[11479] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
FYI France: The New Information Profession in France
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jack Kessler)
Tue Jul 15 20:04:57 1997
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 1997 16:13:26 -0500
From: Jack Kessler <kessler@well.com>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU>
----------------------------Original message----------------------------
The New Information Profession in France
The many messages which arrived in response to the May 15 posting here of
"The New Information Profession, a 'digital book'" Ch. 1, were divided
into two camps: those who embrace the idea warmly, sometimes too warmly,
and those who flatly oppose it and are sceptical that it even exists.
Fellow - zealots are not hard to convince: difficult to sway, often, but
not hard to get enthusiastic as they already are on the bandwagon. The
sceptics, though, need evidence. Several asked me for proof that what I am
advocating already exists, somewhere; that someone already has undertaken
the task of "helping people to find online digital information".
Before proceeding on with the argument this month, then, I thought I first
had better offer some evidence: from France, of course, as even the
sceptics grant that quite a few folks are excited about online information
in the US -- how much more interesting if the excitement has spread
abroad, and to a non - English language country. This is not just Internet
excitement, however -- that already is well - documented -- this is
serious work in helping users find information online, work which might
lead to some professional re - definition, or to a new profession.
* ENSSIB / Ecole nationale supe'rieure des sciences de l'information et
des bibliothe`ques
See: http://www.enssib.fr/
The French national library school, the ENSSIB at Lyon (Villeurbanne), has
gone through the transformation through which library schools most places
are suffering now. In the ENSSIB case, the "library" term was retained in
the school's name -- only just, by some accounts -- and included as being
still every bit the equal of the newer "information science" term.
The name - game is not what is most interesting in the ENSSIB's case,
however. The ENSSIB program -- for its students and researchers, but also
for its outside world -- has been transformed far more radically than its
name change suggests. The three basic degrees which are offered at the
ENSSIB now provide really very little in the way of traditional book -
library education: all now primarily train students to help users search
for information on digital systems --
1) DCB : Diplo^me de conservateur de bibliothe`que
Per the 1996 reform of this degree: "...professional fields (the
organization, the collections, the public and the staff, the
environment)... covered by different disciplines (library science,
history, sociology, linguistics, law, economics, computer science)..."
2) DEA : DEA (Diplo^me d'e'tudes approfondies) en sciences de
l'information et de la communication
Research / doctoral preparation: epistemology, methodology, research
project, research tools.
3) DESSID : DESS en informatique documentaire
A double degree, offered by the ENSSIB and one Lyon university's science
and computer science departments, for,
"specialists in the transfer of scientific, technical and economic
information, capable of analysing, managing, and evolving an information
system using documentary techniques and computerized tools (data bases,
documentation software, systems design)"
the eventual employment targets being,
"information services of enterprises (large industrial groups, the banking
and insurance industries, etc.), research libraries, documentation
centers, as well as companies specializing in the collection, structuring,
conversion and storage of information"
-- perfunctory mention here, it seems, of "libraries", and none whatsoever
of "books". These people are in training to design and run -- and manage
and explain -- digital information systems in "enterprises",
"documentation centers", "companies", and it seems only incidentally any
longer in "libraries".
The research program at the ENSSIB does offer a fine and fascinating
"po^le lyonnais en histoire du livre", which takes advantage of the
magnificent rare book collections of the Bibliothe`que Municipale of Lyon,
and the treasure of the city's Muse'e de l'Imprimerie et de la Banque.
This is the exception, however, which proves the rule: the rest of the
program is devoted to digital information and to the servicing of same --
"systems and service of documentation information... With the decisive
evolution of new information technologies and information networks has
developed a research activity more closely oriented toward scientific and
technical information and the new environments for the management and
research of information."
ENSSIB research projects now have titles and orientations like, "Centre
d'e'tudes et de recherches en sciences de l'information (CERSI) -- axis 1:
information systems and interfaces, conception, organization and
representation; axis 2: economics, management and sociology of information
service; axis 3: the history and conservation of the written word" -- in
this order, one suspecting that the third "axis" receives the least, and a
decreasing, emphasis.
So much, then, for the training and research program in France. Librarians
-- the people who work in book - libraries -- are being trained elsewhere,
there. But in the former national library school, the ENSSIB, the thrust
of the educational preparation provided nowadays is toward digital
information: designing it, providing it, and helping people to use systems
for finding it.
* ADBS / L'Association des Professionnels de l'Information et de la
Documentation
See: http://www.adbs.fr/
"Documentation" -- information regardless of its container, i.e.,
regardless of whether or not it is "in a 'book'" -- has a long history in
France, going back at least to the Belgian Paul Otlet's 1934 treatise on
the subject. The ADBS is heir to a series of organizations which have
taken up the ideas of Otlet and others as a professional raison d'e^tre.
Today, the ADBS claims 5500 members -- the ABF / Association des
Bibliothe'caires Franc,ais has 3500 -- and offers conferences,
publication, courses, and certification.
The point of "documentalism" is to provide a link between, "those who
create information: editors and publishers, journalists, researchers..."
and "those who use information: decision - makers, consultants, insurers,
financial analysts": documentalists "search and retrieve information,
deliver it to those who will use it, in forms appropiate to its use, and
more generally manage it". In France, documentalists work as "information
brokers", "database administrators", "corporate documentation managers",
"indexers and analysts", and in many other of a long list of occupations:
see a list of 29, with explanations, at,
http://www.adbs.fr/adbs/viepro/profess/metier/html/1n3vpm2.htm
* SVP (S'il Vous Plait)
See: http://www.svp.com/
See also, for more about "SVP" and other "information brokers":
http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Feb-95/levine.html
Founded 1935 by Georges Mandel, Minister of Posts, Telegraphs and
Telephones (the "PTT" -- the government communications monopoly), rescued
1937 by Maurice de Turckheim ("an information service by telephone"), real
take - off 1945 as a post - war reconstruction effort, now run by Brigitte
de Gastines, SVP employs 400 for 75,000 users in France, 1000 for 225,000
users worldwide. The purpose:
"To take a decision quickly but safely, senior or middle management in a
company needs clear, precise information adapted to the context of their
society. In order to meet their concerns, SVP diagnoses the decisive
factors and examines all the data, and consults information sources
before answering a specific question."
This isn't librarianship. Neither at SVP nor at the ADBS is there any
mention of books, and there is not much mention of them any longer even at
the French national library school. Something new is happening: something
old, perhaps, if the 1935 founding of SVP and the turn - of - the -
century origins of Paul Otlet's thinking are considered -- but something
different, nevertheless, from the library - and - book - based information
systems in which most of us were schooled, and in which many of us still
feel most comfortable.
The form of that new thing -- that new profession, perhaps, encompassing
activities as formerly - disparate as those of, now, the ENSSIB, the ADBS,
and SVP -- is the point of "The New Information Profession, a 'digital
book'". The next chapter will appear in September, but I thought it best,
here, to show the sceptics some evidence that all of this really is going
on now -- even in France...
Happy day - after - Bastille - Day, everyone, and bonnes vacances. See you
in September.
XXX
FYI France (sm)(tm) e - journal ISSN 1071 - 5916
*
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Copyright 1992- by Jack Kessler, all rights reserved.
XXX
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