Paris Observatory founded in 1667 by Louis XIV is one of the so called "Grand Etablissement" under of the aegis of the Ministry of higher education and research, and includes two other centres : Meudon Observatory and the Radioastronomy centre in Nancay, created respectively in 1876 and 1955.
The decree which gave birth to the library itself was signed in 1785 by Louis XVI. In 1926 Meudon is joined to Paris. The total number of bound volumes, including journals, is 100.000. This comprises 2000 periodical titles (of which 1200 are current titles), monographs, photographs, incunabula and manuscripts from the 16th to the 20th century, microfilm versions of historical material. The collections of two libraries are complementary.
Starting in 1981, the library became part of a national : "Centre d'Acquisition et de Diffusion de l'Information Scientifique et Technique" (CADIST) - for astronomy and astrophysics documents. The catalogue is available on national networks such as the Pancatalogue or CCN. It may also be accessed on the international OCLC network.
Special services
1. Astrobibop, the Paris Observatory library new catalogue and information system lists approximatively 2000 new accessions and will include the whole collection together with the periodicals index.
2. The preprint list : preprints received by the library from 65 institutions.
3. The compilation of astronomy meetings traced by the library.
4. Computerized literature searching : besides computer searches of current and/or retrospective literature made by a reference librarian, a do-it-yourself searching is possible on Firstsearch database, Current Contents on CD-ROM and Myriade, a national periodicals index on CD-ROM.
5. Inter-librarian loan : photocopies, photographies, microfilms or the material itself is available on request. If th ematerial is not in the library system, it can be borrowed from another library.