[12525] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
FYI France: EXTRA -- the BNF On Strike!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jack Kessler)
Mon Oct 26 20:15:24 1998
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 13:57:04 -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----------------------------
FYI France: EXTRA -- the BNF On Strike!
Received this morning, after several days of rapid events and
rumors: [tr. JK]
"As you no doubt realize, the BnF has been on strike,
completely, since Tuesday, October 20. The sites at
Tolbiac, and today on Friday at Arsenal as well, are
closed. The reception desk at the rue Richelieu site also
is closed.
"A serious and strong continuation of this effort has
been decided upon, for the weekend of October 23-4 as
well as for Monday the 25th [sic]. The library at Tolbiac
therefore remains inaccessible to readers.
"You must know as well, from the newspapers, that the
problems (temporary, we hope) of the information system,
and of the very painful opening of the Bibliothe`que de
Recherche, were the key issues in the decision. But we do
not believe that the main reason for this situation,
which concerns all of us so deeply, is the system. We
feel that the faults of the system above all are faults
in the management of our establishment. It is the methods
which have led us to where we are which we wish to see,
as quickly as possible, profoundly reformed..."
-- and there is a website -- if it is on the Ouebbe it must be true --
http://altern.org/bnfengreve/
There are strikes and there are strikes... In France as elsewhere
there are labor actions which are just "symbolic": negotiation
agenda items thrown in "just for effect", events staged simply
for their media "photo - op" potential, one day "strikes"...
But the current BNF "strike" action already is more than just
symbolic. Had it been less I might not have bothered to report it
here. But it is more: the Tuesday walkout -- friends tell me it
really began on Monday -- has extended now a full week, there was
an Archives Nationales labor incident recently which if it was
not connected at the time surely will become so now, already the
situation is earning national and even international headlines.
France has needed things to be proud of, recently, and the BNF
has been a leading one of these: perhaps at last, perhaps sadly,
this leading French cultural icon may now be under some threat.
Also, in France as elsewhere, things never are entirely what they
seem in a labor strike. Originally the purpose of the current BNF
strike was to protest poor conditions for the users: long waiting
lines, poorly - prepared reading rooms, inevitably computers and
information systems which don't work right -- librarianship is a
"service" profession which always puts its users first, even in a
librarians' strike.
Over the last few days, though, the issues appear to have
loosened. Now one sees, in addition to the "user" issues,
murmurings about the "working conditions" of the librarians
themselves. One expects that this theme will be developed and
extended, perhaps so much so as eventually to overtake the
original "user" issues -- if the BNF strike comes to resemble
most labor actions elsewhere. Librarians' working conditions and
users' unhappiness are not unrelated issues, after all.
All this prompts two general questions:
1) How much of this strike might be attributed to workforce
changes in the transition between the old BN and the new BNF?
The BNF, throughout its development, repeatedly has announced
that _more_ jobs, not fewer, would be provided -- on the order of
thousands of new employees, to more than "replace" the perhaps
hundreds which might be lost.
But this raises one of the oldest of labor issues, one enjoying a
renaissance in these days of hi - tech and "downsizing": are the
jobs gained / lost _equivalent_, or were highly - paid professional
"librarians" in fact replaced by many more but much more poorly -
paid clerks and support staff, at the BNF? Could this be at the
bottom of much of the current problem and unhappiness?: wouldn't
be the first time in a hi - tech "transition" -- "skilled" are
being replaced by "cheaper" in a lot of places nowadays.
The "youth employment" issue adds another wrinkle. In France,
where national unemployment has been running at 12% for too long,
various proposals for employing the highly - unemployed young
have met much resistance. French parents, and the youths
themselves, do not want to see the young turned into scabs for the
positions of their elders, to solve the nation's political and
social problems. Could this "youth employment" issue be involved
at the BNF, directly or indirectly? Are there, among those
"thousands" of BNF new - hires, significant numbers of under -
trained and inexperienced "jeunes"? If so, _that_ might have
something to do with the current strike.
And a second general question:
2) How common are "librarians' strikes"?
Would someone please offer examples -- from France, the US,
elsewhere -- of occasions when _librarians_ have walked out, for
these or any other reasons? The Information Age is global, it is
said: well, so might be the problems faced by its information
workers -- it might be very interesting to compare and contrast
the approaches taken by librarians in various situations to what
may be common problems. Or are these French at the BNF the first?
Thinking the unthinkable: people in Britain might consider the
impact of a librarians' strike at the British Library -- those in
the US might think of the effect of a "labor action" at LC! Has
same or similar ever happened at these places, or elsewhere?
The effect of the Web, finally: there is a W3 site, mentioned
above, for this BNF strike. One wonders what the effect of Web
presence / usage in this strike might be. Most of the messages
which I have been receiving and seeing have been anonymous.
Anyone suspicious of this is naive -- anonymity is a necessary
part of politics in most places, so the Web and email may be a
new tool, like the 18th century pamphlet, enabling political
organization and action to take place anonymously.
My own guess is that France will be able to resolve this
immediate crisis. The BNF has a new director, and much of what is
going on may be nothing more than "trying the new boss out".
And ultimately the Jospin government will be sympathetic and
reasonable: the profession and the country all desperately want
to preserve and improve the BNF, of which they would like to be
proud -- and into which they have put so much already.
But the general, underlying issues will not go away. If users and
librarians are getting short shrift at the new BNF, if new
digital information systems are serving their users worse than
print information systems used to, if information workers
themselves are becoming casualties of the Information Economy...
There is a massive and growing literature out now about the most
general aspects of this -- from Manuel Castells to Kevin Kelly to
Re'gis Debray -- most of it largely begging the question of the
_human_ costs of this particular "industrial revolution /
transition in media"... how do 60 year old redundant autoworkers
become Website designers?... while everything is "ramping up" to
the Information Superhighway, and until it gets there, who is
going to help the users obtain information, if not the libraries
and the librarians... and what if they stop?
Perhaps, once again, someone should study the French...
Jack Kessler, kessler@well.sf.ca.us
ps. all this about a BNF strike comes on the heels of a plaintive
econference posting by a French librarian, noting France
Telecom's (government - owned, primarily, still) latest ad,
"Oh! I have an essay to write, I've got to get to the library..."
"Why? You don't have to go to a _library_ any more --
just go online, on the Internet!..."
-- librarianship everywhere seems to be, as the old Chinese curse
puts it, "living through interesting times".
--oOo--
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--oOo--
