On the 17th floor of one of the four towers of the François-Mitterand site of the National Library of France (BNF), among the many multimedia devices in the Charles-Cros reserve, there are about sixty period consoles and computers. Atari Lynx, ColecoVision, Game Boy or PSP Go, since 1992 the legal deposit in the BNF extends to software and databases, including video games. For each product published or distributed in France, the publisher must send two copies to the BNF. With 20,000 preserved objects, the games represent one-third of the institution’s audiovisual collection. The BNF thus has the largest public collection of video games in Europe. And every year it grows by acquiring 1000 to 2000 new products.
A very rare Magnavox Odyssey copy
The BNF collection benefits from legal deposit but also donations from private collections. “Since legal deposit only extended to video games in 1992, we only had a handful of products that date back to…
Source: Le Figaro
I am David Wyatt, a professional writer and journalist for Buna Times. I specialize in the world section of news coverage, where I bring to light stories and issues that affect us globally. As a graduate of Journalism, I have always had the passion to spread knowledge through writing.