Interview Dusoulier (2000) Rayward/Construction de l'INIST

Interview de Nathalie Dusoulier par W. Boyd Rayward en 2000

Construction de l'INIST

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Science History Institute Sommaire de la version numérique de l'interview de Nathalie Dusoulier par Byord Rayward Intoduction Nathalie Dusoulier, repères biographiques Entrée au Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) Institut de l’Information Scientifique et Technique (INIST) Conversation sur diverses organisations Carrière à l'INIST Index

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Avant-propos

Le texte qui suit est une traduction de la fin d'un ouvrage réalisé par le Chemical Heritage Foundation (Centre d'histoire de la chimie).

L'ensemble est une interview de Nathalie Dusoulier mené par W. Rayward à Nice en 2000.

Page en cours de traduction et de mise en forme

La traduction est un travail collectif mené dans la cadre du réseau Wicri. Elle est complétée par une indexation sémantique et par l'ajout d'une iconographie.

Construction de l'INIST

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[Coupure dans l'enregistrement]

Dusoulier

Je lui ai dit : « Très bien, après le weekend, je vous écrirai » Then he said, “Oh, you know, you have to do it.” I said, “Yes, sure. I’m interested.” He said, “Because, you know, n'oubliez pas, vous étes en détachement —” I said, “Is that a way of threatening me? If I won’t be good, they won’t continue my secondment?” And I told him, “Oh, s'il vous plait, pas de chantage avec moi, car je peux rester aux Nations Unies aussi longtemps que je le veux.”And, of course, in CNRS, you have to stay until sixty-five. “I can stay until sixty-two, anyway, and you can stay two years more. You know, considering the money I’m getting here, I will have more money staying three years less in CNRS than two years more.” [laughter]

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Départ des Nations Unies

Dusoulier

He said, “No, that was not what I was trying to do.” I said, “All right.” Then he left. I showed him a little bit of what we were doing. After the weekend, I wrote thirty-two pages of comments on this thing. There were a lot of crazy things I could not understand. And I said that. Then I never heard about anything. Because there were problems in Geneva, the Comité Diplomatique said they didn’t want to pay any more money for the library because there were big problems there. The librarian said, “Over my dead body. There will be no computers in the library.” Finally, they negotiated that I could go to Geneva. I had almost finished my automation in New York, and I moved to Geneva. I was happy to move back to Geneva because my kids were in France. I was a little bit lonely. I went back to Geneva and began working. You cannot believe what Geneva was like. There were rooms full of books. If you opened the door, you just had to run very fast because, otherwise, everything was going to fall on you. [laughter] It was terrible. I started buying computers, doing automation, putting things in order in Geneva.

One day, two years later, I had a call. “I’m the secretary of the director of CRNS. He wants you to come tomorrow to see him.” I said, “Look, lady, [laughter] I am not working for you. The UN is paying me, and I just cannot. Again, it is during the General Assembly.” [laughter] She said, “Yes. So, when can you come?” I said, “I can come on Saturday.” Then I went on Saturday. It was a big room with the director of CNRS, Goéry Delacôte, the director of information, and the chief of personnel of CNRS. They said, “We were very happy about the comments you did,” et cetera. It happened in forty-five minutes. I was thinking, “They didn’t ask me to come from Geneva to listen to how they were happy about the report that I did.”

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They said, “Do you know why we have called you?” I said, “No, I have no idea.” “Well, because we want you to take over the INIST.”

Then, because I was so shocked, I asked a stupid question. I said, “But, I work for the UN and I have no intention of leaving. I have just renewed my contract for the next two years. What happened to Mr. Jakobiac?” He was supposed to take over INIST. I heard, during the two years, that this guy was in charge of INIST.

As soon as I asked the question, I knew that it was stupid because then they said, “Non, cela n’a pas marché; it didn’t work,” et cetera. I was a little bit surprised. They said, “We want you to start immediately.” I said, “Are you joking? I just, six months ago, came from New York. I cannot just leave the UN.” They said, “We are going to get someone to replace you.”

I said, “Look, there was a story in New York. The director of personnel didn’t want me to go to Geneva. Then Geneva said, ‘We cannot do without you. It’s very important,’ et cetera. There was a battle for me to go to Geneva. The director of the Geneva office is not going to accept that I’m being replaced just like that.” They said, “Then, we will find two people.” [laughter] “All right.”

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Kofi Annan

Dusoulier

Then I went to Geneva and talked to the director of the Geneva office—he was a Belgian man at the time. He said, “They are crazy. There is no way. Look, if you want to go back—” I said, “Look, this is my organization. They can force me to go back.” “They wouldn’t force you.” At the same time, the French said, “All right, we can force you.” But it would take two years—going to tribunal.

Finally, I negotiated that I could do some work with the conseil de projet (project council) on Saturdays and my vacation days. Which meant, in 1987, I didn’t have any vacation days. I used all my vacation days so that I could find someone to replace me in Geneva and that to give them time for the hiring process. In fact, it was Mr. Kofi Annan, the chief of personnel, who is now the director general. I met him in the French embassy and we negotiated my replacement.

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Les fondations de l'INIST

Dusoulier

Then the INIST story started. I discovered that it was going to be very difficult because all the people said, “It’s impossible. It cannot be done.” I talked to some of the people. “You’re crazy to try to do it,” they said. I said, “It could be interesting to start something.” But,all the people said, “No, it’s not feasible. It’s impossible.” INIST started with a lot of difficulties. I moved to Nancy. I was one person with only a secretary and her husband to help me.

Rayward

What were all the difficulties that people were referring to?

Dusoulier

The difficulties were that the CDST was not prepared to move. We had a library of twenty-seven thousand titles of periodicals on ten floors.

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We had to move all that, but we could not stop working. We had four thousand requests for photocopies a day at that time. A day! How do you continue to do that? We had to build a building and figure out where to put the staff. Then the staff didn’t want to go. Altogether, thirty people from the whole CNRS went. We had to recruit about three or four hundred people—newcomers—train them, and put them somewhere. When we recruited them, there was nowhere to sit; we had to rent space. We were even in a small castle from the eighteenth century. In this castle alone with a secretary. [laughter] I had to rent in a building the rooms to put the people I was recruiting in. All these people had to be recruited through a National Caucus. It was competitions, because it’s administration. It was a post of a fonctionnaire (civil servant).

Recruitment was not so easy. I needed ten people as a jury. We had a written exam and then an oral one. We were recruiting twenty-five people at one time. I worked in five places: CDST, rue Boyer, where the remaining staff was; Boulevard Raspail, where CDSH was, the human sciences; and Château du Montet, where I was officially located. But, for political reasons, they wanted me to go there. I was an important person there. I had taken some other things, but we have not time to go through—from the press.

[END OF TAPE, SIDE 3]

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En route pour Nancy, France

The people worked very hard. Even the people in CDST who were not going to stay did a marvelous job. We hired new people.

The first people we hired were the magasiniers (shopkeepers) to put things in place. Every night, there was a librarian staying with them to see that there were no particular questions about where to put things.

Rayward

Were you still doing the work on developing the database at this time?

Dusoulier

Yes. The new periodicals were arriving at Nancy, which meant the new people were working on them. The CDST was doing the backlog because some of the people were leaving, and some others didn’t want to work anymore because they were leaving—[gunshot]—midi (noon).

Rayward

There’s a gunshot at noon?

Dusoulier

Yes, every day at 12:00 pm. So that you can check your watch.

Rayward

The building site started when?

Dusoulier

It started in November, 1987.

Rayward

When you were recruiting the staff to set the service up—you had over three hundred people.

Dusoulier

Yes. More. We had three hundred fifty, plus the staff to do abstracts from home. Yes, some of the people were doing abstracts at home. Then we started doing them online from home also.

Rayward

What proportion of the abstracts was done outside by this piecework process? It was a piecework process, really, wasn’t it?

Dusoulier

Yes. Maybe half of the abstracts. But much less of the indexing was done that way.

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Rayward

The indexing was done in-house, essentially.

Dusoulier

Yes.

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Voir aussi

Notes