Institut National de l'Audiovisuel

  • INA
  • National Audiovisual Institute

Address

Centre de consultation Paris - site Bibliothèque nationale de France
Site François Mitterrand (rez-de-jardin)
Paris cedex 13
75706
France

Phone

+33 (0) 1 53 79 57 60
+33 (0)1 53 79 48 30

History

The Institut national de l'audiovisuel (or INA, French for National Audiovisual Institute) is a repository of all French radio, television, and audiovisual archives. Additionally, it provides free access to archives of countries such as Afghanistan and Cambodia. It has its headquarters in Bry-sur-Marne.

INA, was founded in 1974, after the dissolution of the Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (ORTF). Since then, it has been active in archive management, training, research and production. In 1978, it became one of the founding members of the International Federation of Television Archives (FIAT/IFTA) with the BBC (United Kingdom) and the RAI (Italy). In 1992, INA was entrusted with the legal deposit for all French radio and television channels. The Inathèque de France was launched in 1995 and set up its Consultation Centre at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in 1998. One year later, INA launched a vast plan to preserve and digitise all the images and recordings it managed. The aim was to combat the deterioration of physical archive formats and to promote multimedia use of the archives. INA’s pioneering approach made France the worldwide reference in the field. 2004 was the year that INA launched Inamediapro.com which is used by audiovisual professionals to conduct research, select and order archives. It facilitates access to the world’s largest audiovisual archive database. By 2006, INA launched the ina.fr website, which gave the general public access to over 100,000 radio and television programmes. Since then, it has allowed free online consultation of some materials on this website with a search tool indexing 100,000 archives of historical programs, for a total of 20,000 hours. In 2007, Ina SUP, an audiovisual and digitisation faculty was opened, offering two specialised Master's courses. In 2012, Ina was officially entrusted with the legal deposit of the French Web media and, as of 2016, retains more than 14,000 media websites.

Building(s)

In addition to the Ina THÈQUE in Paris (BNF), INA has a number of reading rooms throughout France where researchers can consult institute staff. These are:

Ina ATLANTIQUE
9 Avenue Jean Janvier - 35000 Rennes

Ina GRAND-EST
31, rue Kageneck - 67000 Strasbourg

Ina CENTRE-EST
58, rue Sainte Geneviève - 69006 Lyon

Ina MÉDITERRANÉE
23, rue Guibal BP 60104 - 13300 Marseille

Ina PYRÉNÉES
1 allée Jacques Chaban-Delmas 31000 Toulouse

Ina NORD
8, allée de la Filature - 59000 Lille

It is also possible to research INA's collections autonomously in a number of local libraries and médiathèques (multimedia libraries).

Archival and Other Holdings

INA holds fonds and collections regarding radio, TV, and audiovisual material from 1945 until the present. INA also holds written archives regarding all the preparatory work for television shows, research for radio, transcripts of interviews, etc. It also has quite an extensive web-media archive that collects URL's of different news sites and archives them.

Finding Aids, Guides, and Publication

The guide for the audiovisual fonds can be found here:

http://www.inatheque.fr/fonds-audiovisuels.html

INA's online catalogue can be found here:

http://inatheque.ina.fr/index/TV-RADIO/

Opening Times

Centre de consultation Paris - site Bibliothèque nationale de France

Monday from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Tuesday to Saturday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. for the BNF site

The opening times of other INA research rooms differ. For more information on these, see:

http://www.inatheque.fr/consultation/services-de-consultation.html

It is essential to order documents by phone (+33 (0) 1 53 79 57 60) or on site.

The BNF site in Paris has 56 Audiovisual Reading Stations and a group room which offer:

  • Access to all TV, radio, web media, partner collections and written sources
  • Access to consultation and analysis tools

Conditions of Access

Consultation of INA materials not freely available on the website is only permitted after the researcher has obtained BNF and INA accreditation.

BNF and Ina accreditations are issued by the accreditation service. Researchers need to provide the service with proof of identity and an pre-accreditation form outlining their research project.

The form can be downloaded here:

http://www.inatheque.fr/consultation/formulaire-pre-accreditation.html

Once accreditation has been granted, researchers must then purchase a BNF Research Pass costs between 5 and 50 euros, depending on length of the pass' validity, in order to gain access to the reading room. Discounts may apply.

For more information on the Research Pass fees, see:

https://www.bnf.fr/fr/tarifs-de-loffre-lecture-et-de-loffre-culture?first_Art=non#bnf-biblioth-que-de-recherche

Research Services

Researchers can consult INA's materials autonomously in local libraries and médiathèques. However, if researchers consult documents in an INA centre, they have access to experts and a more personalised approach with tools, including research guides and a personal digital file where researchers can access and store personal searches and consultations. They will also have access to certain tools that facilitate any analysis. Furthermore, archivists and technical staff are present to help researchers navigate the vast amount of material offered by INA.

More information about these services can be found here:

http://www.inatheque.fr/consultation/services-de-consultation.html

Reproduction Services

Reproduction is possible if it is for personal use or scientific work after explicitly asking for permission from INA.

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