[13173] in Public-Access_Computer_Systems_Forum
FYI France -- two new "digital libraries"
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jack Kessler)
Thu Mar 16 20:01:58 2000
Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2000 16:17:53 -0800
From: Jack Kessler <kessler@WELL.COM>
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FYI France -- two new "digital libraries"
A couple of interesting new "digital libraries" in France:
1) the "government action" model --
* La Petite Bibliothe`que de France
http://www.france.diplomatie.fr/culture/france/biblio/
Resources: etexts, author biographies, bibliographies, images,
more... Aragon, Bataille, Bernanos, Breton, Chateaubriand,
Descartes, Des Fore^ts, Giono, La Fontaine, La Rochefoucauld,
Le'vi - Strauss, Mallarme', Malraux, Maupassant, Sarraute,
Se'vigne', Simon, Voltaire...
A wonderfully - useful first stop for anyone who just has learned
French and wants to try the language out on its literature -- as
well as for anyone with already - good French who would like to
see that literature in its latest "support" incarnation...
Implications: an amazing example of what government really can
do, very well, online --
The French Ministe`re des Affaires Etrange`res, which houses the
site, is one of the several official national governmental
agencies devoted to presenting the image of France overseas.
So they show what's good. You can find a lot that is _very_ good
on the Foreign Ministry site, "L'Espace Culturel",
http://www.france.diplomatie.fr/culture/
grouped under "Bibliothe`que",
(this includes a fascinating "Scriptorium de Toulouse --
L'atelier s'est... destine' a` restaurer l'enseignement de la
lettre dans le cadre de l'e'cole des beaux-arts locale...")
and "Musique",
(with an interesting timeline, "une galerie de compositeurs",
offering biographies and bibliographies and discographies and
online soundbytes)
and "Cine'ma",
(not much online here, yet -- still nervous about Hollywood, I
suppose...)
and "Arche'ologie",
(very complete online "carnets" on various international sites,
for example "Loma Alta" in Michoacan, Mexico, and "Les Ibe`res"
-- Torre Cremada, La Picola, La Ra'bita -- in Spain)
and "Ressources",
(includes a "Guide Internet pour De'butants" -- see how the
French & non - English - speakers in general try to learn this
digital / Internet stuff!...)
The site is well organized and attractively presented. Government
in France does not always create what it offers, but it
coordinates and packages what it does offer very well -- a
service feature particularly important in this country known for
private sector competition which debilitates, rather than
strengthens, unless / until government steps in at some point --
and in an era of "the image is everything", particularly in the
digital world, packaging does count for a lot.
And my perennial question for anyone wondering at how different
this French "governmental" approach is from that used in the US:
which will be more typical of the many other nations now in need
of coordination and packaging of online information -- US
commercial "free enterprise", or this French "governmental"
approach?...
2) a "site for students" --
At the same time there _is_ individual initiative under way
online in France, in this case in a "student assistance" arena
very typical, again, of many nations outside of the US:
* Bibelec.com -- Bibliothe`que Electronique des Etudiants
http://www.bibelec.com
a) "Documents (545)" -- major etext extracts considered useful
for student - level studying / cramming in a variety of subjects;
including, for example,
"Art et Lettres" (i.e. Etude de texte de la Thebai:de de
Racine - v.551-5774, Expose', 25 Ko),
"Communication et Me'dias" (i.e. Le cine'ma vu par le
journal l'Humanite' en 1952, Me'moire, 72Ko .zip)
"Droit Prive'" (i.e. Projet de loi Guigou : Le volet sur
la pre'somption d'innocence, Fiche technique, 8 Ko)
"Economie et Socie'te'" (i.e. Quelles sont les
perspectives de croissance a` moyen terme de l'e'conomie
franc,aise ?, Expose', 27K)
"Ge'opolitique" (i.e. Le Japon peut-il e^tre une
puissance stabilisatrice en Asie ?, Expose', 13 Ko)
"Gestion et Management" (i.e. Marketing, Cas Ikea, Etude
de cas, 21 Ko)
"Histoire" (i.e. Duby (Georges), Guerriers et paysans de
Georges Duby, Fiche de lecture, 34 Ko)
"Philosophie" (i.e. Faut-il tole'rer l'intole'rance ?,
Dissertation, 13 Ko)
"Sociologie" (i.e. Whyte (W.F.), Street corner society.
La structure sociale d'un quartier italo-ame'ricain, Fiche de
lecture, 13 Ko)
"Sciences Po" (i.e. La fonction consultative du Conseil
d'Etat, Fiche technique, 13 Ko)
All wonderful reading -- fascinating for its lack of context,
inadequate bibliographic citation, serendipitous selection -- and
also for the insight which all of this provides into a "foreign"
educational process, see below.
b) "Nouveaute's". The Bibelec site appears to be very active. A
long list of "new additions" is presented. One might gain a
substantial and increasing knowledge of at least the leading
intellectual subjects -- if not their details -- current in
France simply by keeping up with this list. Recently added, for
example:
"Economie, Le marche' peut-il conduire a` un optimum
social ?, 19 Ko",
"Sociologie, Le peuple de Paris, 19 Ko",
"Lettres, Etude du Spleen et de l'Ide'al dans les Fleurs
du Mal, 27 Ko"
-- a lot going on.
c) "Lectures". These appear to be longer texts by major authors
-- as opposed to analysis of same by others, which appear as
"Documents" (above). For example the "Lecture" here for "Arendt
(Hannah), Le Syste`me totalitaire" consists of the "Troisie`me
partie de _Les origines du Totalitarisme_, 1951, traduction
franc,aise 1972". Again, a great variety of some very interesting
texts is offered:
"Krugman (Paul), La Mondialisation n'est pas coupable",
"Ionesco (Euge`ne), La Cantatrice chauve",
"OCDE, Vers une pe'nurie mondiale de capitaux. Menace
re'elle ou pure fiction ?",
"Perec (Georges), Quel petit ve'lo a` guidon chrome' au
fond de la cour ?",
"Rifkin (Jeremy), La Fin du Travail",
"Re'mond (Rene'), Les Droites en France"...
d) "Liens". And of course there are "links" -- in the case of
this site, some very interesting leads on education - oriented
resources in all of the site's aforementioned major subject
areas, organized very well in a congenial "Yahoo" - like format.
* One overall reflection, on how "French" this "students'" site
is:
There are major sections in every general bookstore in France,
and many entire bookstores, which cater to "scholars" -- to
university students, somewhat, but particularly to secondary
school students under a very severe parental and societal gun to
get into higher education... somehow...
Test - driven education systems train students to do well on the
test: creativity, original thinking, independent research, random
intellectual linkages -- none of these find much place in a 4
hour, or 4 day, nationally - supervised exam. Try as hard as
reformers might to change this, the students inevitably end up
cramming: whatever can be fit into the head is crammed in, to be
spilled out onto the paper at exam time.
That this national - examination - centered system seems
"foreign" to many in the US is precisely the point, here: for
this is in fact the system used in education in most places --
more even in the UK than in the US, even more in France, far more
still in other countries, and attaining legendary proportions in
places like India and China and Japan.
In most places in the world, in other words, "education" is not
the matter of "creativity, original thinking, independent
research" which education at least advertises in the US, but more
that of "passing The Exam", the task which students face in
France. "Academic" libraries, and libraries in general in France
long have been geared to this approach -- long have been
inadequate for this reason, their critics say.
So, if the educational aim is different? As it is in most
places?... So don't sniff at the "Cliff's Notes" / "Barnes &
Noble Outline" nature of Bibelec.com -- here is a "student"
digital library which can offer valuable insight into the process
of being a "student" in the non - U.S. educational world.
* And yes, this Website is "in France": for reasons which forever
will remain obscure to this particular Internaut, the DNS has
illogically and statistically uselessly assigned a ".com" to this
service, which "whois" says is physically located at "40 rue
Notre Dame de Nazareth, Paris 75003" -- in Cyberspace it's "all
the same", as the cynical song says, which is one of Cyberspace's
emerging Big Problems.
So -- two new "digital libraries", in France, each with a very
different twist on the usual...
--oOo--
FYI France (sm)(tm) e-journal ISSN 1071 - 5916
*
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