science

Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library

Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library rather than just read about it. In short: The Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library is university library at Université Paris-Cité, located in rue des Saints-Pères, in the Latin Quarter of Paris. It is the heir to the University of Paris Sociology Library, founded in 1946 and one of the most important French libraries concerning sociology, linguistics and science education, and to the science library on the Saint-Germain-dès-Prés campus.

Key takeaways

Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library is university library at Université Paris-Cité, located in rue des Saints-Pères, in the Latin Quarter of Paris. It is the heir to the University of Paris Sociology Library, founded in 1946 and one of the most important French libraries concerning sociology, linguistics and science education, and to the science library on the Saint-Germain-dès-Prés campus. The two libraries merged in 2021 and are part of the Paris Cité University Library Network. The library collaborates with BNF (Bibliothèque nationale de France) as an associated pole (pôle associé) on topics such as health and public policy, Ethics and bioethics, Health sciences and society, drug use and abuse, social psychology. Being a unité mixte de service (mixed service unit) (UMS 3036), the library depends on both Paris Descartes University (Paris V) and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS).

History The collection of the library comes from two different origins :

University of Paris-V Human and Social Sciences Libraries A part comes from the former Human and Social Sciences collections of Paris Descartes University (formerly University of Paris-V) – the collections of social sciences and linguistics were held in the Sorbonne and those of science education in a library in Rue des Saints-Pères (6th district of Paris). Part of the major linguistics collection come from the private libraries of well-known 19th and 20th-century scholars such as Abel Hovelacque, Joseph Vendryes, and others.

CNRS Sociology Library The main part of the collection comes from the former Sociological Library of the CNRS. The collections increased during the second half of the 20th century. Georges Gurvitch gave books that he had purchased in the United States to the library and Maurice Halbwachs also gave a part of his private library to the Sociological Study Center (Centre d’études sociologiques, CES) just after World War II. The library, founded by Lucienne Thomas, had the same fate as the CES. First situated in Rue de Varenne (7th arrondissement), it moved to Rue Cardinet (17th arrondissement) in 1959. Its aim is to buy and make available books and knowledge to researchers but also to indicate the resources at a national scale: thus, the library is in charge of the "sociology" section of the Bulletin Signalétique (a kind of bibliography of French science articles) at the beginning of the 1970s. Jacques Lautman, head of CNRS' Human and Society sciences department, decided to change its name in «Bibliothèque de sociologie du CNRS» (CNRS Sociology Library) in 1986. It moved one more time to Rue Pouchet (next to Rue Cardinet). Closed for a time while being reorganized, it reopened in 2004: it then held 50,000 sociological books and a collection of 1,500 periodicals. In 2006, it became part of the new Human and Social Sciences Library Paris Descartes-CNRS.

The library currently

The library reopened at the end of 2006, at the same time that Paris Descartes Social Sciences Faculty moved from the Sorbonne to its new location in Rue des Saints-Pères. It is a library reserved for scientific research, mainly for grad students, scholars, social and human scientists from all universities and scientific centers. It possesses a collection of more than 80,000 books and 2,000 periodicals (of which at least 500 subscriptions are running) - add all the electronics periodicals and reviews subscriptions bought by the University Library. In 2008, the former "Friends of Centre d'Études Sociologiques'Society" (SACES) has entrusted to the library some photographic portraits of sociologists : Raymond Aron, André Davidovitch, Émile Durkheim, Georges Friedmann, Louis Gernet, Alain Girard, Marcel Granet, Georges Gurvitch, Maurice Halbwachs, Robert Hertz, Lucien Lévy-Bruhl, Marcel Mauss, Pierre Naville, Pierre Joseph Proudhon, Jean Stoetzel. The complete collection consists of 15 framed photographs, size 32.5 × 38.5 cm (12.79 × 15.15 in). Part of this collection is available on the open archive MediHAL But it is also an experimental library for new tool for scientific information circulation in France and abroad. The library plays an important part to digitize French Social Sciences reviews for Persée website (created by French Education Ministry). It also plays a leading role in several national projects of CNRS such as TGE-Adonis and Isore.

Illustrations

Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library: Book signed by Georges Dumézil and offered to Maurice Halbwachs.Maurice Halbwachs Collection — Book signed by Georges Dumézil and offered to Maurice Halbwachs.Maurice Halbwachs Collection

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library

In research: Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Libraries in Paris, Linguistic research institutes, Sociological organizations, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library in simple terms?

Why does Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Saint-Germain-des-Prés Library.