#Webmaster of the Pasteur Institute Library
"The Pasteur Institutes (...) are exceptional observatories for studying
infectious and parasite-borne diseases. They are wedded to the solving of
practical public health problems, and hence carry out research programmes which
are highly original because of the complementary nature of the investigations
carried out: clinical research, epidemiological surveys and basic research work.
Just a few examples from the long list of major topics of the Institutes are:
malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS, yellow fever, dengue and poliomyelitis." (extract
of the website)
* Interview of August 10, 1999 (original interview in French)
= Can you tell us about the website you've created?
The main aim of the Pasteur Institute Library website is to serve the Institute
itself and its associated bodies. It supports applications that have became
essential in such a big organization: bibliographic databases, cataloging,
ordering of documents and of course access to online periodicals (presently more
than 100). It's also a window for our different departments, at the Institute
but also elsewhere in France and abroad. It plays a big part in documentation
exchanges with the institutes in the worldwide Pasteur network. I'm trying to
make it an interlink adapted to our needs for exploration and use of the
Internet. The website has existed in its present form since 1996 and its
audience is steadily increasing.
= What exactly is your professional activity?
I build and maintain the web pages and monitor them regularly. I'm also
responsible for training users, which you can see from my pages. The Web's an
excellent place for training and it's included in most ongoing discussion about
that.
= How did using the Internet change your professional life?
Our relationship with both the information and the users is what changes. We're
increasingly becoming mediators, and perhaps to a lesser extent "curators". My
present activity is typical of this new situation: I'm working to provide quick
access to information and to create effective means of communication, but I also
train people to use these new tools.
= How do you see the future?
I think the future of our job is tied to cooperation and use of common
resources. It's certainly an old project, but it's really the first time we've
had the means to set it up.
As for my professional future, I especially hope the Internet will eventually
allow me to work from home, at least part of the time. It would avoid two and a
half hours of travelling every day...
= What do you think of the debate about copyright on the Web?
I haven't followed these discussions. But I think it's going to be hard to
maintain the community spirit which was the basis of the Internet in the
beginning.
= How do you see the growth of a multilingual Web?
I think a multilingual Web's a very positive thing. The Internet doesn't belong
to any one nation or language. It's a vehicle for culture, and the first vector
of culture is language. The more languages there are on the Net, the more
cultures will be represented there. I don't think we should give in to the
kneejerk temptation to translate web pages into a largely universal language.
Cultural exchanges will only be real if we're prepared to meet with the other
culture in a genuine way. And this effort involves understanding the other
culture's language. This is very idealistic of course. In practice, when I'm
monitoring, I curse Norwegian or Brazilian websites where there's isn't any
English.
= What is your best experience with the Internet?
The day I won a box of Swiss chocolates on the Health On the Net site. But don't
rush to this site, the game doesn't exist any more.
= And your worst experience?
The abuse of e-mail: bad-mannered people take advantage of the distance and
relative anonymity to say not very nice things and take really juvenile
attitudes with, alas, consequences which are not always the kind you find in a
children's world. For example, I once forwarded an email to somebody I thought
would be interested in the subject and the person wrote directly to the original
sender and discredited me.