Versions of the following have appeared online regularly, since 1992, as a feature of the FYI France ejournal, ISSN 1071-5916, which is distributed for free via email every month except August. Ejournal subscriptions may be obtained via email request to: kessler@well.sf.ca.us

Here this file is one of a number made available -- hopefully attractively, all in one place, and relevant to libraries and online digital information work in France and Europe -- as part of FYI France (sm)(tm), an online service to which anyone can subscribe for 12 months by postal mailing a check for US $45, payable to Jack Kessler, to PO Box 460668, San Francisco, California, USA 94146 (site licenses also are available): please write your email address on the front of your check. Please email suggestions for improvements to me at kessler@well.sf.ca.us
 

Current Digital Library work in France is covered well in the following resources: most have some form of English language interface available. Sometimes it is useful to have a non - English language effort in the mix. Examples, research, catalogs, search terms --

1) examples of Digital Libraries, in France

* The Bibliothèque nationale de France

http://www.bnf.fr

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ -- Gallica, the bibliothèque numérique of the BnF --

Files currently online at Gallica include:

"Discover Africa through the Accounts of Travelers" -- texts, reviews, maps, sounds, photographs.

"Learned Societies" -- Science journals and reviews, published by 29 societies from 1750 to 1914.

"Discover France through the Accounts of Travelers" -- text, images, sound, a panorama of France from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the 20th century.

"Utopia" -- the exhibition "Utopia, the Quest for an Ideal Society in the West", organised April 4 - July 9 2000 by the BnF and the New York Public Library.

"The Proust File" -- the original manuscript of the final volume of La Recherche du Temps Perdu : Le Temps Retrouvé.

"The Voice, on Gallica" -- the first experiments in sound recording, from the era before the microphone -- historical documents including Pathé recordings of "Speeches of French Politicians of the First World War Era".

"Discover Italy through the Accounts of Travelers" -- texts, reviews, maps, sounds, photographs ("coming soon")

"Gallica Classique" -- for students, researchers, teachers -- the great authors of French literature, including La Comédie Humaine of Balzac, the complete works of Chateaubriand, and the famous collection of Classiques Garnier.

http://expositions.bnf.fr/ -- "Online Exhibits" of the BnF
http://expositions.bnf.fr/usindex.htm (in English)

Current "Online Exhibits" of the BnF include:

"Comics Before There Were Comics" -- the cartoon, and the graphic image generally.

"Medieval Gastronomy" -- health, wealth and recipes...

"The Art of the Arab Book" -- sumptuous illustration.

"Fairy Tales" -- what it takes to make one, and what they look and sound like -- "Il était une fois..."

"Paris, Work and Daily Life" -- images from the last century files of L'Aurore - Le Figaro.

"Brouillons d'Ecrivains" -- how writers write -- from medieval manuscripts to Zola, Balzac, Queneau.

http://classes.bnf.fr/ -- "Teaching Materials", at the BnF

Very useful to all sorts of people: for example in History, "Maps, Atlases et Globes", including "L'Atlas catalan", "Les globes de Coronelli", "Lubinetski", "Le Célarius", "L'Atlas Apianus", "Orion", "La géographie d'Idrîsî", "Les mappemondes en TO" -- or in Literature, "Approaches Through Symbols", including "Images of the Internet".

General note: The national library, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, has mounted a large and increasing number of very interesting exhibits online, any or all together of which can offer much insight into the French approach to the Digital Libraries theme. This is a "national patrimony" strategy, one significantly coordinated from a centralized and governmental perspective -- in marked distinction to many Digital Library efforts elsewhere, but more the common case for countries outside of the US. In most places these things are centralized, in spite of the supposedly - decentralized nature of the Internet.

* The Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon

http://www.bm-lyon.fr/

Current online exhibits include:

"Gabriele Di Matteo: The blind man, recent works."

"Si tu es sage, tu auras une image: Imagery -- the popular, the religious and the profane."

"From Streetcrime to the Front Page: the Belle Epoque in the illustrated press."

"A Jesuit Library: A look at the Fontaines collection."

"Little Red Riding Hood: in the forest of fable."

"Prophecies for Trouble Times: Nostradamus over the centuries."

General note: Decentralization does exist in France, however -- largely as a product of a very strong and longstanding national central government effort in fact. There are, in addition, strong and proud regional traditions which add to the local mix as well. In Lyon, which has long been an alternative pole to Paris throughout French history, the famous bibliothe`que municipale there proudly offers examples online of what a French regional locality can achieve in Digital Library work. So even in countries which have not yet tried this, the French example offers hope to local and regional and trans - national efforts.

* The French national Ministry of Culture

http://www.culture.fr -- outstanding example of a centralized and governmental approach to Digital Libraries work -- one - stop shopping for everything "digital" going on in the country's cultural affairs, including several not to be missed online exhibits, such as,

http://www.saqqara.culture.gouv.fr/ -- a fascinating tour through the Louvre's "Mastaba de Akhethétep"...

* The National Library School -- the ENSSIB / Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Sciences de l'Information et des Bibliothèques --

http://www.enssib.fr/ -- the school
http://www.enssib.fr/bibliotheque/ -- the ENSSIB library
http://bbf.enssib.fr/ -- the BBF / Bulletin des Bibliothe`ques de France (online and printed editions)

http://www.enssib.fr/bibliotheque/dossthem/Bibliotheque-electronique/programme.html -- "Programs in Digital Libraries, including "Collections de textes électroniques" and "Ressources documentaires de la bibliothèque de l'enssib".

http://debora.enssib.fr/ -- something relatively new, called, intriguingly, "Digital accEss to BOoks of the RenAissance"...

* IRCAM / Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique / Musique -- offering many Digital Library resources, including,

http://mediatheque.ircam.fr/

http://brahms.ircam.fr/ -- About Contemporary Composers --

Entering "ginastera" retrieves "Alberto Ginastera, Compositeur argentin né le 11 avril 1916 à Buenos Aires, mort le 25 juin 1983 à Genève", and "passacaglia" retrieves "De Mey, Ligeti, Penderecki, Semini, Stravinsky, Webern..." no Bach, though...

* The exhibit of and tour through the phenomenal "L'Abbaye Saint Germain d'Auxerre" site, online -- "worth a journey..." --

http://www.auxerre.culture.gouv.fr/

2) Digital Library teaching / techniques / research, in France

* INRIA / Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique

http://www.inria.fr
http://www.inria.fr/index.en.html -- in English
http://www.inria.fr/recherche/equipes/index.fr.html -- research
http://www.inria.fr/multimedia/ -- some pretty neat projects...

* ENSSIB / Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Sciences de l'Information et des Bibliothèques -- the library school

http://www.enssib.fr/

* IRCAM / Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique / Musique -- an impressively - maintained list of upcoming conferences, worldwide, on music and the Internet and Text Retrieval and Data Mining and "Algorithmic Learning Theory", and then some... --

http://mediatheque.ircam.fr/conferences/2002.html

3) catalogs -- links to other Digital Library efforts, in France -- "Linkothèques" (their term, not mine) --

* "Les Signets de la Bibliothèque nationale de France" --

http://www.bnf.fr/pages/liens/index.htm

* "L'Internet Culturel", of the Ministry --

http://www.portail.culture.fr/sdx/pic/culture/int/index.htm

* Yahoo.fr --

http://www.yahoo.fr/ (or)
http://yahoo.fr (or)
http://fr.yahoo.com/
http://fr.search.yahoo.com/search/fr?p=bibliotheques
http://fr.dir.yahoo.com/sciences_et_technologies/informatique/laboratoires_et_centres_de_recherche/"

4) operative search terms -- for search & retrieval in Digital Library things, in French -- for "nations separated by a common Latin"...

• automatisation
• banque(s) de donnée(s)
• bibliothèque(s) numérique(s)
• bibliothèque(s) électronique(s)
• bibliothèque(s) en ligne(s)
• bibliothèque(s) virtuelle(s)
• centre(s) de documentation
• digital library(ies)
• digitalisation
• digitisation
• documentation
• édition(s) électronique(s)
• édition(s) numérique(s)
• innovation(s)
• logiciel(s)
• numérisation...

  and,

• le Web, la Webbe, le Ouebbe, la Ouebbe, "sur Internet", "sur l'Internet", l'araignée...

The French nearly always do things a little differently -- always very useful for Digital Library comparisons, comparative analysis, an "outside view" -- they don't do it in English, for example... not first, anyway...

FYI France (sm)(tm) e-journal                   ISSN 1071 - 5916

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