[12669] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
FYI France: "digital library" collections, Europrix98
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jack Kessler)
Tue Jan 19 20:05:35 1999
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 13:43:34 -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: for "digital library" collections -- Europrix 98
One unique thing which libraries can do, in this "Digital Age",
is to get and stay ahead on "digital library" materials: on
identifying them, on providing access to them, even on --
necessity requiring and budget willing -- "collecting" them.
No one else is going to do it. Good material disappears from
online sites as rapidly as it appears: the "Digital Age" is
giving a whole new meaning to the term "ephemera"...
In this spirit -- sceptical and desperate, but also cautiously
optimistic -- what follows is a quick review of several of the
very latest and perhaps best potential "digital library"
multimedia offerings from Europe, with a short discussion of how
and whether to stay current with such developments there.
The list here is derived from a CDROM entitled "Europrix 98,
MultiMedia Art", presenting the results of the new annual EU /
DGXIII - sponsored competition to find the best in European
"multimedia" work. Most of you will find something of interest
in the list which follows, and many of you will find something to
add to your own collections.
And all of you should take note of the great increase and
sophistication in European "multimedia" which Europrix
represents: this is the land of the "euro", after all -- the
emerging competition for the US behemoth, and perhaps a good
representative of what "the rest of the world" is up to, and
is capable of, in things digital...
Europrix identified 5 categories for its 1998 competition: an
extraordinary 557 entries from 26 countries were examined and
judged -- some offline / CDROM and others already online / W3,
the latter where all, I myself expect, will reside shortly --
1) "Knowledge and Discovery" Category
* "Martin Luther 1483 - 1546", CDROM in English, beautifully -
done, on Luther and this period of European history. (Germany)
* "Tell Me More", CDROM in French and German, the latest speech
recognition technology, used here for language teaching. (France)
* "Africa Folk Music Atlas", CDROM in English, music and images
and video clips. (Italy)
* "SOKRATES", CDROM in Finnish, murder - mystery format combining
"the Greeks" with "philosophy" with games -- "homo ludens" is
alive and well in digital learning, as parents know... (Finland)
* "Wall $treet Trader", CDROM (for now) in English -- "Etrade /
CSchwab for Dummies" who, as we all know, aren't -- still,
multimedia in the service of Mammon... (France)
2) "Valorisation of European Culture" Category
* "The Art of the Sixties -- Learning with Images", W3 in German,
121 artists from my youth, complete with "quiz, a virtual
gallery, and search facilities", and soup cans. (Germany)
* "Italian Design: The Players", CDROM in English, the cult - of
- the - genius - designer in digital format. (Italy)
* "Navegar", CDROM in English, a really beautiful presentation of
the Age of Portuguese Exploration -- Vasco da Gama, Gabriel de
Sousa, Ferna~o Mendes Pinto, and extraordinary maps. (France)
* "Charles Rennie Mackintosh -- Art, Architecture and Design",
CDROM in English, you can almost hear the rolling and mellifluous
"rrs" and certainly see the pathbreaking building design. Yale
should get this, just for Vincent Scully. 540+ pages, 700+
images. (UK)
* "Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany",
W3 in German and English, 25+ exhibits and other activities since
1996 presented and described. (Germany)
* "Versailles 1685 -- A Game of Intrigue", CDROM in English,
another tip toward Mammon, with a game format -- Huizinga again
-- but graphics good enough to entice anyone with an interest in
the period, and much good Lully and Couperin. (France)
3) "Supporting SME's / Small and Medium - sized Enterprises in
the Market Place" Category ["SME" is the EU "Small Business
Administration", and a pet and important part of "Europe".]
* "Stone Island Autumn / Winter 97 / 98", CDROM in English
presenting this Italian clothing manufacturer's latest
collection, i.e. "you can do too" in multimedia. (Germany)
* "The Wine Mansion", W3 in German, online wine sales from
international sources a` la Amazon.com -- "search engine",
"shopping basket", "cybercash" (why not just Visa?). (Germany)
* "VMM 2000 Operation System", CDROM in Finnish, offline / online
multimedia training manual for a giant industrial harvester!
Imagine the same for any machine -- I expect this already is the
case, print - runs for such manuals being prohibitive? (Finland)
* "provoice 97", CDROM in German, a "database of voices"! 132
speakers, indexed and cross - referenced by 56 criteria such as
"gender", "languages", "dialects" -- the answer to the dream for
Central Casting, or the voiceover industry, or choral directors
-- "Imagine that you are looking for a pleasantly - sounding
Austrian speaker for a multimedia production -- you can either
spend the next three days on the phone or you can simply take a
look at 'provoice 97'..." -- very imaginative idea. (Austria)
* "SpeedMap", W3 in German, move over "MapIt"... efficient online
presentation of both commercial "yellow pages" information and
location - finding, stretching the envelope in the shifting
information / bandwidth standoff. (Germany)
4) "Improving Democracy with Multimedia" Category
* "politics.ch", W3 in French and German, how things work
politically in Switzerland. (Switzerland)
* "Quest 4 Europe", W3 in Dutch, interactive and game approaches
educating children et al. about "Europe". (Netherlands)
5) "First Steps in Multimedia" Category -- for kids, but also the
Grand Prize Winner, for far more than just kids...
* "Josefine on Holiday", CDROM in Swedish, Danish, Finnish,
Norwegian, for girls 3 - 8, Josefine the little rabbit takes a
holiday and has adventures, and the girls can play and sing and
decorate and have adventures along with her. (Norway)
* "Horse and Pony -- Please Ride!", CDROM in Swedish, girls (why
just girls?) 8 - 13 groom and saddle and ride and show a horse
suited to their own questionnaired age and experience. (Sweden)
* "My First ABC", CDROM in Polish, "colorful, fun - filled
environment" for this basic and important task -- anyone have a
sizable Polish immigrant community nearby? how about anyone in
Poland? (Poland)
* "Ceremony of Innocence", Grand Prize Winner, CDROM in English,
"... a mysterious love story, told through an interactive
correspondence of 70 postcards and letters, based upon the
'Griffin and Sabine' trilogy by Nick Bantock" [?] -- narrators
include Paul McGann, Isabella Rossellini, Ben Kingsley -- very
impressive visually, and fascinating even just in the small clip
included on the EU's promo CDROM, and even for someone, like me,
who has not heard of Bantock. (UK)
* "Snow White and the Seven Hansels", CDROM in German and
English, you'd better get the stories right or Snow White eats
the gingerbread cottage! The Bros. Grimm still are... (Germany)
6) "Students' Award" -- always the most interesting...
* "transcode", CDROM in German, a really very fascinating -
sounding - and - appearing exploration of the concept of
"information": "What exactly is information? How does the
process of transmitting information work?... information in its
various stages within the process of transmission, from brain
patterns to electronic voltage, from light waves to many other
forms in which information is transmitted. Innovative typography
along with excellent sound and animation..." This is one which I
may get myself. (Germany)
* "Born with a Broken Tongue", CDROM in English, "...explores
personal insights into the fears and shames of stuttering, in a
gentle and almost poetic manner... personal experiences take the
place of medical explanations..." -- very interesting idea and
approach, one hopes that "medical" folks will look at it and
learn -- like I said, the "students' projects" always are the
most interesting... (Ireland)
* "Media Art History", CDROM in German and English, media art
compendium presented using an interesting graphic interface
device: a "slot machine" of vertical navigation bars in constant
rotation, organized by a horizontal line mid - screen which slows
the rotation the closer a mouse pointer is placed to it -- as
things whirr, you see the whole picture, and as things slow down
you point and click more easily to get inside. (Germany)
* "OrganiSUMS", CDROM in German, biotech and genetic engineering
for 12 - 15 - year olds -- and a few of us 50 - somethings who
remember a time when there were only a "plant" and an "animal"
kingdom... and never the twain met... and the former "didn't
locomote"... The financial world says that the coming century
will be that of "biotech", just as the current one has been that
of "digital information" -- although what do _they_ know, being
all "50 - somethings"? A comic character, "SUMS", helps a user
explore biotech, genetics, viruses, DNA -- sounds more helpful
than the confusing, to me, conversations which I have now on such
subjects with my own college - student kids. (Switzerland)
* "POLARARC", CDROM in English, 43 Arctic artists -- the Barents
region, northern Finland, Norway, Sweden, Russia (brrrr -- only
way _I_ ever would see this is digitally) -- "their work, life,
thoughts and the environment in which they live..." (Finland)
* "Wanas -- Contemporary Art in the Castle Woods of Wanas", CDROM
in German and English, art "happenings" in the Swedish woods, now
brought to your own living room / den / garage / wherever your
family lets you play with your computer -- or perhaps to your own
gallery or office or loft or art collection or atelier, in this
case... "Every spring... internationally renowned artists are
invited to create works of art at the castle and to exhibit them
to the public in the castle's forest. The CDROM gives users the
opportunity of taking a walk through this forest and experiencing
the works of art..." (Germany)
-- So Malraux is alive and well and so is his "museum without
walls": one essential point being that if Wanas changes its
collection every Spring, someone else must shoulder the
responsibility of disseminating and preserving such ephemeral
"events"... Who better than the "library" world, "digital" and
otherwise? -- "Preservation and Access", right? -- Wanas will
have changed again, in another few months, but now some "digital
library" collection, somewhere, can enable an art student in
Mozambique to have seen it...
More on these finalist contestants, including their contact
information, may be obtained on the "Europrix 98" CDROM, and
information about that -- and general "Europrix" information --
may be found online at,
http://www.europrix.org
http://www.echo.lu/info2000/midas
and in an article, "EuroPrix MultiMediaArt 98", in the print
newsletter "ECHOFFU : ECHO Facts for Users -- European Multimedia
Content" (EU, DGXIII/E, 3:98).
The multiple virtues of seeing "multimedia" things from a
European perspective -- and of using, providing access to,
even "collecting" what they do -- include:
-- the Europeans do interesting things;
-- the things which Europeans do are not "American" -- Sun's
Bill Joy famously has warned, "Never assume that all of the
brains are in your own shop..."
-- non - Americans, like Europeans, are the new "customers" --
the Internet and digitization may not have achieved total
saturation levels in the US, yet, although there are days when it
seems that this already is so, but increasingly "global" i.e.
outside - the - US expansion is becoming the primary marketing
target, for large US firms as well as for small startups -- so to
the extent that the customer is "king", and increasingly is non -
American, people increasingly will be coming up with questions
about non - US practices and markets and resources and users...
--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 long as, a) they give me
--------- credit and show my email address, and, b) it
// \\ isn't going to make them money: if it is going
to make them money, they must get my permission
in advance, and share some of the money which they get with me.
Use of material written by others requires their permission.
FYI France archives may be found 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 except as stated above.
--oOo--
