Press release
Paris, 17 December 2012
Orange and the Bibliothèque nationale de France, with the participation of the Voltaire
Foundation, are launching an enhanced digital edition of Voltaire's Candide
Voltaire's Candide, the first masterpiece in a
new digital collection
Orange and the BnF are launching a new
collection of enhanced digital books designed to
be read online and as an iPad app.
This project, aimed at students and the general
public, explores how digitization can aid the
learning process. The first of these enhanced
masterpieces is a new digital edition of Voltaire's
Candide.
This free iPad app is being launched in
December 2012 and the website will be
accessible from January 2013.
The app will be classroom-tested during the first semester of 2013.
An enhanced reading experience, with Denis Podalydès
This enhanced digital edition involves three complementary sections:
The Book:
To provide an optimal reading experience, the app can simultaneously display
the text and the BnF's manuscript. Denis Podalydès's voice allows the reader
to hear a lively and personable interpretation of Candide by a major actor. With
one touch, the reader can make use of the enhanced reading mode which
facilitates access to the work: definitions, variants of the critical edition as
established by the Voltaire Foundation, character sheets, place, concepts,
illustrations of the text by 18th century engravers but also by Paul Klee, etc.
The World:
A map allows the reader to chart Candide's
journey while providing opportunities to further
investigate the text thanks to interviews, a
bibliography, and an iconographical library.
Michel Le Bris, Alain Finkielkraut, Martine
Reid and Georges Vigarello all shed new
light on such themes as women in the 18th
century, El Dorado, cultivating one's garden,
and images of the Other.
The Garden:
A collaborative space facilitating discussions on Candide, the garden gives each reader the opportunity to
publish a notebook made up of their own comments and their favourite analyses. Each notebook takes
the shape of a tree of learning in the garden. A living space in constant evolution, this garden grows
according to the reinterpretations produced by the online reader-contributors. This section will be a vital
learning tool for schools: teachers will be able to create their own presentations in the garden and invite
their students to contribute to them.
Orange and ee-books
This project is part of Orange's ongoing project to support as many players in the book distribution chain
as possible during their process of digitization. Accordingly, Orange is developing a series of innovative
services such as the platform Read and Go (facilitating the digital reading of magazines, books and
graphic novels), and experimenting with narrative projects (Fanfan2...). Orange also launched in 2009 the
Orange Prize for Fiction, a literary prize judged by Internet users and chaired by Erik Orsenna.
Furthermore, Orange initiated the project MO3T, an open model of e-book distribution, and created a
consortium with all key players in a book's creation: telecom operators, editors, booksellers, IT and
technology service providers...
What is at stake for the BnF
The BnF digitally uploads an increasingly large portion of its vast collection. Gallica, its digital library,
provides users with nearly 2 million documents, including 381 000 books and more than 500 000 images.
Access to this collection is now facilitated by a particularly ergonomic iPad app.
Through its educational policies and activities, such as its online exhibitions (expositions.bnf.fr) and
teaching resources (classes.bnf.fr), the BnF aims to make the cultural heritage it preserves accessible to
the largest audience possible.
This project is also aligned with the BnF's aims, along with the Ministry of Education, to offer digital
resources to all secondary school students to help them engage with language, history, history of art, and
literature.
Foundation's
's point of view
The Voltaire Foundation
Candide is a timeless and universal text. The Voltaire Foundation is proud to be associated with the
creation of this Candide app, designed to make Voltaire’s masterpiece accessible to the widest audience
possible.
What is exciting about this new digital edition is that it is free, beautiful, accessible, and in no way inferior
to the most erudite of editions. Its starting point is the definitive critical edition of Candide by René
Pomeau published by the Voltaire Foundation. The two levels of annotations, ‘discovery’ and ‘research’,
solve the limitations of a paper edition by making it a useful tool for both academics and students. Thanks
to these two levels, as well as the map of the world charting Candide’s travels, the reader can choose
their own way into the text. Just like Candide, the reader is free to wander through this voltairean world
and make their own discoveries at their own pace.
About Orange
France Telecom-Orange is one of the world’s leading telecommunications operators with sales of 45.3 billion Euros for 2011. It has
170,000 employees worldwide as of 30 September 2012, including 105,000 employees in France. Present in 33 countries, the
Group has a total customer base of 227 million customers as of 30 September 2012, including 169 million mobile customers and
15 million broadband internet (ADSL, fibre) customers worldwide. Orange is one of the main European operators for mobile and
broadband Internet services and, under the brand Orange Business Services, is one of the world leaders in providing
telecommunication services to multinational companies.
With its corporate project, "conquests 2015", Orange is simultaneously addressing its employees, customers and shareholders, as
well as the society in which the company operates, through a concrete set of action plans. These commitments are expressed
through a new vision of human resources for employees; through the deployment of a network infrastructure upon which the Group
will build its future growth; through the Group's ambition to offer a superior customer experience thanks in particular to improved
quality of service; and through the acceleration of international development.
France Telecom (NYSE:FTE) is listed on NYSE Euronext Paris (compartment A) and on the New York Stock Exchange.
For more information (online and on your mobile): www.orange.com, www.orange-business.com, www.orange-innovation.tv
or follow us on Twitter: @presseorange.
Orange and any other Orange product or service names included in this material are trademarks of Orange Brand Services Limited,
Orange France or France Telecom.
About the BnF
The BnF's mission is to collect, catalogue, preserve, and enrich French cultural heritage in all fields of knowledge, while making it
accessible to the greatest number. Its collection consists of over 35 million documents: books and other printed matter,
manuscripts, newspaper archives, posters, photographs, engravings, audiovisual documents. Thanks to its digital library, Gallica,
the BnF provides free online access to more than 2 million documents, a showcase of the extraordinary wealth of its collection. It
gives life to its collections through exhibitions organized for the general public, either on its premises or online, and provides its
users with tools designed to respond to the needs of the 21st century.
The BnF also exists digitally thanks to its free iPad app version of Gallica, which gives access to the entire digitised holdings of the
BnF and the treasures of its collection. A version for tablets and Android smartphones will soon be available on Google Play, while
an iPhone version will be released by the start of 2013. The website of the BnF (www.bnf.fr) will also exist as a mobile version by
Spring 2013.
Foundation
ion
About the Voltaire Foundat
The primary aim of the Voltaire Foundation, University of Oxford (www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk), is to encourage research in the period of
the Enlightenment. As an academic publisher, the Voltaire Foundation is publishing the first definitive scholarly edition of the
Complete Works of Voltaire. This monumental task will consist of more than 200 volumes by its completion in 2018. Our printed
editions encourage further research into Voltaire’s work and are designed primarily with an academic audience in mind.
Press Contacts:
Contacts:
Orange: Héloïse Rothenbühler – (+33) 01 44 44 93 93 – [email protected]
BnF: Claudine Hermabessière – (+33) 01 53 79 41 18 – [email protected]
Lisa Pénisson – (+33) 01 53 79 41 14 – [email protected]
Voltaire Foundation, University of Oxford: Matt Pickles – (+44) 01865 270046 / [email protected]