[10622] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
FYI France: a (new) online library and information service
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jack Kessler)
Mon Sep 16 20:45:24 1996
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 1996 18:34:38 -0500 (CDT)
From: Jack Kessler <kessler@well.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list PACS-L <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@UHUPVM1.UH.EDU>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
This month's installment announces,
FYI France (sm)(tm), an online library and information service
at http://www.fyifrance.com .
All of you have been at least patient and often enthusiastic readers of
<FYI France (c) The Enewsletter>, some since its 1992 beginnings. This
enewsletter will continue its normal monthly distribution, for as long
as the French maintain their interest in online digital information,
and as long as I have the strength to tap laptop keys.
From today as a test, however, and beginning officially on January 1, I
am adding a WorldWideWeb / W3 - site to FYI France. My motivations
basically are three:
1) to establish a one - stop - shopping W3 site for library and
online digital information news in and about France, in English;
2) to try out the W3 medium for its graphics and links -- there
will be plenty on <FYI France (sm)(tm) The Online Service> --
in an application aimed specifically at busy professionals;
3) to try out the commercial use of the Internet by an online
library epublishing and reference service -- this day appears
to have arrived, for better or for worse, on both sides of the
Atlantic.
So what I have done on <FYI France (sm)(tm) The Online Service> is to
mount 12 inter - connected HTML files of text and attractive images,
together with as many hypertext links and other references as I can
gather and regularly maintain to online and other resources useful for
"librarians, Internet and Minitel users, researchers, teachers,
students, writers, book - lovers, book - dealers, publishers, and
anyone interested in the Internet, libraries, France and Europe".
On <FYI France (sm)(tm) The Online Service> you will find lists of, and
links to, and as often as I can pictures about:
1.00 FYI France: Print Libraries in France
2.00 FYI France: Digital Libraries in France
3.00 FYI France: E - Newsletter and Archive
4.00 FYI France: Publishers in France
5.00 FYI France: Book - Dealers in France
6.00 FYI France: Calendar
7.00 FYI France: Discussion and Debate
8.00 FYI France: La Francophonie
9.00 FYI France: Internet Training & Consulting
10.00 FYI France: Essai [couldn't resist this, but I _have_ buried it]
11.00 FYI France: Translation Services
12.00 FYI France: Bibliographies / Resource Lists
Perhaps needless to say, any links which appear will be "live": you
will be able to reach anything in which you are interested merely by
"pointing and clicking", if there is a link. The process of maintaining
<FYI France (sm)(tm) The Online Service> will be additive: as you and
others and I myself uncover interesting resources and active "links", I
will add them to the service.
There will be a charge for all of this. <FYI France (sm)(tm) The Online
Service> will be under development and so free - of - charge until
January 1, 1997, after which a fee of US $45 will be charged for annual
individual subscriptions: checks (only) payable to Jack Kessler, sent
via postal mail to me at PO Box 460668, San Francisco, California, USA
94146 -- US currency only, please, and please write your email address
on the front of your check. Those who subscribe now, before January 1,
will obtain their first annual subscription, from January 1, for US $35.
The day is past when full library service in the US was available for
free, and it is passing fast in Europe. The State is not exactly
withering away in these places, but its support for libraries is. Most
libraries which I know, and I know a fair number, either have curtailed
their services so much recently that "full library service" now is a
misnomer, or they now are charging at least cost - recovery fees for
many services previously free. So I would like to offer and experiment
with, in <FYI France (sm)(tm) The Online Service>, one possible model
for online library reference service, epublishing, and archiving, which
bears a commercial charge.
I can make no guarantees as to the economics of this: please ask me in
a few years. But I will be happy if I make the point that this sort of
thing can be done -- by independent librarians and libraries, using
very traditional tools of library and information service (reference,
classification, etc.), and acting as professional "guides" in new and
perhaps unfamiliar information "arenas" -- and if I cover my costs.
My thought is that any information professional -- any librarian --
will be able to do what I am doing here, for their best / favorite
subject area in online digital information. Very little of the raw
material in the <FYI France (sm)(tm) The Online Service> originates
with me, although nearly all of its structure and presentation does: I
was taught that mere "data" needs "intelligence" to become
"information" -- it is this intelligence factor which is the
information professional's "value - added", so much needed to turn
today's Internet data into useful information.
So please take a look. Please subscribe if you have the need or
inclination. Above all please send me suggestions for improvements. The
Internet has taken online digital information both public and
international, in ways unanticipated by any of us, very recently and
very quickly. I hope that <FYI France (sm)(tm) The Online Service> will
become a useful professional resource. I will be very happy if what I
have done here offers a useful discussion point for partisans of
librarianship, digital information, the Internet, the Minitel, France,
Digital Libraries, whatever. And I am looking forward to writing about
it, here and elsewhere, as it develops.
Jack Kessler
email: kessler@well.sf.ca.us
http://www.fyifrance.com , for <FYI France (sm)(tm) The Online Service>
