Bibliothèque Saint-Jean (BSJ) is an academic and research library at the

University of Alberta The University of Alberta, also known as U of A or UAlberta, is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford,"A Gentleman of Strathcona – Alexander Cameron Rutherfor ...

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

, Canada.

Overview

The library is located approximately five kilometres east of the main University of Alberta campus. Its mission is to serve the students and professors of Campus Saint-Jean, the University of Alberta's

francophone French became an international language in the Middle Ages, when the power of the Kingdom of France made it the second international language, alongside Latin. This status continued to grow into the 18th century, by which time French was the l ...

campus. However, it is open to the public; and borrowing options exist for users who do not carry a university ONEcard. As a member of th
University of Alberta Libraries
BSJ is also a part of th
NEOS
library consortium
The Alberta Library
an

Therefore, users not only have access to the documents and services offered on site, but also to a number of collections and services offered by the other libraries in these networks.

Collection

BSJ's main collection is classified according to the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

system and includes books and periodicals that support all programs of study offered at Campus Saint-Jean (arts and humanities, social sciences, education, health sciences, natural sciences). Government publications are added to the collection on a regular basis thanks to BSJ's status as a selective depository library for documents published by the

Government of Canada The government of Canada (french: gouvernement du Canada) is the body responsible for the federal administration of Canada. A constitutional monarchy, the Crown is the corporation sole, assuming distinct roles: the executive, as the ''Crown ...

. Furthermore, a large collection of documents on

microform Microforms are scaled-down reproductions of documents, typically either films or paper, made for the purposes of transmission, storage, reading, and printing. Microform images are commonly reduced to about 4% or of the original document size. F ...

, including a number of historical Western-Canadian francophone newspapers and the complete EDUQ microfiche collection (all documents published in the field of education in the Canadian province of

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

from 1981 to 1995) are available. BSJ is also a depository of the

National Film Board of Canada The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; french: Office national du film du Canada (ONF)) is Canada's public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary f ...

's French films. A collection of historical documents is located in the Salle Durocher. This collection includes rare documents in the areas of francophone history in

Western Canada Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada� ...

and works by Western-Canadian francophone authors (including but not limited to donated

theses A thesis ( : theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: ...

, programs of study formerly approved for classroom use b
Alberta Education
and other works deemed to have an historical value that cannot circulate because they are either fragile or irreplaceable). Also included in the collection are documents from the

Mahe v. Alberta ''Mahe v Alberta'', 9901 S.C.R. 342 is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. The ruling is notable because the court established that section 23 of the ''Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms'' requires parents of the official-lan ...

trial, which centered on the right of Alberta's francophone minority to separate francophone school boards. All resources found in the historical collection are indexed in the NEOS catalogue. A collection of pedagogical and children's literature (Collection pédagogique) is mainly classified according to the Dewey Decimal system, with more recent additions to the collection classified according to the Library of Congress system. This collection was created in 1978 to meet the needs of students in the Education program at Campus Saint-Jean. It is also used by educators from other parts of Alberta and Western Canada. Combined, these collections include over 200,000 documents and 350

periodical A periodical literature (also called a periodical publication or simply a periodical) is a published work that appears in a new edition on a regular schedule. The most familiar example is a newspaper, but a magazine or a journal are also examples ...

subscriptions. Though most documents are in French, some English-language documents are available.

Head librarians

* Georges Durocher (1969–1983) * Juliette Henley (1983–2002) * Hélène Larouche (2002–2006) * Tatiana Usova (2007–2017) *Denis Lacroix (interim 2017–2019) *Debbie Feisst (interim 2019–2020) *Christine Brown (2020–the present)

Partnerships and collaboration

The University of Alberta Library is a member of the

Association of Research Libraries The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 127 research libraries at comprehensive, research institutions in Canada and the United States. ARL member libraries make up a large portion of the academic and research l ...

Canadian Association of Research Libraries The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) was established in 1976 and brings together thirty-one research libraries. Twenty-nine members are university libraries, plus Library and Archives Canada (LAC) and the National Research Counc ...

, and is a contributor to the

Open Content Alliance The Open Content Alliance (OCA) was a consortium of organizations contributing to a permanent, publicly accessible archive of digitized texts. Its creation was announced in October 2005 by Yahoo!, the Internet Archive, the University of California ...

External links

Library Home Page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bibliotheque Saint-Jean Libraries in Edmonton Research libraries in Canada French-language literature in Canada Academic libraries in Canada University of Alberta buildings University and college buildings completed in 1978 Libraries established in 1978