Marie Lebert

“ Concerning the relationship with other media, I think we need to look backwards. Contrary to the words of alarmists in previous times, radio didn't kill music or the entertainment industry any more than the cinema did. Television didn't kill radio or cinema. Nor did home videos. When a new medium arrives, it makes some room for itself, the others adjust, there is a transition period, then a 'convergence'. What is different with the internet is the interactive dimension of the medium and its possible impact. ”

“ The internet has become my major research tool, largely - but not entirely - replacing the traditional library and even replacing person-to-person research. Now, instead of phoning people or interviewing them face to face, I do it via email. Because of speed, it has also enabled me to collaborate with people at a distance, particularly on screenplays. (I've worked with two producers in Germany.) Also, digital correspondence is so easy to store and organize, I find that I have easy access to information exchanged this way. Thus, emailing facilitates keeping track of ideas and materials. ”

“ Jean-Paul switched from being a print author to being an hypermedia author, while enjoying the freedom given by online (self-) publishing: "The internet allows me to do without intermediaries such as record companies, publishers and distributors. Most of all, it allows me to crystallize what I have in my head: the print medium only allows me to partly do that. (...) Surfing the web is like radiating in all directions (I am interested in something and I click on all the links on a home page) or like jumping around (from one click to another, as the links appear) . ”

“ Whereas 'mother-tongue education' was deemed a human right for every child in the world by a UNESCO report in the early '50s, 'mother-tongue surfing' may very well be the Information Age equivalent. If the internet is to truly become the Global Network that it is promoted as being, then all users, regardless of language background, should have access to it. To keep the internet as the preserve of those who, by historical accident, practical necessity, or political privilege, happen to know English, is unfair to those who don't. ”

“ As recalled by Michael in January 2009, "I knew [in July 1971] that the future of computing, and the internet, was going to be... 'The Information Age.' That was also the day I said we would be able to carry quite literally the entire Library of Congress in one hand and the system would certainly make it illegal... too much power to leave in the hands of the masses."
As defined by Project Gutenberg, "public domain is the set of cultural works that are free of copyright, and belong to everyone equally", i.e. for books, the ones that can be digitized and released on the internet for free. ”

“ Education will be about participating in the production of the latest information. This is why education will have to be ongoing throughout life and work. Every day there will be something new that we will all have to learn. To keep up. To be in the know. To do our jobs. To be members of the digital community. And far from teaching a body of knowledge that will last for life, the new generation of information professionals will be required to search out, add to, critique, 'play with', and daily update information, and to make available the constant changes that are occurring. ”

“ Yoshi added in the same email interview: "Thousands of years ago, in Egypt, China and elsewhere, people were more concerned about communicating their laws and thoughts not in just one language, but in several. In our modern world, most nation states have each adopted one language for their own use. I predict greater use of different languages and multilingual pages on the internet, not a simple gravitation to American English, and also more creative use of multilingual computer translation. 99% of the websites created in Japan are written in Japanese." ”

“ Cyberspace to me is the distance that is bridged when individuals use technology to connect, either by sharing information or chatting. To say that one exists in cyberspace is really to say that he has eliminated distance as a barrier to connecting with people and ideas. ”

“ Robert Beard explained in the same email interview: "Languages that are endangered are primarily languages without writing systems at all (only 1/3 of the world's 6,000+ languages have writing systems) . I still do not see the web contributing to the loss of language identity and still suspect it may, in the long run, contribute to strengthening it. More and more Native Americans, for example, are contacting linguists, asking them to write grammars of their language and help them put up dictionaries. For these people, the web is an affordable boon for cultural expression." ”

“ With the advent of digitalization, technological convergence has been set into motion. Today all forms of information - whether based in text, sound or images - can be converted into bits and bytes for handling by computer. Digitalization has made it possible to create, record, manipulate, combine, store, retrieve and transmit information and information-based products in ways which magnetic tape, celluloid and paper did not permit. Digitalization thus allows music, cinema and the written word to be recorded and transformed through similar processes and without distinct material supports. ”

“ As explained on its website, "Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright. We provide free licenses and other legal tools to mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any combination thereof." ”

“ As the internet quickly spread worldwide, more and more people in the U.S. realized that, although English may stay the main international language for exchanges of all kinds, not everyone in the world reads English and, even so, people prefer to read information in their own language. ”

“ The online bookstore Amazon.com was launched by Jeff Bezos in July 1995, in Seattle, on the West coast of the U.S., after a market study which led him to conclude that books were the best "products" to sell on the internet. When Amazon.com started, it had 10 employees and a catalog of 3 million books. Unlike traditional bookstores, Amazon doesn't have windows looking out on the street and books skillfully lined up on shelves or piled upon displays. The "virtual" windows are its webpages, with all transactions made through the internet. ”

“ Fear of the future should not lead us to stifle creativity with regulations. Creativity was needed to generate new employment. The spirit of enterprise had to be reinforced with the new technology in order to create jobs for those who had been displaced. Problems should not be anticipated, but tackled when they arose." In short, humanity shouldn't fear technology.
In fact, employees were not so much afraid of technology as they were afraid of losing their jobs. In 1996, unemployment was already significant in any field, which was not the case when film and television were invented. ”

“ I realize that without the internet I wouldn't have as many activities, or at least they would be very different from the ones I have today. So I don't see the future without them. But it is crucial that those who believe in free dissemination of knowledge make sure that knowledge is not 'eaten' by commercial ventures for them to sell it. What has happened in book publishing in France, in linguistics for example, where you can only find textbooks for schools and exams, should be avoided on the web. ”

“ Eduard Hovy is the head of the Natural Language Group at USC/ISI (University of Southern California / Information Sciences Institute) . He wrote in September 2000: "eBooks, to me, are a non-starter. More even that seeing a concert live or a film at a cinema, I like the physical experience holding a book in my lap and enjoying its smell and feel and heft. Concerts on TV, films on TV, and ebooks lose some of the experience; and with books particularly it is a loss I do not want to accept. After all, it is much easier and cheaper to get a book in my own purview than a concert or cinema. ”

“ In an article published in February 1996 by the Swiss magazine "Informatique-Informations", Pierre Perroud, founder of the digital library Athena, explained that "electronic texts represent an encouragement to reading and a convivial participation to culture dissemination", particularly for textual research and text study. These texts are "a good complement to the print book, which remains irreplaceable when for 'true' reading. (...) The book remains a mysteriously holy companion with profound symbolism for us: we grip it in our hands, we hold it against us, we look at it with admiration ”

“ In a certain way we can more intensively read the electronic text, even with the inconvenience of reading on the screen. The electronic book is less expensive and can be more easily distributed worldwide (if we don't count the cost of the computer and the internet connection) ."
In the 2000s, while many people still prefer reading a print book, more and more readers enjoy reading their ebooks on their notebook, smartphone or any other electronic device. They buy their ebooks online from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Yahoo, Palm, Mobipocket or Numilog. ”

“ The development of the Digital Library will enable the British Library to embrace the digital information age. Digital technology will be used to preserve and extend the Library's unparalleled collection. Access to the collection will become boundless with users from all over the world, at any time, having simple, fast access to digitized materials using computer networks, particularly the internet. ”

“ A thinner and revamped Kindle 2 was launched in February 2009, with a storage capacity of 1,500 ebooks, a new text-to-speech feature, and a catalog of 230,000 ebooks on Amazon.com's website.
Can reading devices like Sony Reader and Kindle really compete with cellphones and smartphones? Will people prefer reading on mobile handsets like the iPhone 3G (with its Stanza Reader) or the T-Mobile G1 (with Google's platform Android and its reader) , or will they prefer using reading devices to get a larger screen? Or is there a market for both smartphones and reading devices? ”

“ There has been a great expansion in the use of information technology in our college. Far more computers, more computing staff, flat screens. Students do everything by computer, use Gaelic spell-checking, and a Gaelic online terminology database. There are more hits on our website. There is more use of sound. Gaelic radio (both Scottish and Irish) is now available continuously worldwide via the internet. A major project has been the translation of the Opera web browser into Gaelic - the first software of this size available in Gaelic. ”

“ Multimedia convergence deserves our attention for reasons which go far beyond the entertainment, mass media and telecommunications industries. The technological revolution which has made multimedia convergence possible will continue apace, creating new configurations among an ever-widening range of industries. The digitalization of information processing and delivery is transforming the way financial systems operate, the way enterprises exchange information internally and externally, and the way individuals work in an increasingly electronic environment. ”

“ More and more people were using digital technology. Previously distinct information-based industries, such as printing, publishing, graphic design, media, sound recording and film making, were converging into one industry, with information as a common product. This trend was named "multimedia convergence", with a massive loss of jobs, and a serious enough issue to be tackled by the ILO (International Labor Organization) by 1997. ”

“ Books are not information. People who love books have a relationship with their books. They re-read them, write in them, confer with them. Just as cybersex will never replace the love of a woman, ebooks will never be a vehicle for beautiful prose."
Steven Krauwer is the coordinator of ELSNET (European Network of Excellence in Human Language Technologies) . He wrote in June 2001 that "ebooks still had a long way to go before reading from a screen feels as comfortable as reading a book."
Guy Antoine is the founder of Windows on Haiti, a reference website about Haitian culture. ”

“ If the step of the proofreading seems essential to Project Gutenberg, whose goal is to reach a 99.99% accuracy for its ebooks - above the 99.95% accuracy set up as a standard for Library of Congress -, this step is skipped by the Internet Archive, the OCA, Google and many others. Some R&D teams work on better quality OCR technology, which means that they would have to go back to the original image files to provide a higher quality book in the future, if they do want to provide digital versions without any loss from the print version. ”

“ 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 email, telephone or fax, and I will do the research and send them the results electronically. ”