Bibliothèque Nationale De France

Formerly Bibliothèque nationale (c. 1789 - 2004), Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) is the National library of France since 2004. BnF is the authority in charge of the preservation of the French national printed to digital heritage. BnF sound archive have more than a million of recordings. Digitized BnF catalogue (see link below) can be useful for discogs contributors: French releases are registered in this catalogue. Main page of a release often provides legal deposit year, stated as [DL yyyy] or yyyy (DL) with yyyy = year (year without 'DL' is NOT for legal deposit, it's not reliable for a release year). And a pop-up window reachable through a magnifying glass 'En savoir plus' (at middle / bottom right of the page) often provides the legal deposit day: DL 19671026 is for 26 October 1967 for instance (DL yyyy0000 is usually not reliable for a release year though). Those dates can help to know release year (day is not relevant). Take care though, only original issues are registered, not reissues with same cat#. Plus, legal deposit is a duty ... not always respected or respected with delay, especially by small and dubious labels. And dates on entries for compilations / reissues are not always reliable either, even big labels could be late in this case (musical material is yet protected by original legal deposit).