Information Science in France. Emergence, Evolution and Perspectives

Abstract

As an academic specialty in the French higher education, Science was shaped by short-term government policies implemented after world war II until the late nineties. The field was officially recognised in 1974 as part of an interdisciplinary field named Information and Communication Science. Science was seen by the successive French governments as an instrument with which to gain information independence from the United States. The aim was to develop information infrastructures (telecommunications, databases, servers), hence to develop an industry rather than a science. This led to narrowing the focus of the field to only one type of information - scientific and technical information. The first higher education curricula and doctoral programs were technologically-oriented, driven by the need to train information professionals rather than scientists. Little attention was paid to research on conceptual models, on theories and on knowledge organisation which used to be the stronghold of European and French pioneers in bibliography and in documentation (Paul Otlet, Suzanne Briet, Georgette and Eric de Grolier among others). Currently, the trend is to bring information science back to its humanistic origins and to engage in a more theoretical and people-oriented research. However, there is yet no coherent agenda that clearly defines what information science research should be about. There is also little visibility of French information science both at the national and international arena.