[12432] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
FYI France: CSB reports news, on libraries in France
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jack Kessler)
Wed Sep 16 20:25:00 1998
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 16:08:32 -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----------------------------
New on the FYI France Online Service, at www.fyifrance.com: City
Resource Lists -- for the tourist... um, sabbatical...
Three lists thus far are mounted, to be updated periodically
(suggestions always welcome), of new &or interesting "book-" /
"librarianly-" / "Internet-" / "information-" related books and
other resources, chiefly about Tours, Lyon, and Chartres:
http://www.fyifrance.com/btours.htm
http://www.fyifrance.com/blyon.htm
http://www.fyifrance.com/bchartre.htm
--oOo--
FYI France: CSB reports news, on libraries in France
The most convenient and authoritative source of news on libraries
in France is the annual report of the Conseil Supe'rieur des
Bibliothe`ques, available in print (address below) and online at,
http://www.enssib.fr/csb/
The reports are interesting both for their news of events in
France and for their broader insights into the overall scramble
by "non - anglo - saxon" cultures -- still most of the "rest" of
the world -- to try to keep up with the digital information /
Internet juggernaut, in libraries as generally.
Considering the role played by the Internet in this past weekend's
US presidential / non-presidential events -- taxi - drivers in
Jordan obtained and read the Starr Report as fast as Orrin Hatch
did -- we might give a little more thought to the international
consequences of "scaling up" the Internet.
The latest of these reports from France is the "Rapport Pour Les
Anne'es 1996-7", approved by the CSB at their annual meeting in
May. CSB president Jean - Claude Groshens identifies the most
general problems [tr. JK]:
"The autonomy of the universities, the decentralization
laws, the changes at the Bibliothe`que Nationale de
France -- and the establishment of public entities
sometimes primarily administrative, sometimes industrial
or commercial in character -- have called into question
the traditional relationships between libraries and the
authorities which govern them."
"At the same time, librarians confront new technologies
which lead them to re-examine not only the daily
functioning of their organizations but also their basic
intellectual role in an information society."
The report covers, specifically,
* The "Administrative" Approach -- a "loi sur les bibliothe`ques"
Friends of the French, and the French themselves, will smile
wryly at the librarians' starting off with a consideration of
"administration".
"Bureaucracy", "red tape", "channels", "procedures": if there is
one thing which distinguishes the approach taken in France, to
problems such as "new technologies", from the approach to same
taken in the supposedly more free - wheeling US, it is this
preoccupation with the "bureaucratic point of view" -- or at
least such generally is the opinion held in the US.
The trouble is, the US is alone in this. The French, with their
apparently - primary concern for "procedure" over "substance" --
with "what type of organization will provide which services",
with "which ministry will govern what", and so on -- are far more
typical of nations generally than the US is. Consider Russia, or
Japan, or Malaysia, or China: in those cases, as well, the first
question is not "what will be provided", but "who will provide
it". We do well to study the French case rather than just the US
one, if we want to understand those others.
The French solution here, interestingly, is a legalistic one. The
CSB, and many others in France, recently have despaired at the
increasing variety of "information" solutions under development
in their country -- some private, some public, some commercial,
some non-, all with shared interests in common problems such as
copyright and free information and censorship and pornography.
This variety, to the French, is distressing. Their solution is a
law -- moreover, a single law -- what continental legal scholars
call an "organic" law, here a "loi sur les bibliothe`ques",
prepared by the Ministry of Culture.
It may be good to mention, at this point, both the centralized /
"dirigiste" tendency in French culture generally -- "all roads
lead to Paris" -- and the statutory basis of French and most
continental jurisprudence: no "common law", no "adversarial
trials", great faith in the inquisitorial skills of judges, "all
things permitted which are not prohibited" versus "all things
prohibited which are not permitted", and so on.
It also may be useful to note one worry of the French themselves
about government's role as an Information Society "initiator":
the Kafkaesque problem, quoted by the CSB from a government
report and very elegant in its original French -- "l'inadaptation
chronique de l'Etat et des collectivite's locales a` des
syste`mes en e'volution, ou` la de'cision doit e^tre rapide, est
source d'inquie'tude..."
Even so, other countries, perhaps for other reasons perhaps not,
show a similar liking for centralized, single - factor,
legalistic solutions. China promulgated a new "Internet Rule"
last year which prohibits anything which "propagates feudal
superstition". It might be good to pay more attention to the
"administrative and legalistic" Internet / information approach,
which is taken as seriously in France and most other places on
the planet as it is taken with a grain of salt in the US.
* "The State as Initiator"
France, again like most countries everywhere, relies heavily upon
the national government to initiate programs -- as well, that is,
as simply to assist in their initiation and to regulate them once
initiated (on "partnering" and "regulation" see below).
In other words, even in the free - wheeling and capitalistic
regulatory and industrial development environment currently
prevailing in Europe -- 'twas not always thus, the EC's recent
Bangemann Report notwithstanding -- the idea that the national
government should be the motivating force in the first instance,
in technical innovation as in many other things, still is very
alive: generally outside of the US, in fact.
France has a good record here. This is the national government,
after all, which pioneered the concept of access to digital
information by the general public, with its Minitel system -- an
idea to which the Internet gravitated only slowly and reluctantly.
The CSB report calls for this active national government role in
promoting the giant national union catalog effort, the Catalogue
Collectif de France / CCF, and a national "documentation" project
encompassing the Catalogue Collectif National des Publications en
Se'rie / CCNPS, the Te'le'the`ses and Pancatalogue databases, the
Pre^t Entre Bibliothe`ques / PEB system, and the RAMEAU
authorities file. (The PICA consortium has been retained to
develop the latter national documentation project: 330 different
sites, to be launched by the summer of next year.)
* "The State as Partner"
The French see the national government as an indirect as well as
a direct participant, as mentioned. This latest CSB report
describes several of the many ways in which Paris incentivizes
and subsidizes "informatisation" and information access at
university and local libraries. Today over 60% of France's 2500
bibliothe`ques municipales have some form of "informatisation",
the CSB says. By 1995 France had 38 library networks in operation
-- networks linking different libraries, and museums and other
institutions -- all projects qualifying for 40% subsidies from
the national government.
The greatest specifically - "Internet" problem for libraries in
France, according to the CSB, should sound familiar to librarians
in the US and elsewhere. In France the national government pays
generous subsidies for the capital equipment budget items --
hardware, peripherals, most software, cables, routers, etc. But
connection charges go into the operating budget, where the library
is subject to tighter local government or campus supervision or at
best is tied to perenially - outdated budgeting targets.
The result is Internet surfing under time pressure -- which does
not work, as US and other library users are discovering -- and,
ultimately, unused computers: connectivity with no place to go.
The dynamics of Castells' Information Economy have not hit
library budgeting and accounting procedures yet, in France any
more than they have elsewhere.
One interesting advantage which the French have is mentioned at
this stage in the CSB report. The librarians invoke the name of
their national Prime Minister in support of their call for
increased help with digitization projects: in the French system,
as in parliamentary systems elsewhere, this is an appeal to
legislators directly -- PM Jospin went on public record last year
as favoring such programs, and he has the legislative ability to
deliver on his promise when constituents such as these librarians
call him on it, as they are doing here.
* "The State as Regulator"
An even more difficult role for national government than that of
either "initiator" or "partner", in the US context, is that of
"regulator". Internet regulation increasingly is being invoked in
US debate -- in argument over issues ranging from ecommerce
taxation to pornography to, now, appropriate and inappropriate
use of the Internet as a "news" medium.
But in the US such debate is only residual, and minimalist: it is
only after the idea that national government might be an
"initiator" is rejected -- in spite of repeated reminders of the
Department of Defense role in having "invented" the Internet in
the first place -- and after even the "partner" role is
questioned, that people in the US begin to accept grudgingly that
"government" at least might need to do some minimal "regulating".
The French attitude is different. The regulatory role of national
government there is additive, not residual: not only does Paris
"initiate" information policy and actually "partner" its
development, it clearly -- "also" -- has the major role in
"regulating" information's use, in the French mind. Again, this
is more the general view held outside the US than the US view is.
The CSB report calls specifically for government regulation on
intellectual property issues. The French librarians also worry,
as librarians do everywhere now, about regulation which might
increase the cost of information access, and about the archiving
of digital documents, and about the evolution of an "information
poor" underclass.
But in France they call for the national government to enable the
establishment of, or itself establish, the necessary mechanisms.
In the US the federal authorities are practically the last resort
to which one would look: Silicon Valley first, Washington last --
and this week and for the next few months and perhaps always
Washington seems preoccupied with other things. Yet it is the
French who represent the majority abroad on this: in China and
even in free - enterprise India people see their own governments
in a leading role, at least with respect to "regulation".
* "Information Access"
The CSB report enumerates French library achievements in CDROM,
Internet, and digitization technologies -- and in providing user
access to them -- without being uncritical about the amount of
territory still to be covered. Paris' Bibliothe`que Publique
d'Information / BPI, for example, has determined from surveys
that its Internet users still are 85% "well - educated males",
the CSB says -- a developing problem found elsewhere as well.
Internet access by university students still has much to
accomplish in France, the CSB says. While it praises the plans to
"homogenize and normalize" university information systems and
documentation, it points out that student access -- a different
problem -- is an issue which needs to be addressed better, and
one on which libraries can help.
[But libraries and other middlemen must note: The new "network
computer" trend -- Apple's "IMac" or whatever -- should assist
the French and others greatly with this. US students in fact do
not use centralized facilities for information access -- library
terminals, campus computers, overcrowded networks and busy ports
-- so much as they use their own computers, and commercial
services like "AOL", from their dormitory rooms or from home.
The much greater cost of hardware, in France and generally in
less - competitive "overseas" markets, does not help in this. To
the consumer, the "network computer" trend is simply the next
step in the gradual reduction of terminal hardware costs -- the
marketing angle of "Moore's Law", "under $1000" in the US context
with similar reductions overseas -- the French student should be
helped by this next Spring, as the US student already is being
helped this Fall.]
The CSB gives prominent place to digitization in its report,
praising current efforts and calling for more, yet warning of the
need for greater supervision over the snowballing of digitization
work being done on the Internet generally. "Internet fetishism"
is to be avoided, they warn: "when your only tool is a hammer,
everything looks like a nail", in US parlance -- although media
do sometimes change messages, as Sebastian Gryphe and Etienne
Dolet taught earlier generations in France as elsewhere.
The CSB raises the very interesting point that the possibility
exists now that, "the entire corpus of French literature may
become digitized by US organizations": might not a "world
competition" be opening up, they muse, in an entirely new domain
which they call "la valorisation du patrimoine" -- I leave it to
others to translate this very un - American phrase precisely,
suggesting only that its subject will be of great concern in
India and China as well.
Sceptics in the US might consider the possibility of a W3 site
appearing online one day -- and becoming popular among US
students -- containing all of the "great works of US literature
in fulltext", only / but originating from some place like
Limoges... or from Bangalore, or perhaps Kabul, or Tripoli...
* "The Role of Libraries in the Information Society"
Distressingly, however, the CSB takes somewhat for granted the
central role of "libraries" in the information - seeking - and -
using behavior of an Information Society, much as the profession
in the US does. It might be nice, it could be needed, but it is
not necessary: an information world in which students dial in
from home on "network computers" over commercial services to
original - source data resources will not necessarily use a
"library" -- it might not even use the intermediation of all of
the services which "libraries" in the past have provided.
If these library services are to be available to help information
users in the next generation, it is incumbent upon the CSB that
they begin to distinguish between "libraries" and "library
services" -- in an Information Society, the two do not
necessarily go together.
* "Librarians: Professional Identity, Intellectual Reponsibility"
Likewise for "librarians": the CSB report warns these
professionals, in the French context, not to lose sight of "the
very heart and justification of their work", which they say is
"the collections, and access to their contents". But one problem
is that an age of digital information places into question the
very concept of "collection", and to a great extent the idea of
"access" as well. It begs questions to warn people to safeguard
the very thing being changed, and to encourage them to provide
the very thing in process of being reinvented.
The CSB report concentrates on "acquisitions", and on the
development of better relations between library departments
devoted to this and the print publishers. Some distinction is
needed, however, between such concerns -- which certainly are
vital to the continued use of print media and the conservation
and preservation of same -- and librarians' roles in the world
of digital media, where such concerns can be irrelevant and even
"faux amis" for people wishing merely to plug old - media ideas
into the new. "Acquisitions" makes diminishing sense in a
decentralized "Internet" information world; the old print
publishers produce less and less a percentage of the information
now cascading down upon users, and librarians, online.
* "Professional Education"
The key for the library profession, as for anyone confronting the
exigencies of the new digital information world, undoubtedly is
education, both preparatory and continuing, and the CSB wisely
makes this central.
The library profession, and this particular one in France,
recognizes this need, in very interesting ways. The CSB says that
"the evolution of the workplace" must be carefully observed and
analyzed: both librarians and library users now are working in
ways very different from those dealt with in the traditional
training of both -- "knowing how to research and use information
no matter what 'media' it comes in today constitutes a skill
which every citizen must possess", the CSB points out.
Training people -- professionals as well as users -- for such a
varied information world is a daunting task, one not yet
undertaken in most educational institutions neither in the US
and France nor in nearly any school elsewhere. There is no
consensus as to how to do it -- there is not even a consensus
yet as to what to do.
To their great credit, however, the French CSB at least
recognizes the problem and accords it the central place in
Information Society development which it deserves. Their report
lists various efforts under way in France to grapple with the
"information education / training" problem, and makes it clear
that this problem must be addressed, before others which face
libraries or the society at large even may be thought of.
* The Numbers
For those in love with numbers, the CSB reports are an invaluable
source of statistics: "les chiffres" -- authoritatively
assembled, carefully considered, and brutally honest -- showing
the latest picture on French library failings and achievements,
both on their own and by comparison to various European
competitors and friends, insofar as these failings and
achievements can be demonstrated by historical numbers.
In a time of change as chaotic as the current one, though -- a
time of the unhappy and disruptive melding of traditional print
and new digital media -- historical numbers are misleading. Who
cares how many librarians, or how many books, a library or even a
nation has if neither the librarians get used nor the books read?
In an online world, in which student time increasingly is devoted
to video games and superficial Internet research, deepening that
research -- and supplementing those video games or perhaps even
stealing a few of their more successful techniques, for
"research" interfaces -- is at least as important to libraries,
and librarians, as is traditional print collection development.
"Acquisitions" and "the collection" must continue, at least for
conservation and preservation of the printed word, and also
because predictions of the latter's imminent death have been
"greatly exaggerated" and will be so for some time still. But an
"Information Society" has a "digital" component which simply
cannot be treated with old solutions, or as simply an extension
of old "collections" and "library" and "librarianship" problems.
The most remarkable revelation of this most recent CSB report is,
as before, the great difference in "administrative" approach
undertaken in France. In France the national government,
apparently still, has a central role: "The State" is looked to,
by the CSB and by the French generally, to provide both
leadership and real assistance as "initiator" and "partner" in
addition to simply "regulator" in the development of the new
Information Society.
This "different" attitude and orientation are far more
significant, in this new situation, than any historical numbers
might be. That they might better represent the "attitude and
orientation" outside of the "anglo - saxon world" generally,
certainly than do those of the US, makes this CSB report
important reading for anyone wishing to understand how the
Internet, and digital information as a whole, may be about to
"scale up" internationally.
Note: "Rapport Pour Les Anne'es 1996-7", ISSN 1157-3600, is
available online, at the W3 address noted above, and in printed
form from the Conseil Supe'rieur des Bibliothe`ques, Palais
Garnier, 8 rue Scribe, 75009 Paris (t. 42.65.09.11, fx.
44.71.01.22). This particular latest report includes an excellent
overview presentation by Denis Pallier, and interesting
appendices on documentation policy within France, and that and
copyright approaches in several European countries.
--oOo--
FYI France (sm)(tm) e-journal ISSN 1071 - 5916
*
| FYI France (sm)(tm) is a monthly electronic journal,
| 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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// \\ if it is going to make them money, they must get my
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they get with me. Use of material written by others requires their
permission. FYI France archives are at http://infolib.berkeley.edu (search
fyifrance), or http://www.cru.fr/listes/biblio-fr@cru.fr/ (BIBLIO-FR
econference archive), or at http://www.fyifrance.com , or at
http://listserv.uh.edu/archives/pacs-l.html . 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.
--oOo--
