Quebec’s "Grande" Library Started

-- Library Journal, 12/06/2001

Construction of the Grande Bibliotheque du Quebec was inaugurated this week by Premier Bernard Landry, Culture Minister Diane Lemieux, and library president Lise Bissonnette. "The work that we begin today will broaden Quebec knowledge and culture," said Landry. "Quebec needs a place to consolidate its expertise, and its expertise is its intelligence, its culture and its humanity." The 300,000-square-foot building will house 500 computers, maps, photo databases, an estimated 4 million documents, and more than one million books, including everything that has been printed in Quebec during the past two centuries. "It will house works of all Quebec authors, those who write in French, English, Chinese, no matter in what language," Bissonnette told The Montreal Gazette.