[10914] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
FYI France: _Internet Digital Libraries_ "France" ch.p.3/4
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jack Kessler)
Mon Dec 16 21:15:36 1996
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 16:56:38 -0600 (CST)
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----------------------------
FYI France: _Internet Digital Libraries_, "France" chapter, part 3 of 4
This issue of FYI France presents two items:
1) FYI France Online Service -- http://www.fyifrance.com -- 88 new /
updated entries, new "search engine" and "suggestion box", and last chance
to subscribe for $35 (site licenses available) before Jan 1 launch;
2) _Internet Digital Libraries : The International Dimension_ book excerpt
-- the fulltext chapter on "France", parts 3 & 4 of 4.
XXX
1) The FYI France Online Service -- http://www.fyifrance.com :
-- FYI France has added 88 new or updated entries during the past month,
including the bibliothe`ques de l'Arsenal, Gustav Mahler, and l'Ope'ra,
"IRCAM, La Me'diathe`que", "INTERNET Society Chapitre Franc,ais" and
"Te'le'the`ses", "Culture d'o`C" (l'Occitan!), Eds. Dalloz-Sirey, Presses
Univ.de France, and librairies Decitre and Sauramps;
-- FYI France now has a "search engine" and a "suggestion box";
-- FYI France moves to password / site license access on January 1, so you
have two weeks left to look it over and subscribe, with substantial
discounts on subscriptions received before the New Year!
2)
[The following is a continuation of the excerpted chapter on "France" from
_Internet Digital Libraries: the International Dimension_ (Boston and
London : Artech House, December, 1996). Parts 1 and 2 described the BPI,
INIST, the BMLyon, FRANTEXT / ARTFL , the IRCAM / Institut de Recherche
et Coordination Acoustique - Musique, Minitel, the Ministry of Culture's
work, and the BIBLIO-FR econference. Here in Part 3 the BNF, and the
possibility of a new BN d'Art are presented.]
* The Bibliothe`que Nationale de France / la BNF -- one - stop -
shopping for information, offline and online
One of the world's largest traditional print libraries, the French
Bibliothe`que Nationale -- newly re - christened the "Bibliothe`que
Nationale de France" -- is making a serious bid to become a world -
class one - stop - shopping - place for information, both offline and
online.
The BN possesses, depending on which account and definition are used,
between 10 and 12 million printed books, all of which are being
physically moved during 1996 - 7, to the entirely new and gargantuan and
highly - controversial edifice constructed to house them at Tolbiac,
just upriver on the Seine from the Paris Left Bank and Latin Quarter.
The BNF project -- the construction of the new building at Tolbiac, the
move of the collections from one site to another, the retention of some
things at the old site and the decision as to what to retain and what to
move, and the provision of hi - tech organization and access in all of
this -- were to some extent the product of former French President
Franc,ois Mitterrand's love of literature and books, and to some extent
the result of decades of growth and crisis at the old BN.
The old BN outgrew itself many times during this century. Each time,
just when cramped conditions, shelving space, and book damage became
insufferable (the French call book mold, curiously to foreign
gastronomes, "champignons" -- the Paris Right Bank, on which the old BN
is built, is an ancient flood plain, and the BN books grow plenty of
"champignons"), a way out was found.
But by the 1980's, at least according to then - administrateur Emmanuel
Le Roy Ladurie, no further "way out" remained: shelf space simply would
be exhausted soon, he said, and a new building was needed. Various
reorganizations and plans were developed. A "BN bis" was much -
discussed. All were rejected as being insufficient or impractical.
The impetus finally to do something came from then - President
Mitterrand. He was an author himself, and a man proud enough of his
literary background to have his official photographs taken holding fine
books and against a background of fine books.
He announced, during a remarkable interview held in 1988 in his Elyse'e
Palace garden, the construction of a "tre`s grande bibliothe`que",
promptly re - christened by the Paris press the "TGB" to rhyme with the
French high - speed "Tre`s Grande Vitesse" train's acronym "TGV", and
just as promptly rendered into US journal - ese as the slightly
ridiculous - sounding "very big library". The President was right,
though: by anyone's definition, this new library was to be "very big".
For Digital Libraries purposes, however, the most remarkable portion of
President Mitterrand's announcement, and of the ensuing BNF mandate,
was his intention that,
"This great library will cover all the fields of knowledge, will be at
the disposition of all, will use the most modern technologies of the
transmission of knowledge, and will be able to be consulted at a
distance, and to enter into relations with the other European
libraries." (Letter of Mission from the President of the Republic to the
Prime Minister, August 1988.) [4]
This was the mandate to spend money on "informatisation", the French
term for the congeries of library automation and telecommunications and
information search and retrieval and generall access hardware, software,
systems, and service which underly Digital Libraries. The idea which
President Mitterrand had was that the French would lead, not only with a
truly "very big library" but with the very latest and very best in
online digital information technology.
The project which resulted has consumed much of the imagination and
energy and aggressiveness of the French intelligentsia, and most of the
budget of the Ministry of Culture, for nearly a decade. From original
estimates of US $200 million the construction costs perhaps predictably
soared to over US $ 1 billion, and the building is not yet completed.
It has become easily the most expensive among the series of costly
central Paris monumental building projects built since the 1970's -- the
Louvre Pyramide, the Muse'e d'Orsay, the Centre Pompidou, the Ope'ra,
the Grand Arche de La De'fense, and others -- known to those most
supportive of them as the "grands travaux", and to their critics in the
French press by many far less - complimentary epithets.
Among the BNF project's greatest supporters have been foreign -- non -
French -- francophiles and French scholars, who look forward to improved
access to the BN collections, and who always enjoy a trip to Paris to
view the latest monument; but then they don't have to pay for it.
The great danger of the BNF as a project has been that the new building
might so exhaust the budget as to become merely a warehouse for seldom -
used printed books. The French have been acutely aware of this danger.
To avoid it, much attention has been devoted both to coordinating the
Tolbiac site's resources and services with those of other BNF sites,
and to establishing and maintaining a BNF Digital Libraries presence.
At the BNF online, one already can find digitized texts, digitized
images, brave announcements of more of both to come, and immensely -
helpful services of various types.
Online access to the BNF catalog now is available as well, although
this particular effort -- like any other library cataloging effort --
still is subject to the usual criticisms of its lack of standardization:
the French are engaged in enormous projects to standardize their
bibliographic practices -- as are the British, as are the Americans, and
as are most librarians -- but the standardization is not in place yet,
and the entries which one obtains online resemble, but do not match,
what is most familiar to a foreign user.
Most remarkably, particularly for this national and nationalistic
library project, its online presence is available in English: one need
only point and click to reach a complete presentation of this French
Digital Libraries effort in a foreign language.
via W3 to http://www.bnf.fr .
* La Bibliothe`que Nationale d'Art? -- imaging -- the future?
Perhaps ironically, the outstanding source of potential competition for
the BNF Digital Libraries effort already under way comes from within
France itself: from an entity which may even ultimately become a part of
the BNF itself.
Back at the old site, on the Paris Right Bank's rue Richelieu, all the
old non - print BN collections, which now will have the great added
benefit of much - increased physical space, are being reorganised into
what very hopefully is being called La Bibliothe`que Nationale d'Art:
this would include the famous BN collections and administrative
departments devoted to manuscripts, and prints and drawings, and coins
and medallions, and everything which this enormous institution
accumulated over the centuries which didn't happen to be a printed text
-- all this perhaps combined with several other central Paris art
library collections, and even a brand - new school dedicated to the
teaching of art and art documentation.
At a time when "imaging" has become the leading key word in online
digital information -- everything, it seems at times, which can be
digitized can be considered as an "image", even text [5] -- an
institution could do worse than become a leading world center for nearly
everything which up until now has been associated with the term "image".
Online digital information techniques brought to bear, as they
necessarily will be, on the collections and concerns of the
Bibliothe`que Nationale d'Art potentially could eclipse in importance
even the enormous efforts in the Digital Libraries area currently being
undertaken by the Bibliothe`que Nationale de France.
[Next, in the final Part 4: Internet Digital Libraries, the International
Dimension -- Some Common Themes in the French Case.]
XXX
FYI France (sm)(tm) e - newsletter ISSN 1071 - 5916
*
| FYI France (sm)(tm) is a monthly electronic newsletter,
| published since 1992 as a small - scale, personal,
| experiment, in the creation of large - scale
| "information overload", by Jack Kessler. Any material
/ \ written by me which appears in FYI France may be
----- copied and used by anyone for any good purpose, so
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--------- address and, b) it isn't going to make them money: if
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(search for FYIFrance), or via gopher to infolib.berkeley.edu 72
(path: 3. Electronic Journals (Library-Oriented)/ 6. FYIFrance/ , or
http://www.univ-rennes1.fr/LISTES/biblio-fr@univ-rennes1.fr/ (BIBLIO-FR
econference archive), or via telnet to a.cni.org , login brsuser
(PACS / PACS-L econference archive), or at http://www.fyifrance.com .
Suggestions, reactions, criticisms, praise, and poison - pen letters
all will be gratefully received at kessler@well.sf.ca.us .
Copyright 1992- by Jack Kessler, all rights reserved.
