[13030] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
FYI France -- BU Lyon fire; BNF catalog now on W3
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jack Kessler)
Fri Jul 16 20:07:24 1999
Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 17:09:20 -0600
From: Jack Kessler <kessler@well.com>
To: PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU
Reply-To: Public-Access Computer Systems Forum <PACS-L@LISTSERV.UH.EDU>
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----------------------------Original message----------------------------
FYI France -- BU Lyon fire; BNF catalog now on W3
Coverage of the terrible fire which destroyed the Bibliothèque
Centrale of the Universite' Lumie`re Lyon 2 (Claude Bernard), the
night of June 11 - 12 -- and the dramatic and very interesting
efforts now under way to restore the building & collections &
library service -- all may be seen at,
9http://phebus.univ-lyon2.fr
----------------
Without too much fanfare, the Bibliothe`que Nationale de France
has launched one of the world's premier online library catalogs
on the World Wide Web:
at,
http://catalogue.bnf.fr
or -- via the main BNF W3 site -- at,
http://www.bnf.fr/web-bnf/catalog/cat-imp.htm
now may be found 7 million bibliographic records for 8 million
BNF books and periodicals, plus 850,000 authority records,
constituting,
"BN-OPALE PLUS, Le catalogue des collections
patrimoniales (imprime's) -- Cet ensemble repre'sente
d'ores et de'ja` le plus grand catalogue de bibliothe`que
francophone en ligne."
This is the much - anticipated enlargement and extension of the
BN - Opale database, which has been accessible previously via
telnet://opale02.bnf.fr . Now there also are all of the added
advantages of W3 access: a well - designed interface which fits
graphically with the main BNF W3 site pages, explanations and
links offering great assistance to researchers, and the
familiarity and ease of use -- particularly useful for foreign
users -- of the World Wide Ouebbe.
I wish it had pictures -- Alice asked, "Of what use is a book
without pictures?" -- but I guess the glorious images to be found
at the linked main BNF W3 site qualify as this. "BN - Opale -
Plus" is a working professional tool accompanying the more
generalist resources found at the main site. The catalog pages
are only available in French, but are well - enough presented for
foreigners with some French -- or Spanish or Italian or even some
flexibility in their English or American -- to wade through and
get to the complete and often invaluable BNF records.
Briefly:
* "Comments" are requested, and may be posted online -- in French
will work best I expect -- not too many other library W3 sites
are open - minded enough to ask for such input...;
* Improvements coming soon are expected to include searching by
date, language, document type, publication country, ISBN, ISSN --
and, by the beginning of next year, document reservation for
readers at the Tolbiac / Franc,ois - Mitterrand location;
* All records for books and periodicals cataloged by the BN "des
origines a` nos jours" now are included, although the telnet
access to BN-OPALE still is being maintained for the most recent
cataloging -- since 1969 for books, since 1960s for periodicals
-- would someone please clarify for me whether / when BN-OPALE
records will be fully merged into BN-OPALE-PLUS?
* Searching may be of two types:
-- simple -- author / title / subject -- "and" implied
-- complex / "combine'e" -- the above plus publisher,
Dewey classification or number (for periodicals since 1989) --
(is this so? the search appears to work for BN call numbers only
for now) -- distinction between collective and personal authors,
and between monograph and periodical titles, implied truncation
using terminal *, "and" implied, keyword search for title
beginnings as well as terms in title -- authors are i.e. "Hugo,
Victor", subject searching of both complete subjects and subject
words uses RAMEAU (Re'pertoire d'Autorite's Matie`res
Encyclope'dique Analytique et Unifie') for book records added
since 1980.
* BN-OPALE-PLUS does _not_ yet include:
-- documents from the collections of BNF specialist
departments -- cartes et plans, estampes, manuscrits -- which may
be found using BN-OPALINE,
http://www.bnf.fr/web-bnf/catalog/opaline.htm
or through the departments themselves;
-- most works in non - Roman scripts for which the
records have not yet been transliterated into Roman characters --
an "@" symbol appearing in a record generally indicates non -
Roman characters, which are not shown;
-- audiovisual documents, found in their own catalog
(see http://www.bnf.fr/web-bnf/catalog/cat-audio.htm ) but
not yet available on W3;
-- digitized documents, found in their own catalog (see
http://www.bnf.fr/web-bnf/catalog/cat-num.htm ) which will be
available on W3 in October -- some already may be seen in Gallica
at http://gallica.bnf.fr/ ;
-- open stack items at Tolbiac / Franc,ois - Mitterrand,
Haut - and Rez - de - jardin levels, found in their own catalog
(see http://www.bnf.fr/web-bnf/pratic/rj-index.htm ).
Fossil's Note:
I am old enough to remember book catalogs kept on cards... little
3x5 inch pieces of cardboard with all sorts of arcane things
scribbled on them...
'Time was, when research involved consulting a library's catalog
only -- that consisted of either a bunch of paper cards or, a
little more recently, a back office accounting collection
inventory accessible from a few green - and - glowing TV tubes in
the main reading room -- entirely an _inward_ - looking exercise,
pointing research only at the knowledge assembled within the
library's four walls.
Now, with W3 and all of the Internet's wonders, research is
_outward_ looking: the finite universe of knowledge has become
infinite, the boundaries have disappeared and with them quite a
few of the older internal rules and regulations, research no
longer stops at the library's four walls. BNF research now is as
much the linkage to the outside world provided by,
http://www.bnf.fr
as it is the pathway to the inside "collection" world offered by,
http://catalogue.bnf.fr
-- the two work hand - in - hand, and modern research which tries
to benefit from only the one without the other is incomplete.
Still, both paths lead only to digital and / or print information
-- and not everything in knowledge yet is digitized and / or in
print -- is it?...
Congratulations to the BNF on their mammoth effort to make both
the world inside and that outside their library accessible, and
to link the two, and to allow the outside world to use it.
------------------------
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
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Use of material written by others requires their permission.
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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 expressed above.
--hjlm--
