Paris researchers

FIONA HANDYSIDE, QMUL (fhandyside1@yahoo.com)

"I was in Paris for two months last Summer.

I stayed in a foyer de jeunes femmes - v basic, but cheap (2500 old FF per month) and close to the BNF in the 13th. Its adress is Foyer Tolbiac, rue de Tolbiac, 75013PARIS. It has a website www.foyer-tolbiac.com. You have to be female, obviously, and aged 18-27.

Libraries I used were the BNF and the BIFI. prob most useful info I could give is that the BIFI is on restricted Summer opening throughout July and August! You really need to check out its times on its website."

"I'm spending August-April 2003/4 doing research in Paris. The Bibliothèque Nationale (www.bnf.fr) has a large selection of texts on open access and an audiovisual room. To have access to the research library you need to be able to prove you are doing a thesis (bring an attestation de thèse from your supervisor) and also that the research library holds material you cannot access elsewhere. The Bibliothèque littéraire Jacques Doucet (10 Place du Panthéon) holds important archives from the early 20th C including those of André Gide and the Surrealists. The municipal libraries are also well stocked and have good CD collections."

"I did archival research in July and August 2003 at the Bibliotheque Marguerite Durand and the Bibliotheque Nationale. The BMD is located down the road from the BN and specializes in French women's publications of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but it appears to hold a wide range of (international)women's writing from the later in the 20th century as well.

Like Fiona, I stayed at the Foyer Tolbiac in the 13th. They seem eager to fill the rooms there in the summer, so it doesn't really matter if you surpass the age limit (ahem)."