The BNF keeps the memory of coronavirus on the Web

Text by: Sébastien Jédor Follow

What will we learn from the coronavirus epidemic? To answer this question and to allow tomorrow's researchers to work on the subject, the National Library of France (BNF) has launched a vast collection on the internet. Indeed, since 1537, the BNF has been responsible for keeping documents published in France, as legal deposit: books, newspapers, maps, photographs ... but also internet pages, since 2006.

Publicity

At the end of January 2020, the theme of the coronavirus began to inflame French websites. Given the scale of the phenomenon, the Bibliothèque nationale de France is launching a specific collection, as it already did for the Paris attacks in 2015 or for the protest movement against "yellow vests".

Terabytes of harvested data

One of the first themes to emerge is the refusal to stigmatize the Chinese community, with the keyword #JeNeSuisPasUnVirus. Today, a hundred librarians, in Paris and in the region, harvest terabytes of data using powerful software robots.

For Tiphaine Vacqué, assistant to the director of the legal deposit department at the BNF, this collection is not exhaustive, but it must be representative of the diversity of publications on the internet: "  With this collection, we cover all aspects of society currently abused by the epidemic : medical, social, political, etc. There are crosscutting themes such as feminism, family life, elections . "

Preventing men's memories from being lost

This collection is similar to taking a sample from the French web on the subject of coronavirus, without blinkers. “  The legal deposit applies, in principle, without aesthetic or moral judgment on the work kept at the BNF , continues Tiphaine Vacqué. We cannot assume what will interest a researcher in the years or centuries to come. "

Faced with a pandemic that is turning our lives upside down, the BNF remains faithful to the mission of legal deposit, defined in an ordinance of 1537 by King François I: to prevent the memory of men from being lost.

Newsletter Receive all international news directly in your mailbox

Follow all international news by downloading the RFI application

• France
• Coronavirus
• Internet