Three years ago, Aix-Marseille University launched its digital heritage library, Odyssée, giving free access on the web to thousands of rare, old, precious or surprising documents, rarely revealed to the public because of their fragility.
Since the launch of Odyssée in 2017, the digitization programs defined by the researchers and librarians of Aix-Marseille University have significantly added to the library, which now has more than one million pages online.
There are many witnesses of past centuries, from the 14th century for the oldest document, but also more contemporary documents that shed light on the history of the University of Aix-Marseille and its relations with the territory.
Thirty thematic galleries provide access to documents from all disciplines and of all kinds: manuscripts, archives, monographs, illustrated newspapers, drawings, engravings, posters, plates, scores, maps, etc.
The growth of the Odyssée digital heritage library is continuous, supported by the pace of research projects. By 2023, Odyssée is expected to grow by 300,000 new pages.
Symbolically, it is significant that the millionth page of Odyssée was put online in April 2020: on the one hand, despite the pandemic crisis which was then in full swing, the Aix-Marseille University teams (permanent librarians but also temporary students) have never stopped working on digitising and putting the documents online. Moreover, during the lockdown, Odyssée's consultation statistics increased significantly, illustrating once again the university's adage: "libraries are on site and to go".
Access to Odyssée: https://odyssee.univ-amu.fr/