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General overview of the heritage collections of the Nice observatory library

"Premier établissement de recherche à être implanté.dans les Alpes maritimes, l'Observatoire de Nice se devait d'avoir sa propre bibliothèque. Afin de lui assurer le même niveau de qualité que celui des instruments, Bischoffsheim la dota richement de plus de six mille volumes, dont certains proviennent de la bibliothèque du mathématicien Michel Chasles" ⁽¹⁾.

[The first research establishment to be established in the Alpes-Maritimes, the Observatory of Nice, had to have its own library. In order to ensure the same level of quality than that of the instruments, Bischoffsheim richly endowed it with more than six thousand volumes, some of which come from the library of the mathematician Michel Chasles ⁽¹⁾]

Discover the richness of this fund by consulting the first catalog of the library published in volume 1 of the Annales de l'observatoire de Nice in 1899. 

The first catalogue of the Nice observatory library (1899)

Annales de l'Observatoire de Nice. Tome 1  Author (s) : Observatoire de Nice ; Henri Joseph Anastase Perrotin (Eds sc.)  Publisher : Gauthier-Villars (Paris) Date : 1899 Pagination :  1 vol. (XXXVIII-312 p.)  Call number : A002341(A1) Specific content : the first library catalogue p.[125]-130 (p.167-192  of the pdf format)

"Avec plus de quatre vingt provenances et une dizaine de langues, les quelques 6000 volumes du fonds initial offrent un vaste panorama de l'état de la science de l'époque - toutes disciplines confondues" ⁽²⁾.

[With more than eighty origins and ten languages, the 6,000 or so volumes in the initial collection offer a vast panorama of the state of science at the time - all disciplines combined ⁽²⁾].

Most of the documents date from the 19th century, but there are a few books and journals dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries.

A new revised and enlarged version of the historical catalog (2021)

The 1899 catalogue, succinct in its initial content, was revised and enlarged in 2012 to facilitate the identification, location and online consultation of the documents cited.

Catalogue historique de la bibliothèque de l'Observatoire de Nice Author : Service bibliothèque de l'OCA Publisher : (s.l.) : (s.n.) Date : 2021 Pagination : 202 p. Document type : electronic  This catalog presents : a bibliographic citation of the documents, the call number of these same documents, a link to a digital version, the gaps or inconsistencies noted.

To find out more about the richness of this fund, you can also consult the notice devoted to the Nice observatory library published in the book "  Patrimoine des bibliothèques de France - Provence Alpes Côte d'Azur, Corse, Martinique  ⁽³⁾

A digitization program to enhance and protect this heritage fund

In October 2011, the library service launched a first campaign to digitize its heritage collection in order to offer everyone access to the 17 volumes of the Annales de l'observatoire de Nice. This long work completed, other annual campaigns have made to promote the heritage documents relating to the history of the observatory. To this first objective is now added the safeguarding of contemporary documents.

You will find in our "digital library" section the results of this work. Only part of  this work is accessible externally.

To facilitate historical research on people, buildings, administrative or scientific activities, all digitized documents are marked and accessible via the catalog of the OCA libraries. In particular, you can search by authors, titles, years or keywords.

You can also consult our web page on the history of the library
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(1) Bely-Dubau, Françoise ; Delache, Philippe ; Frich, Hélène ; Leguet-Tully Françoise ; Thévenin, Frédéric. Un projet muséal de l'OCA : A la découverte de l'observatoire astronomique du Mont-Gros in  Bulletin de l'ADION, n.27, 1992-1993, p. 21-24

(2) Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur. "Les mémoires de l'Académie royale des sciences" in Salon du livre et de la nature : Huitième rencontres régionales de l'environnement  / Agence régionale pour l'environnement Provence-Alpes-Côte d'azur (ARPE PACA) - Bouc-Bel-Air : Agence régionale pour l'environnement Provence-Alpes-Côte d'azur (ARPE PACA), 1996. - non paginé: ill, phot. n. et b.; 29 cm.

(3) Choux, Daisy ; Le Guet Tully, Françoise. Nice. Bibliothèque de l'observatoire. in Patrimoine des bibliothèques de France, 6. Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur, Corse, Martinique : un guide des régions / France. Ministère de la culture. Direction du livre et de la lecture . - Paris : Payot, impr. 1995 ,  p.138-141

 (In the centre of the picture :  The library of the Nice observatory by Disderi, photograph  -  Source : "Observatoire de Nice, souvenir de la conférence géodésique de 1887" )