July 15, 1993 FYIFrance: e - mail to / from France, BdF news by: Jack Kessler kessler@well.sf.ca.us 1) e-mail to/from France via Internet & Minitel! 2) entire _BBF_ issue devoted to the Bibliothe`que de France. 3) Internet Town Hall, July 26, maybe: US Congress online for a day, and help is needed. *** 1) e-mail to/from France via Internet & Minitel! For those of you who have asked about Internet-compatible e-mail to/from France -- for colleagues, friends and relatives there, or for your upcoming trip -- and for those of you interested in whether the Internet or Minitel is the more flexible: The following two publicly-available and inexpensive Minitel services now offer Internet e-mail, and USENET and other things. Both, interestingly, have the capacity to offer ftp and telnet but neither has done so: one is "thinking about it" (and about IRC / Internet Relay Chat), and the other is avoiding the issue, fearing various system-overload fears -- letters/e-mail to both might encourage them to open up to these latter services. (Merci to Jean-Louis Duclos for showing me ALTERN.) >From any Minitel, in France (any office or home, nearly any small rural post office, any omnipresent France Telecom office), or elsewhere (free MAC or DOS diskettes for Minitel -- some downloading capacity now is available -- may be obtained in the US and Canada from voice telephones 914-694-6266, 914-399-0800): a) 3616 ALTERN Tarif TTC F/min serveur te'le'com 0.12 F 1.27 0.88 0.39 la connexion (tr: US 22 cents/min. at current exchange rates for prime time: as low as US 6 cents/min. in off-peak hours. ALTERN will be 3615 INTERNET as well, shortly.) "Re'seau international Internet : - courrier e'lectronique. - participation aux groupes de discussion the'matique. (tr: e-mail and USENET.jk.) Vous allez acceder au reseau mondial internet. Depuis quinze ans, le reseau internet relie les machines a travers le monde, pour representer aujourd'hui 500000 machines et vingt millions d'utilisateurs. Chaque utilisateur a un nom, de meme que vous venez de choisir le votre, et une adresse constituee de son nom et du nom de son ordinateur hote, comme si l'on disait 'bertrand, qui habite a marseille'. En langage internet, 'qui habite a' se dit '@' ; les machines sont incorrigibles! Apres cette page d'explication, vous allez acceder a 'elm' , le gestionnaire de courrier, qui vous permet d'emettre et de recevoir du courrier du monde entier. A partir du gestionnaire de courrier, vous pourrez acceder a 'tin', le gestionnaire d'informations periodiques, pour lire et d'emettre des articles d'information repartis en 600 groupes thematiques. Ce service requiert un minitel bistandard (ceux avec les touches 'Ctrl' et 'Fnct') (tr: don't use the very oldest Minitels.jk.) (For this service, @altern.com is the user's e-mail address.jk.) b) 3617 EMAIL Tarif TTC F/min serveur te'le'com 0.12 F 2.19 1.71 0.48 la connexion (tr: US 38 cents/min. at current exchange rates for prime time, vs. 3616 ALTERN's US 22 cents: again as low as US 6 cents/min. in off-peak hours.jk.) Connexion au re'seau mondial d'ordinateur Usenet ; messagerie, confe'rences ; te'le'chargement PC, Atari, Amiga, Unix ; jeux d'arcade. France-Teaser ** EMAIL ** 1 l'Email et les News USENET 4 Le Te'le'chargement 5 Les jeux d'arcade 6 La banque de cre'ditels E M A I L - U S E N E T - I N T E R N E T ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ce serveur minitel vous permet This minitel server allows you to use d'utiliser plusieurs des services qui several services available on the sont disponibles sur le reseau mondial worldwide computer network, which is d'ordinateurs qui porte le nom de called USENET. So, now, you are able USENET. Vous allez donc pouvoir to receive or to send messages to a recevoir ou envoyer des messages a des great number of users (hundreds!) on millions de personnes qui sont dans ce this network. reseau. De meme quelques centaines de conferences sur de nombreux sujets There is also few hundreds of sont a votre disposition afin de conferences with many topics where you resoudre vos problemes, d'exposer vos can explain your problem, solution or solutions ou simplement vous informer. just read information. --------------------------------------- --------------------------------------- ATTENTION: les applications et a WARNING: The applications and the pluparts des messages sont en majority of messages are written in anglais/americain. English/American. --------------------------------------- --------------------------------------- (For this service, @email.teaser.com is the user's e-mail address.jk.) _________________________ 2) entire BBF issue devoted to the Bibliothe`que de France The latest issue of _BBF/Bulletin des Bibliothe`ques de France_ (tome 38, no.3, 1993, ISSN 0006-2006) is devoted entirely to a progress report on the giant library project at Tolbiac: how to move, and improve access to (?), 10 million books, and then some... Articles include: "Le chantier conversion re'trospective de la Bibliothe`que Nationale / The retrospective conversion of files and catalogues at the Bibliothe`que nationale", by Marcelle Beaudiquez "Le re'colement a` mi-parcours / The Inventory half course", by Anne Pasquignon "Chantier et politique d'acquisition de la Bibliothe`que nationale / The acquisition chantier and policy at the Bibliothe`que nationale", by Nicole Simon "Le chantier de'me'nagement du de'partement de la Phonothe`que et de l'audiovisuel / The working of the removal in the Record and audiovisual department", by Marie- Franc,oise Calas "Politique d'acquisition des documents audiovisuels a` la Bibliothe`que de France / Acquisition policy of the audiovisual documents at the Bibliothe`que de France", by Marie-Christine Wellhoff "Projet d'enrichissement pour le catalogue de la Bibliothe`que de France / Plan to enrich the catalogue of the Bibliothe`que de France", by Isabelle Boudet and Thierry Cloarec "Le programme de nume'risation de la Bibliothe`que de France / The programme digitalization at the Bibliothe`que de France", by Michel Richard "De la Bibliothe`que nationale a` la Bibliothe`que de France: le transfert de 10 millions de volumes / From the Bibliothe`que nationale to the Bibliothe`que de France: moving 10 million volumes", by Jacqueline Sanson _________________________ 3) Internet Town Hall, July 26: US Congress online for a day, and help is needed. (Stop Press note, July 15: recent Internet-talk indicates that the event described in what follows may be delayed until later in the Fall -- participation now wouldn't hurt though, I think, as what they are looking for is a deluge of user-enthusiasm, all of which could be archived now for presentation later to Congress.) The following announcement, which just appeared on several e-conferences, seems to me to be of interest -- perhaps of vital interest -- to everyone on the networks. Congressman Markey is a leader in getting all of us an expanded and upgraded network, and he apparently needs a flood of e-mail to the address shown below if he is to convince Congress that we are important in this budgetarily-austere year: "On July 26 at 9:30AM EDT, the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and Finance of the U.S. House of Representatives will hold the first Congressional Hearing ever held over a computer network. The oversight hearing on "The Role of Government in Cyberspace" will take place in the Grand Ballroom of the National Press Club at 14th and F Streets, N.W., Washington, D.C. The hearing is open to the public. An open house will be held from 3-5PM on the same day in the same location and is also open to the public. Chairman Markey has asked that this historic occasion demonstrate the potential and diversity of the global Internet. Thirty Sparcstations will be in the hearing room, allowing members of Congress, staff, and their guests to read e-mail, use Gopher menus, read testimony in WAIS databases, browse the World Wide Web, and otherwise use the resources of the global Internet as part of the hearing. Some witnesses for the hearing will testify remotely, sending audio and video over the Internet. Audio and video of the hearing will also be multicast over the Multicast Backbone (MBONE). We are hoping that C-SPAN and other traditional media will also carry the event. *MORE DETAILS ON MBONE AND OTHER WAYS TO WATCH THE HEARINGS REMOTELY WILL BE FORTHCOMING SHORTLY.* One of the primary points that we are hoping to demonstrate is the diversity and size of the Internet. We have therefore established an electronic mail address by which people on the Internet can communicate with the Subcommittee before and during the hearing: congress@town.hall.org We encourage you to send your comments on what the role of government should be in the information age to this address. Your comments to this address will be made part of the public record of the hearing. Feel free to carry on a dialogue with others on a mailing list, cc'ing the e-mail address. Your cards and letters to congress@town.hall.org will help demonstrate that there are people who use the Internet as part of their personal and professional lives. We encourage you to send comments on the role of government in cyberspace, on what role cyberspace should play in government (e.g., whether government data be made available on the Internet), on how the Internet should be built and financed, on how you use the Internet, and on any other topic you feel is appropriate. This is your chance to show the U.S. Congress that there is a constituency that cares about this global infrastructure. If you would like to communicate with a human being about the hearing, you may send your comments and questions to: hearing-info@town.hall.org Support for the Internet Town Hall is provided by Sun Microsystems and O'Reilly & Associates. Additional support for the July 26 on-line congressional hearing is being provided by ARPA, BBN Communications, the National Press Club, Xerox PARC, and many other organizations. Network connectivity for the Internet Town Hall is provided by UUNET Technologies." *** ISSN: 1071 - 5916 end .