The Library of the Lyon Sino-French Institute

La bibliothèque de l'Institut franco-chinois

During its 25 years of existence, the Lyon Sino-French Institute has built up a library outstanding from several points of view. First of all, this library is the only Chinese / sinological collection created and increased outside of China by Chinese. Although created in a French and French-speaking environment, the Lyon Sino-French Institute has been able to create, besides a rather expected research library with documents written in European languages, a very important collection of documents in Chinese. This one comprises around 25000 books and its size could not be justified merely by the fields of studies chosen by the students (even though the topic of some of the Ph. D. thesis was related to China). The peculiar characteristic of this establishment, a university where ALL students were Chinese, the geographic distance, the events taking place in a troubled China, these Chinese students in an exile-like condition, far from their own culture - all these elements undoubtedly helped to create a documentary collection relatively complete, which mirrors rather clearly the intellectual and editorial activities of that time.

The Sino-French Institute Library can be divided into three parts, monographs, periodicals and archives, describing the 25 years of existence of the institute.

Monographs: it is the most interesting and richest part. It holds the rarest documents, all published in the 1920's, 1930's, and 1940's. These books are already accessible in part on the OPAC of Lyon Municipal Library. Monographs focus on the political, social and economic situation during the republican period, but also more considerably on Chinese literature and arts of a period that saw the blooming of artists' and writers' societies, groups and movements. Undoubtedly, the part dedicated to the Chinese literature of this period is one of the most important sections of this collection.

Another part includes classical works, with Chinese bounds, and they are mentioned in this list [PDF format , 971 ko].

Periodicals represent an important and coherent collection, an excellent image of Chinese intellectual life during the Republican period. Whether dedicated to the political, literary, artistic or scientific field, these periodicals are rarely complete but often very important. Two parts compose this set: Chinese periodicals and periodicals published in European languages [PDF format ] in China by foreigners.