Members of the Réseau francophone numérique (RFN) [Francophone Digital Network], including Library and Archives Canada (LAC), issued a news release yesterday to announce they had unveiled a new digital library at their annual general meeting in Brussels on April 26. The French-language Bibliothèque numérique du RFN website includes more than a thousand records from the heritage collections of ten Francophonie member nations and states.
A quick look at the Amérique- section, representing the Americas and the Caribbean, reveals digitized documents by Jacques Cartier and Samuel de Champlain, an early 18th-century document about the laws and constitutions in the French colonies in America, and maps.
This section represents the regions where Francophone communities live: Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Acadia (Canada); Louisiana; (United States); St-Pierre-et-Miquelon and French Guiana (France); the Caribbean islands of Haiti and Saint Lucia; and the French Antilles, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy.
The launch of the digital library represents a major milestone in the development of the activities of the RFN, which has worked for more than ten years to preserve Francophone heritage and disseminate it online. The RFN recently became an independent legal entity and established its head office in Belgium, at the Royal Library of Belgium.
The Bibliothèque numérique du RFN includes documents that vary both in format (printed materials, geographical maps, images, newspapers, etc.) and in the four broad themes of exchanges between nations and states, human rights, shared history, and the French language. A documentary policy underpins the development of the library, which will grow as member institutions add to it.
At present, the library contains records from LAC, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec, the Royal Library of Belgium, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Bibliothèque Haïtienne des Pères du Saint-Esprit, Bibliothèque nationale de Luxembourg, Bibliothèque et Archives Universitaires d’Antananarivo–Madagascar, Bibliothèque nationale du Royaume du Maroc, Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire–Université Cheikh Anta Diop in Senegal, and the Swiss National Library.
The Réseau francophone numérique (RFN) is an international association created by the 26 largest documentary institutions of the Francophonie (Belgium, Benin, Cambodia, Canada, Côte d’Ivoire, France, Haiti, Morocco, Quebec, Senegal, Switzerland, Vietnam, etc.). These institutions, already involved in programs to digitize their documentary heritage or eager to develop such projects, are pooling their efforts to enhance the influence of Francophone cultures and the French language. By increasing the visibility of unique heritage collections that are often little known and sometimes face deterioration, the RFN is active in the intense cultural exchanges that arise from sharing the French language. With financial support from the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, digitization and training activities may also be undertaken in several countries in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.
