Achieving a certain irony in light of his recent attack on Google‘s “digital library” (see Monday’s MobyLives news digest), Jean-Noel Jeanneney, head of the French National Library, has announced his library is joining with the U.S. Library of Congress “to launch a bilingual website exploring the history of the French presence in North America from the 16th to early 19th centuries.” As an Agence France Presse wire story notes, the site “was launched at a ceremony in Paris Tuesday,” and will include “more than 100,000 images from the rare book collections of the two libraries.” Says Jeanneney, “In developing this web presentation both national libraries have done what they do best — sift through an exhaustive amount of material in order to make our common histories comprehensible and accessible to the public.”

• MORE: The English version of the site, “France in America,” can be found here, while the French version, La France en Amerique”, can be found here.