Interview Dusoulier (2000) Rayward/Organizations

Interview with Nathalie Dusoulier by W. Boyd Rayward in 2000

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Interview with Nathalie Dusoulier by W. Boyd Rayward in 2000

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Conversation on Assorted Organizations

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Rayward

Discussions about Euronet-Diane [Direct Information Access Network for Europe] began in the early 1970s, too, I think.

Dusoulier

It began after the resolution of the Council of Ministers in 1971 to create the European network. There was a committee, Comité Internationale pour la Documentation Scientifique et Technique,

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CIDST. We had a meeting of this committee almost every week. I was one of the French representatives; Jacques Michel was the other one. First, it was Jacques Delors; and then Jacques Michel. We tried to prepare a European information network. Then there were a lot of groups in every field—in medicine, in metallurgy, with Georges Anderla, who was the director at that time. I still see him.

[END OF TAPE, SIDE 2]

Dusoulier

We were trying to implement this European network at a political level to create relationships between the countries. This was for the countries to organize and to cooperate better in different fields, and see if we could exchange information, set up databases, and control what the commission was doing. In fact, they were working in medicine, agriculture, and metallurgy. They took a lot of time. I think we have set up a kind of common European atmosphere to do that. But it was really political.

We were not doing practical things; we were just discussing at political levels what the commission was trying to do. We were also working with automatic translations. An American system was implemented in the commission and we tried to adapt it. I don’t think we have achieved anything important, apart from the creation of this European group.

ICSU AB’s collaborations with international organizations

Rayward

You were also involved with the ICSU AB early on. Have you continued to be involved?

Dusoulier

I am an honorary fellow, but I don’t go to the meetings very much anymore. [laughter] I have left the ICSU AB, more or less. I still attended some NFAIS [National Federation of Abstracting and Indexing Societies] meetings, but more to meet old friends like Ed Kennedy and Dale [B. Baker] and so on. This year, in fact, I didn’t go because I was ill.

Rayward

So, tell me your impressions of ICSU AB and what it’s been able to achieve. Is it just essentially a forum for discussion and debate?

Dusoulier

No. At the beginning, ICSU AB was a family, and in fact, it still is. Don’t forget, in the 1960s, there were very few scientific information centers. We were getting together maybe ten or fifteen people. We were the pioneers, people like Dale Baker and Phyllis Parkins. Wiederman from Germany. Sorokin from Russia. We were all trying to have the world recognize that scientific information is something; it’s a profession, it’s work, it’s a job. We did that quite successfully all together because we really were like a family, and we discussed everything. There was no competition. The competition started maybe a little bit later. My Miles-Conrad lecture at NFAIS gives the atmosphere of the thinking at that time (4).

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But, in fact, I believe that the ICSU AB created the profession. We created the profession from scientists. That was the goal. Nobody was a librarian. We were all scientists. We wanted to recognize that to process science one needed to be more than a librarian. The users are not the normal users of a library. They’ll ask you more. That was the main goal at the beginning. After that, we said, “How can we work together to make things better for our users?”

Then the difficulties started. How could you work with the Russians, with the Japanese? We were each using our own language. The French researchers didn’t know enough English. Researchers in physics, in chemistry, can use English, but go to medicine and just forget it. Like the Medline Database—I remember, I brought home research in Medline to my husband. He was a scientist, a politician doing political science. He would say, “What is this garbage? What do you want me to do with it?” I left it on the top of our cupboard, and during six months, he never touched it. Never. He said, “Bring me in some information that I can read.” That was what most of the users were doing at that time. Now, it has changed with the Internet, et cetera.

You have to translate, also, for political reasons. The French basically didn’t want information in another language. But we had been working on periodicals, to give information to each other on periodicals issued in our countries. We had been doing a lot of work on automatic indexing and even manual indexing to try to set up type indexes so that the automatic indexing could be easier. Then the ICSU AB got a little sleepy.

When I came from New York, eleven years after the UN [United Nations], I, of course, came back to the ICSU AB. I shook them up a little bit. I said, “Look, people, what have you done in ten years?” There were no changes. It was the same story and with the same talks, et cetera, for ten years. They recognized that more or less it was the same. But then, with the new people coming, the only problem I saw with ICSU AB—and, then, Marthe [Orfus], the secretary, was going to go, and someone else was going to take over the secretariat (office of the secretary)—maybe Barry Mahon. He was one of the candidates on the short list. If the secretariat goes to an American, then why have ICSU AB in any place? Let’s decide that NFAIS would be international. Anyway, this guy from INSPEC—I can’t remember the name— the young guy you saw in the picture, the blond, and myself, we were always invited to NFAIS. I am French; he was British; NFAIS is American.

Rayward

When you look at the lists of the organizations at the meetings of NFAIS, most of

the European services are present.

Dusoulier

Yes, but that was not the case before. Then we wondered why to keep both. Of

course, ICSU AB was always an opportunity for the Chinese, the Taiwanese, the Japanese, and the Russians to be in an international organization. Also, the ICSU proximity is very important because the ICSU AB was a part of ICSU for a very long time. Now, they want to put it together again.

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Rayward

When did they come apart? Why was ICSTI [International Council of Scientific and Technical Information] set up?

Dusoulier

Because they considered that, they wanted not to have this very heavy shape of ICSU, to have commercial organizations as members. The ICSU was not a scientific organization with only scientists as members. For example, Elsevier [Inc.] couldn’t be a member of ICSU AB and of ICSU. They were commercial. Also, because at that time, the secretary general of ICSU AB wanted to be more independent. She didn’t want to have people telling her what to do. Of course, the members of ICSU AB said, “All right, let’s go; let’s do it separately.”

Rayward

Do you think, now, there is a move back to ICSU?

Dusoulier

This is what I was told. I saw the announcement for the job. They want to keep their relations with ICSU.

UNESCO, Programme général d'information

Rayward

It’s interesting, this process of moving away and moving back. You described it in INIST, itself. Now, ICSU AB, and, of course, UNESCO PGI [United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s Programme Générale d’Information] are being re-conceptualized, I understand.

Dusoulier

Well, now, we’re writing a new program completely. We have done information for all programs. Now it’s on the executive committee, and then it will go to the general conference. Hopefully, before the end of the year, our new program will be adopted. I am on the chair of that so I have been working very hard. [laughter]

Rayward

Can you tell me a little about the nature of the changes that are being suggested?

Dusoulier

To go a little bit broader, not to focus on small things. To change the focus to new technologies and to try to put the new technology in an international context for developing countries. Let’s say, the influence of information highways on the information world—the main goal is to move from the traditional information that exists in the older places to transferring information using new technologies. Of course, there are a lot of details there. But if you want to have a new program, you go to the site, to the World Wide Web of UNESCO, and you can have it. You have the text of the new program.

Federation for Information and Documentation (FID)

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Rayward

The other organization I’m wondering about is FID [Federation for Information and Documentation]. I suppose the parallel organization is IFLA [International Federation of Library Associations] in the library world. Could you speak about your experiences while participating in these organizations?

Dusoulier

I was a member of FID many years ago, and I don’t think it had an important role in the past. Mostly because of the impact of the Russians. They were too static. I can say that in Russian, myself! [laughter] The Russians wanted to have a kind of forum for the outside world. They were doing certification, et cetera. I don’t know what they are doing now. Of course, with Martha Stone, the new director, they could move somewhere. But very often, they had very bad directors. You know, there was a Canadian at one time who was just a disaster. I don’t remember his name. He was terrible. He didn’t do anything. Martha Stone wants to do things. But, apart from the manifesto, they wrote lately, et cetera, I don’t see what they are doing. I don’t think they have an impact on the real world of information or people really working on information. Particularly because their representation is national. Nobody wanted the countries to go. In France, nobody wanted to go to FID. They said, “We don’t have money to spend for stupid things.”

IFLA is different because IFLA is focused. IFLA is really focused on libraries. The libraries recognize themselves in IFLA. I don’t know who recognizes itself in FID. That is a problem with FID. I don’t know if they are going to continue or not. I just don’t know.

I am a member of their publications board, but they never ask me anything. I just have my name on the publication. I once reviewed an article and suggested that they throw it away. Maybe that was why they didn’t ask me anymore. [laughter] I have worked with FID as the French representative and presented during some years, but we didn’t do anything. We were going to the meetings; that’s all. No real work. Martha is very good. Maybe she could do something, I don’t know. But it’s not so easy. You have to move people, and you have to know who to move. I don’t know any important people in FID. Nobody important that is visible in the information scene.

Rayward

In fact, some of the sorts of things that FID might well have done were probably taken over and done better by ICSU AB, and now ICSTI with its broad representation.

Dusoulier

I’m not sure they’re interested in the types of things that FID is doing. The force and strength of ICSU AB, is that the directors who attend the meetings are the responsible people. Then, at the meeting, they can say, “I will,” or “I won’t.” They are not going to say, “I have to tell it to my government, to my country,” et cetera. I remember Dale Baker saying, “Oh, no. We can’t!” [laughter] But we knew that if he said he’d do it; he’d do it. We had the responsibility of what we were saying, as well as we were doing. That has made ICSU AB really move. This is still the case. It is very important.

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)

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Rayward

Many of the major positions in IFLA are held by people who actually have authority to do things, too. That’s an interesting point.

Dusoulier

There are databases available in Germany through the German network. They are available online through Questel, an international host. This was available in 1997. I have been working lately with the European commission on a European project to create coordination between the existing host computers, Questel, DIMDI, a Nordic host computer, a Swedish one, and one other. This is to create the PASCAL bridges so that the user of DIMDI can access PASCAL from the databases they don’t have. DIMDI has medicine, but if the databases didn’t have it, they could access Questel with one simple password. They want more; they want to putit on the internet just like that, without the host computer. I don’t know.

Rayward

The other part of making FRANCIS and PASCAL widely available is overcoming the hegemony of the English.

Dusoulier

How could you overcome the hegemony of the English? That’s absolutely stupid. Two-thirds of the publications are in English. Let’s say, two-thirds of the publications that count in the scientific world. But what do you want to do—translate them into French?

Look, I am for defending French. I don’t like when you are at an international meeting when you have translation into English from French in the country. I always use French. I think it’s normal. If we are in France, if there are translation services provided, I suppose they have been provided for a reason. You can always express yourself much better in your own language than in another language. I think it’s stupid for this snobbish attitude to speak English to continue. But the reality is reality. The English word in information is the most important word. That’s it. Why fight what exists? I don’t think it’s bad.

It’s not as if FRANCIS and PASCAL will be on the Internet and then English will not be hegemonic. We would simply have a little bit more information in French, which could be all right. But, anyway, if you go to the INIST site, you can have whatever you want.

Rayward

Is the suggestion that it should be freely available?

Dusoulier

No. Again, I don’t know these people. I know only Jacques Le Maguer. I don’t know the others. I never heard about them.

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Rayward

Well, I thought this was a very strange article. It seemed to be pushing a particular point of view, very much against the idea that you spoke of, about the political move to regionalization.

Dusoulier

The only guy who knows anything about that is Jacques Le Maguer. From what I see, he now is working with L’Institut d’histoire du Temps Present. He has probably initiated that. Which, in fact, is not a bad idea. Why not? But I think they also don’t know what they are talking about. They have taken from papers some information—some good, some not. Idon’t know.

I would be very interested to know if my former deputy Francine Gourd read that—she is probably retired now. But she was still working in 1997. She may have seen that.