Dear Colleagues,
Just received a fascinating document.
Some years back, it was noted that for the same amount of money that was
used for the new buildings of the Bibliotheque Nationale de France [BNdF],
it would have been possible to scan, prepare and make available online the
entire world corpus literature -- including scientific literature and
statistical documents. While I'm not sure anyone proved this to be true in
an exact sense, the point was clear.
The current issue of FYI France now analyzes and makes available an
important report by the French Senate with crucial bearing on the French
national information infrastructure. These issues affect other nations as
well. This will be interest to those who follow national information
policy, elearning, digital libraries or the knowledge economy.
Best regards,
Ken Friedman
Date: Sun, 15 Oct 2000 15:36:53 -0700
From: Jack Kessler <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: FYI France: BNdF online priorities, and Senate Report
FYI France: the BNdF -- online library priorities, and a Senate report...
Yes, the CCFR / Catalogue Collectif de FRance and in fact the entire BNdF /
Bibliothe`que Nationale de France have been down for several days now --
the Website, the online catalog, the building, the library (Tolbiac, I
don't know about the other locations); and No, I do not know when they will
be back up; and Yes, these things can be avoided or at least their impact
reduced by running parallel backup systems in remote locations; and No, I
do not know why the BNdF has not done this...
Some detail may be obtained from the announcement which follows, which
since Wednesday I have received from several people and seen posted in
several places -- no original attribution -- rumors are that the closure
will continue for 10 days --
"En raison d'un incendie dans un souterrain proche de la BNF, celle-ci est
ferme'e jusqu'a` nouvel ordre. Les serveurs Web ainsi que le serveur
d'email n'est plus accessible : tous les emails adresse's aux membres de la
BNF toute entie`re (Tolbiac ET Richelieu) ne passent plus..."
-- and some explanation might / might not? be provided in what follows
next: a new report, available online both in HTML and for Acrobat
downloading, by the Senate of France, entitled --
"La Bibliothe`que nationale de France: un chantier inacheve'"
No. 451 -- Se'nat -- session ordinaire de 1999-2000 --
annexe au proce`s verbal de la se'ance du 29 juin 2000 --
Rapport d'Information -- Par MM. Philippe Nachbar et
Philippe Richert -- Commission des affaires culturelles.
URL: http://www.senat.fr/rap/r99-451/r99-451.html
This "Rapport" is a fascinating, remarkable document, capable of providing
grist for many mills -- pro - BNdF and anti- and otherwise -- which might
be concerned with libraries and / or digital information and / or the
governance of large public projects and / or cultural politics, and all of
the above in France but also elsewhere, and particularly remembering that
it is the US and not France which is unique in the world in its approach to
most of these things...
The French Senate -- yes, this is their national governmental body -- is a
very different institution from the one which sits in the US Capitol
building in Washington D.C.. In France, the Senate functions primarily in
an advisory capacity to the government -- a capacity which can be both
weaker and stronger than that of the Senate in the US. The French Assembly,
not the Senate, does most of France's legislating.
But the elder statespersons [sorry, just had to] who sit in the French
Senate are powerfully connected in French local politics -- moreso than are
many US Senators, who these days spend so much more of their time in D.C.
than they ever do "at home" -- and so much so that in France getting a
thing dictated by the national government "done", at the local level, often
can depend on securing the good will of influential Senate members.
(For the original and perhaps more "politically correct" version on all of
this I refer both sceptics and the merely curious to the Senate's own
excellent website, at
http://www.senat.fr/
So a report by the Senate in France, such as this one on the BNdF, although
it may not have the "legal" effect of a Senate document in the US, may have
an even greater "practical" effect than a US Senate document might -- if
and to the extent that the Senatorial names attached to it command great
influence, in influence - sensitive France. The names "attached" to this
BNdF document do. Some of you will recognise several. A French government
bureaucrat who ignores any report bearing such names will do so very much
at the peril of, at least, success in getting other things done in the
future, "locally" or otherwise.
Rather than trying to summarize or certainly interpret what the Senators
are saying, in approving / releasing this "Rapport" on their BNdF -- that
would be a mystical exercise at best, particularly in a situation so
charged with politics and national pride, and particularly in Paris -- here
hopefully it will be enough simply to show the Rapport's provocatively -
couched table of contents wording. Even in the titles, one finds plenty of
ironies / much "double entendre" / grist for many mills.
So I have "taken a shot", in the following, at a few translations into
English. These appear in square brackets: []. Those with some general
interest in any of this thus can get a sense, at least, of the take of the
Senate of France on it by reading what follows. Those of you with detailed
interest piqued by what appears here can click on the URL above and read
the original.
But bonne chance on "interpreting" any of it. Political hay is being made
here, clearly. I myself am not French, however, and I am no expert on their
political affairs -- either generally or these in particular -- so I leave
interpretation of what follows to those who are, and to those who feel that
they are:
"La Bibliothe`que nationale de France:
un chantier inacheve'"
["The Bibliothe`que nationale de France:
a work - in - progress /
a project not - yet - achieved /
a target unattained"...]
I. Le Tribut Du Passe' ["A Legacy from the Past"]
A. Un Ba^timent Victime Des Viscissitudes Du Projet De "Tre`s Grande
Bibliothe`que" ["A Building Victim to the Vicissitudes of a Project to
Build a 'Tre`s Grande Bibliothe`que'"]
1. Un ba^timent conc,u autour d'un projet ambitieux et impre'cis ["A
Building Conceived as a Part of an Ambitious and Imprecise Project"]
2. Un choix architectural ha^tif ["A Hasty Architectural Choice"]
3. Un projet controverse' ["A Controversial Project"]
4. Un manque d'unite' dans la conduite du projet ["A Lack of Unity in the
Conduct of the Project"]
B. Un Ba^timent Inadapte' ["A Poorly Adapted Building"]
1. Un ba^timent conside're' comme un handicap ["A Building Considered as a
Handicap"]
2. Un ba^timent co=FBteux ["An Expensive Building"]
II. Une Institution En E'tat De Marche ["An Ongoing Institution"]
A. Les Difficulte's De L'Ouverture ["Difficulties in Getting it Open"]
1. Une ouverture retarde'e ["Difficulties in Getting it Open Late"]
2. Les dysfonctionnements de la nouvelle bibliothe`que ["A Dysfunctional
New Library"]
B. Des Ame'liorations Significatives Apporte'es Au Fonctionnement de la
BNF ["Significant Improvements for the Functioning of the BNF"]
1. Un meilleur service rendu aux lecteurs ["Better service for the users"]
2. Un effort de modernisation de la gestion de l'e'tablissement ["Some
attempt to modernize the management"]
III. Un Projet Qui N'Est Pas Encore Acheve' ["A Project Not Yet Achieved"]
A. Assurer Le Bon Fonctionnement Du Site De Tolbiac ["To Modernize the
Functioning of the Tolbiac Site..."]
1. Achever l'informatisation ["Finishing the computerization"]
2. Ouvrir la bibliothe`que ["Opening the library"]
3. Ame'liorer les conditions de gestion ["Improving the management"]
B. Moderniser Ses Missions Traditionnelles ["To Modernize its Traditional
Missions..."]
1. Garantir l'avenir des collections spe'cialise'es ["Safeguarding the
future of its Special Collections"]
2. Vers une meilleure gestion du de'po^t le'gal ? ["Towards better
management of its Copyright Deposit?"]
C. Tirer Parti De L'Investissement Consenti Par La Nation ["To Make Good
on the Investment Granted to it by the Nation..."]
1. Assurer la continuite' des collections et leur conservation ["Assure
the continuity of the collections and their conservation"]
2. Mieux prendre en compte la ne'cessite' de la mise en re'seau ["Organize
things better"]
3. E'laborer une strate'gie pour l'e'tablissement ["Come up with a plan..."]
-- that gives you some idea of the tone -- juicy titles / juicy reading. I
hope that my American English translations convey the ironic / sarcastic /
groping - for - "constructive" flavor of the French original without badly
distorting its meaning... my ideal in translating always has been the very
- English Arthur Waley, who once rendered a line of classical Chinese as
"Madly singing in the mountains"...
But I do think I have gotten the proper sense of the French in the
original, here. The report's text actually begins -- no fooling, this is
verbatim -- "Mesdames, Messieurs, Faut-il de'truire les quatre tours de
Tolbiac?"... and then runs into a sort of French equivalent of, "but
seriously, folks..."
The French Senate -- 5th Republic (1958) version but also the very much
older general ideas which went into that -- is, to an American mind, sort
of a combination of the House of Lords in Britain, both post- and pre -
Blair in fact, and many of the original ideas which went into our own US
Senate. A "council of elders" was wanted, in all three cases -- for wisdom,
for sage advice, for "the long view", where "juniors" tend to be short on
all three things -- presumably it was largely "elders", in all three cases,
who pushed for this.
But nobody wanted to give the "council of elders" any, or much, real power
to "take action" -- action being both more the specialty of juniors, and
better controlled by "the people" in a democracy than elders might be.
Each solution went it's separate way, in practical application. The US
Senate became both active and powerful -- more powerful and more active in
fact, for many purposes, than its opposite house. The British House of
Lords went from vastly powerful to relatively toothless, certainly now post
- Blair's radical reform of it but even for many years before. And the
French have a solution, now, which is somewhat in the middle: with the
largely - elderly / honorary senators declaring and advising and sometimes
being taken seriously and sometimes not -- still, BNdF librarians would
entirely ignore such a report at their peril.
-- and some day, hopefully soon, all organizations / institutions /
individuals in the information arena will realize that their online /
"virtual" presence finally is taking _higher_ priority than "real" presence
-- the hardworking BNdF online librarians deserve better -- i.e. even if
the building closes, goes on strike, gets eaten by bugs, burns, whatever,
in the Age of the Internet and in any digital age an institution's online
presence,
a) _reaches more people_, and gradually even is
b) _supplying more information_, and
c) _must be kept open_ -- run parallel, folks
-- it's so easy, all it takes is money...
--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=20
(search fyifrance), or [log in to unmask]" target="_blank">http:[log in to unmask]
(BIBLIO-FR archive), or http://listserv.uh.edu/archives/pacs-l.html
(PACS-L archive) or http://www.fyifrance.com . Suggestions,
reactions, criticisms, praise, and poison-pen letters all will be
gratefully received at [log in to unmask] .
Copyright 1992- , by Jack Kessler,
all rights reserved except as expressed above.
Ken Friedman, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design
Department of Knowledge Management
Norwegian School of Management
+47 22.98.50.00 Telephone
+47 22.98.51.11 Telefax
Home office:
+46 (46) 53.245 Telephone
+46 (46) 53.345 Telefax
email: [log in to unmask]
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