#Head of the Centre for Documentation and Information (CDI) of the OECD
(Organisation for Economic and Co-operation Development)
"The OECD groups 29 member countries in an organisation that, most importantly,
provides governments a setting in which to discuss, develop and perfect economic
and social policy. They compare experiences, seek answers to common problems and
work to co-ordinate domestic and international policies that increasingly in
today's globalised world must form a web of even practice across nations. (...)
The OECD is a club of like-minded countries. It is rich, in that OECD countries
produce two thirds of the world's goods and services, but it is not an exclusive
club. Essentially, membership is limited only by a country's commitment to a
market economy and a pluralistic democracy. The core of original members has
expanded from Europe and North America to include Japan, Australia, New Zealand,
Finland, Mexico, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Korea. And there are
many more contacts with the rest of the world through programmes with countries
in the former Soviet bloc, Asia, Latin America - contacts which, in some cases,
may lead to membership." (extract of the website)
The Centre for Documentation and Information (CDI) is charged with providing
information to agents of the OECD in support of their research work. It has
about 60,000 monographs and about 2,500 periodical titles in its collections.
The CDI also provides information in electronic format from databases, CD-ROMs
and the Internet.
Peter Raggett, the Head of the CDI, has been a professional librarian for nearly
twenty years, fist working in UK government libraries and now at the OECD since
1994. He has been working with the Internet since 1996. He is in charge of the
CDI Intranet pages, which are one of the chief sources of information for OECD
personnel.
*Interview of June 18, 1998
= What exactly do you do on the Internet?
I have to filter the information for library users which means that I must know
the sites and the links that they have. I chose several hundred sites to allow
access to them from the OECD Intranet and these sites are part of the virtual
reference desk which the library has made available to the Organisations's
staff. As well as these links, this virtual reference desk contains pages of
references to articles, monographs and web sites corresponding to different
ongoing research projects at the OECD, network access to CD-ROMs and a monthly
list of new titles. The library catalogue will soon be available on the
Intranet.
= How do you see the future?
The Internet has provided researchers with a vast database of information. The
problem for them is to find what they are seeking. Never has the information
overload been so obvious as when one tries to find information on a topic by
searching the Internet. Information managers have a large role to play in
searching and arranging the information on the Internet.
I expect that there will be an expansion in Internet use for education and
research. This means that libraries will have to create virtual libraries where
students can follow a course offered by an institution at the other side of the
world.
Personally, I see myself becoming more and more a virtual librarian. My clients
may not meet me face-to-face but instead will contact me by e-mail, telephone or
fax and I will do the research and send them the results electronically.
*Interview of August 4, 1999
= What has happened since our first interview?
Our Intranet site will be completely renovated by the end of the year, as we
will be putting the library catalogue on the Intranet. This will allow our users
to access the catalogue across our Intranet. The catalogue will be Z39.50
compliant.
= What do you think of the debate about copyright on the Web?
The copyright question is still very unclear. Publishers naturally want their
fees for each article ordered and librarians and end-users want to be able
download immediately full text of articles. At the moment each publisher seems
to have its own policy for access to electronic versions and they would benefit
from having some kind of homogenous policy, preferably allowing unlimited
downloading of their electronic material.
= How do you see the growth of a multilingual Web?
I think it is incumbent on European organisations and businesses to try and
offer websites in three or four languages if resources permit. In this age of
globalisation and electronic commerce, businesses are finding that they are
doing business across many countries. Allowing French, German, Japanese speakers
to easily read one's web site as well as English speakers will give a business a
competitive edge in the domain of electronic trading.
= What is your best experience with the Internet?
Finding within 10 minutes articles and information on a professor who was
visiting the Organisation.
= And your worst experience?
Connection problems and slow transfer of data.
*Interview of July 31, 2000
= What has happened since our last interview?
The catalogue was mounted onto our Intranet pages in October 1999. This allows
all OECD agents to search the CDI's catalogue easily from their own offices.
= How much do you still work with paper?
We are still providing photocopies of periodical articles, although our use of
paper has diminished slightly, due to the availability of full text articles on
the Internet in PDF format. Our loans of monographs has not decreased since the
advent of the Internet.
= Will there still be a place for paper in the future?
I think that there will still be a place for some use of paper despite the
advent of electronic books. The use of paper will lessen as people get more and
more used to electronic books.
= What do you think about e-books?
It is interesting to see that the electronic book mimics the traditional book as
much as possible except that the paper page is replaced by a screen. I can see
that the electronic book will replace some of the present paper products but not
all of them. I also hope that electronic books will be waterproof so that I can
continue reading in the bath.
= What do you suggest to give blind and partially-sighted people easier access
to the Web?
I predict an increase in the use of sounds, where blind and partially-sighted
people will be able to hear the text of web sites using loudspeakers or
earphones.
= What is your definition of cyberspace?
Cyberspace is that area "out there" which is on the other end of my PC when I
connect to the Internet. Any ISP (Internet service provider) or web page
provider is in cyberspace as far as his users or customers are concerned.
= And your definition of the information society?
The information society is the society where the most valued product is
information. Up to the 20th century, manufactured goods were the most valued
products. They have been replaced by information. In fact, people are now
talking of the knowledge society where the most valuable economic product is the
knowledge inside our heads.