Library collections
Spread out between Vincennes and the branches in Brest, Cherbourg, Lorient, Rochefort, Toulon and Châtellerault, the SHD libraries are directed in particular at military history researchers, even though the collections may also interest specialists in other disciplines (history of the Ancien Régime, colonial history, etc.). In total, they house about one million books, hand written or printed, works or periodicals.
Heritage collections
As inheritors of collections dating, in some cases, from the 17th Century (records from collections from the War library, the military engineering library, the artillery library, libraries of the former Admiralty, from collections of charts and maps, from the university of naval engineering and the naval academy), the army and naval departments have the richest and most varied collections of national heritage. They reflect the art of war on land and sea in all its dimensions: geographical atlases and travel narratives may be found shoulder to shoulder with books on the history of wars and battles, on military bodies, arms or regiments, with documents relating to military practices or uniforms and technical or scientific works. There are a number of incunabula in these collections as well as several hundred 16th Century publications, but the majority of the thousands of works have been acquired over the centuries following.
In addition to these works, there is a large collection of periodicals, both general and specialist (from the "Mercure galant" to "L'Illustration" and the "Atlas du genie maritime" (atlas of marine engineering), plus a rich collection of manuscripts.
Specialist collections for reference information
Each service regularly acquires the most recent works and periodicals, offering readers the most up-to-date research material and therefore the best available summaries on the armed forces and their history. Particular attention is paid to classifying university research papers based on record collections held by the SHD, so as to minimize the difficulties of finding these documents that so often are still in hand-typed form. Equally, the services collect and classify as systematically as possible armed forces publications that were often originally circulated as private and confidential documents (communication briefs, reports, etc.). These publications, sometimes know as "grey literature" add an extra depth to our record collections.
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Detailed presentation, on-line catalogue and other research tools.