze them, classify them and number them methodically." "It has taken centuries to inventory the six million books and five million prints held at the library." "This is vital work." "With no catalogue, this fortress would be a maze." "It has been necessary to develop classifications which, over time, have become law." "To catalogue all this knowledge, we have had to resort to key words." "Eventually, the mighty catalogue of printed matter was born, a catalogue which will forever be a work in progress." "The library is a model memory, a store for everything printed in France." "The periodicals section alone has to digest 200kg of paper every day:" "newspapers, reviews, magazines, bulletins, yearbooks and almanacs." "If a collection is incomplete, it loses its value, so the smallest mistake must be avoided." "If an issue is missing, it will be requested." "Even though an edition may be consulted only once, everything must be kept." "That's the rule." "Among these collections, Rimbaud's first writings were found, published in an obscure journal in the Ardennes." "Who knows what else may come to light among these pages?" "Who knows what will be the most reliable testament to our civilization?" "There are four ways in which the collection may be expanded." "through gifts, purchases, exchanges and - the main source - legal deposit." "Instituted in the 16th century, ths obliges publishers and printers to deliver several copies of each work they publish to the library." "To mark a volume as having entered the library, never again to leave it, it is stamped." "The book which has been deposited is entered in the catalogue of all the publishers in France." "Then is registered as a new entry." "Its identification card is drawn up." "After which, a prisoner, it awaits the day of classification." "Once a week the books are sorted and distributed to different sections of the catalogue service." "Some, like this one, are entered in a catalogue of collections." "The book is placed." "It is determined which field it relates to." "It is identified." "It is indexed." "Its particulars are circulated electronically." "Twenty identification cards are placed in different files among the millions of other cards." "which make this catalogue room the brain of the Bibliothèque Nationale." "Once labeled, the book cannot escape any search." "A letter and number specify the place it will ocuppy in one of the stores." "Once catalogued, the book will go to the exact spot assigned to it in the maze of shelves which is more that 60 miles long." "Here is the book in its setting." "This ancient store will soon be gone." "For 20 years, successive transformations have been turning this library into the most modern in the world." "A silent stronghold, the Bibliothèque Nationale harbours many treasures." "There is plenty worthy of attention - more that enough to fill 100 films." "For who is to say what is the noblest, the finest, the rarest?" "It is the still unpublished "Journal of the Gouncourts" manuscript?" "The "Peresianus Codex", which nobody knows how to decipher?" "These Harry Dickson memoirs unobtainable today?" "These personal notebooks to be opened only in 1974?" "The manuscript of Pascal's "Pensées"?" "Or the collected works of Emile Zola?" ""The stone of Baghdad" and the jewels that surround it?" "Villard de Honnecourt's sketchbook?" "Or perhaps this collection of royal medals?" "These huge Victor Hugo manuscripts?" "Cabot's "mappa mundi"?" "This binding bearing the arms of Henri II?" "This, the first book printed in Paris?" "Charlemagne's "Evangelarium"?" ""The Revelation of St. Severus"?" "This Mantegna?" "This Dürer?" "This Redon?" "These treasures need to be preserved, so the atmosphere is controlled." "Machinery resembling that of Captain Nemo keeps a constant temperature suitable for paper, leather and parchment." "Night and day, checks are made." "Whatever the cost, destruction must be avoided at all costs." "Ointment preserves the bindings." "Ancient writings are restored." "The borings of insects are stopped up." "Loose pages are glued back in." "The books are innoculated." "Maps are separated with plastic shields." "To stop wearing out, portofolios are stored on rollers." "Newspapers, the paper of which quickly disintegrates, are microfilmed." "Once captured on film, these pictures will perpetuate the memory of perishable documents." "these pictures will perpetuate the memory of perishable documents." "While this slow battle against death goes on, calls go out." "Messages are endlessly spat forth across the labyrinth of stores." "Once the book has been found a slip of paper takes its place." "This is its shadow." "A final verification checks the identity of the book against its ticket." "And now the book marches on towards a notional line, a boundary more significant for it than going through the looking glass." "It is no longer the same book." "It used to be a part of an abstract, universal, indiferent memory." "There, all books were equal, all enjoyed attention as tender as that shown by God towards man." "Here it is selected, preferred, indispensable to its reader, torn from its world to feed these paper-crunching pseudo-insects," "irremediably different from true insects in that each is bound to its own distinct business." "Astrophysics, physiology, theology, taxonomy, philology, cosmology, mechanics, logic, poetics, technology..." "Here we catch a glimpse of a future in which all mysteries are resolved." "A time when we are handed the keys to this and other universes." "And this will come about because these readers, each working on his slice of universal memory," "will lay the fragments of a single secret end to end, a secret with a beautiful name, a secret called happiness."