FYIFrance: two W3 sites, culture and academic publishing online, and re. Americanisms This month's installment of _FYIFrance_ describes two remarkable French W3 Websites, useful I think to anyone involved in library and information work, and interesting to practically anybody. The Ministe`re de la Culture just has completed a renovation of their homepage, and the library and information resources which it offers are extraordinary. The "ELLUG" at Grenoble appears to have embarked on an academic publishing adventure worthy of some attention as well: this may be where we all are headed -- academic - quality, peer - reviewed, SGML marked - up fulltext, eventually perhaps with accompanying images and even sound -- and Grenoble may be offering us a glance at that future a` la franc,aise. Both of these resources are described here. A footnote addresses some recent discussion about the use online of languages French, and American / English, and other. 1) http://www.culture.fr The French Ministry of Culture W3 homepage offers a remarkable starting point for anyone wishing to learn about France or Cyberspace in general, with an ambitious plan for future expansion and an already - extraordinary collection of online images: the structure is [notes by me are in square brackets] -- Welcome to the Server of the Ministry of Culture and the French Language Access to available english texts [link] [Why is it that the French, who reputedly are so jingoistic about their language, provide multilingual access, while in the US, which currently appears to be so concerned with multi - culturalism -- and with exporting -- US Websites still insist that everybody speak American English?] The Ministry [a directory] The Bibliothe`que Nationale de France [Very nice inline image of the mega - library project model -- current addresses and telephone numbers -- then each of the following appears to be the beginning of what will become a far more comprehensive entry:] History and Mission [Charles V 1368, de'po^t royal / le'gal 1537, BNdeF 1993] Department of printed books [12 million books, including 12,000 incunables -- abbrev. entry only] Department of Periodicals [40,000 titles, 15 million issues -- abbrev. entry only] Department of Maps and Plans [65,000 documents -- abbrev. entry] Department of Prints and Photography [15 million etchings, posters, photographs, and other types of images -- two images, links to other items of interest] Department of Manuscripts [350,000 volumes -- 3 images, links] Department of Money, Medallions, and Antiquities [300,000 money / medallion examples -- abbrev. entry only] Department of Music [1 million documents -- abbrev. entry only] Department of Phonothe`que and Audiovisual [1.1 million documents: sound, video, multimedia, film -- description, links] Department of Theater Arts [3 million documents, full description, links, databases Cine'ma and Opale] Bibliothe`que de l'Arsenal [1.1 million documents, full description, links, database BN - OPALE] Research Tools: BN - OPALE [catalog of printed books and periodicals, from 1975 -- not yet accessible here but set up as a link and so presumably available soon] BN - OPALINE [catalog for the other departments, from 1988 -- access here also coming soon?] Photographic Service [link] Documentation Center, Conservation / Restoration Service [link] _Revue de la Bib.Nat. de France_ [link -- no fulltext, yet] _Revue: Bibliog.nat.franc,aise_ [link -- no fulltext, yet] Publications of the Bibliothe`que nationale de France [link] News Extraordinary archeological discovery of the Grotto at Combe d'Arc [Bigger -- perhaps better -- than Lascaux; faster publicity than that for the Dead Sea Scrolls!] Publications [of the Ministry] Exhibitions [_plenty_ of interesting images:] Archeology in Martinique Sub - Marine Archeology, techniques and research General Inventory, Historic / Artistic Patrimony of France Brittany of Gold and Silver, the goldsmiths of lower Brittany Rural Architecture: Gascony, Quercy, the Rouergue The Patrimony of France: images and documents [Full description, amazing images available here already, apparently much more to come.] Modern Art Biennial at Lyon '95 The Age of the Lumie`res in the Paintings of the Museums of France Documentation [where / how to find out more] Other Servers [plenty of interesting links] [Thus the French are, as one might expect, very much in the running to compete with the Library of Congress' "American Memory" and other cultural efforts: Malraux's "Museum Without Walls" appears to have arrived, in France as well as elsewhere.] 2) http://www-com.grenet.fr/ellug/ ELLUG / Editions Litte'raires et Linguistiques de l'Universite' de Grenoble / Literary and Linguistic Editions of the University of Grenoble [This new feature of the impressive -- and gigantic -- GrenobleNet / grenet service promises academic quality with Internet convenience in academic French publishing online, and perhaps even some fulltext:] "The publications of the Stendhal University, edited by ELLUG [see above], are the responsibility of an editorial committee of the Scientific Council of the University." "At the rate of six or seven per year, these works reflect the effort of student - researchers in their different fields of activity in the humanities." Consult the catalog [link:] Ancient and neo - Latin Languages -- French literature -- Criticism "L'Imaginaire" Anglo - saxon culture Italian Hispanic German Communication Linguistics Dialectics Phonetics Didactics [?] Obtain ordering information Consult extracts of the works (online soon) Consult "des ouvrages e'puise's" (online soon) [The much - heralded "academic publishing online", in a French incarnation? Worth following, I should think, to see how this phenomenon might develop outside of the US: I myself will be very interested to see how they will charge for things, whether and to what extent they will use SGML markup in their "works extracts" online, how they will deal with images, copyright, etc., etc..] *** A multi - culturalism, multi - lingualism note: One of the problems of any multi - cultural audience is that inevitably it is multi - lingual: things of interest offered to it necessarily should try to speak different languages. This is in fact one of the primary challenges faced now by networked information generally. The expanded now - global reach of the Internet and the Minitel involves both with users who are most comfortable in not only French but Cyrillic Russian, Chinese, and Turko - Armenian. An old American political adage warns that "you can't please all the people all the time": this is no less true of networked information multi - lingualism than it was of the regional differences to which the adage originally referred -- yet still we have to try, at least to communicate, and perhaps in small local efforts to resolve the conflicts to which regional and linguistic differences so often give rise. I am very pleased to discover that more and more of the _FYIFrance_ readers in fact are French, in addition to the many who speak, read, write, and often feel most comfortable in the French language. It is a high compliment to the effort made here that so many would want to read it in a language essentially "foreign" to them. The French themselves may be pleased to hear, though, that increasing numbers of _FYIFrance_ readers not only are non - Anglo - American but are non - French as well: I receive a good number of subscription requests, complimentary notes, and occasional irate tirades now from readers in Malaysia, India, and Latin America -- call it the Internet miracle, or the eternal radiance and fascination of things French -- quite a few of these non - Anglo - American / non - French folks cherish old degrees from the Sorbonne, but quite a few don't, and most profess French interests without claiming proficiency in the French language. So, _FYIFrance_ contains English / American in its presentation. (Not everything: I wrestle with "ascii accents aigus" pretty often in these postings.) I will continue to try, however, to make the multi - cultural / multi - lingual effort: short words, short sentences, short paragraphs, outline format, many numbered headings, topics of universal interest. This strategy appears to be the only practical resort of an editor with an international audience who still doesn't have at his disposal, yet, all the promised advantages of Unicode, "transparence", technology ubiquity and invisibility, and universal access and literacy. On the issue of "topics", let me say that the Bibliothe`que Municipal de Lyon experiments with library networking, which were described here last month, to me appear to be not only of great interest to both French and non - French audiences, but significant -- to the French among others -- precisely because they are of interest to the non - French. Of course there was the excellent original article in the _BBF / Bulletin des Bibliothe`ques de France_, which anyone with a command of the French language might obtain and read. Increasingly, however, non - French and non - library audiences are discovering the power of French examples in these networking areas -- consider the Minitel, the Grottes de Combe d'Arc and their rapid online publication, Nume'ris, Renater, G. The'ry's "Autoroutes de l'information" -- a fact which I find surprises no one so much as it does some of the still - technophobic French. Stay technophobic by all means -- Cyberspace is going to need some technophobia (E.Le Roy Ladurie says of the French, "we are technological dinosaurs, but such sympathetic dinosaurs") -- but let the rest of us know and admire what you are doing, and appreciate the fact that we appreciate it. Direct translations won't appear too often here, but when they do the intent will be not so much to translate as simply to draw the attention of an international audience, both French and non - French, to something online and interesting that is French. "Il se connai^t et ne connai^t pas l'univers": Cyberspace, so far, for most of us. *** FYIFrance e - newsletter ISSN 1071 - 5916 * | FYIFrance is a monthly electronic newsletter, | 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 FYIFrance may be copied ----- and used by anyone for any good purpose, so long as, // \\ a) they give me credit and show my e - mail 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. FYIFrance may be found via gopher to infolib.berkeley.edu 72 and gopher.well.sf.ca.us , and it is in various online archives: the easiest to use is the PACS-L archive, reached via telnet to a.cni.org , login brsuser . Suggestions, reactions, criticisms, praise, and poison - pen letters all will be gratefully received at kessler@well.sf.ca.us . *** end .