Champagne Trip
The libraries of the Champagne region have been targeted by recent trips by project members in Paris through a series of day trips. The libraries of this area had been visited during July as part of the summer 2004 fieldtrip, but a significant amount of books had yet to be seen in the region. Since then the analysis of the books in the BMs of Châlons-en-Champagne and Epernay have been completed, whilst only a small residual collection is left in Rheims. These will now be seen after the rare books section of the library reopens this summer after moving back to the Carnegie building.
Toulouse Field Trip
From 13th to 22nd December the project sent a team to work on libraries in the Toulouse area. The team started by working in both of the university libraries in Toulouse itself, establishing that, despite an interesting Spanish collection recently integrated, Toulouse I BU did not have any 16th century French vernacular books. Toulouse II BU was a happier hunting ground, and the team saw the entire Pifteau collection as well as a number of books that had been given to the library following the break up of the collection of the Faculté de Théologie Protestante of Montauban. The team also visited the department’s archives obtaining a list of their holdings. Thereafter the team worked for the rest of the week in the delightful surroundings of Toulouse BM – a collection full of interesting and often unique items which is especially strong on local printing. The following week a reduced team formed of Professor Andrew Pettegree and Dr Malcolm Walsby, visited some of the other libraries of the area. On consecutive days they worked in the libraries of Albi and Rodez before returning for a final visit to Toulouse BM on the Wednesday. This was a very productive trip in an area that had not yet been the object of a fieldtrip.â€
