Libraries and Documentation Centres in France Specialized on Questions of Development: the situation in France in September 1999

Abstract

Paper presented at the 9th General Conference of the European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI) Paris, France, 22–25 September 1999, in a session of the EADI Information Management Working Group. The formidable development of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), generally related to the Internet, has represented a significant change for libraries and documentation in France as in the rest of the world. Although France lags behind other nations in connectivity, documentalists have on the whole embraced this new technology. The new Directorate General for International Cooperation and Development (DGCID), created at the beginning of 1999, has tried to take advantage of the challenges provided by new technology by providing new funding for institutions in selected developing countries, and also by restructuring documentation policy in France itself. In France, this has led to opening the DGCID Documentation Centre to the general public; support to the IBISCUS network and joint guardianship of some specialized, rich documentation sources. This policy has led to criticism, with some commentators proposing the creation of a ‘memory library’ on development. Some of the basic flaws in such a proposal are outlined.