Contenu du sommaire : L'historien face à l'histoire

From Duke August's “garden of books” to Leibniz's catalogue : what system of knowledge ? The transformation of Duke August's (1579-1666) practical catalogue (topographical order) to Leibniz's (1646- 1716) later rational catalogue (alphabetical and systematic order) is discussed by reference to the example of the Wolfenbüttel Library. As illustrations of cataloguing activity between bibliography (book description) and encyclopedia (insertion in a methodical and topical order), the cataloguing practices of Duke August and Leibniz both guide (each in their own way) the reader. But contrary to Duke August's “humanist” catalogue, Leibniz's catalogue tends to keep the logic of research independently of the order of knowledge.

Back to Leibniz's De rerum Classibus

Gabriel Naudé and the bibliographical revolution of knowledge Has the library created a matrix generating a new practice of transmittable, reproducible and verifiable knowledge ? How, and through what discontinuities and against what adversaries and competitors did it succeed to inaugurate the new social and political connections increasing the normative plenitude of a new subject of knowledge : the reader ? Do we have reasons for seeing in this reader librarian the undeveloped and archaic harbinger of the voting-citizen ? Was the homo bibliothecus the paradigm for the homo democraticus ? The answer to these emphatic and present-day questions is elaborated through an examination of the grounding discourse of the modern library, that is the universal and public library : Gabriel Naudé's L'advis pour dresser une bibliothèque (1627).

Gabriel Naudé and the ordering of books Naudé is an important witness in the progressive realization of the ordering of classical books. The library ceases to be the tool of an individual or a group in order to become an instrument of knowledge. In this context the rational classification which adopts the different disciplines' ordering principles becomes crucial : this is what gives a library its name and structure ; its lack would reduce the library to a pile of books.

State, Nation, Archives While an integral part of the state since the 13th Century, the archives create the vehicle whereby force becomes right. Their conservation and classification policies determine the objective conditions of research of chroniclers, jurists and much later of historians. When as a result of the revolution the principle of a unified nation is established in France, the archives are subjected to a thorough reorganization : essential stages in this process are the selection, centralization, classification of documents, and legislation and control of access concerning these documents.

The Prussian classification of archives and the construction of the idea of historical memory Prussia is known as the paradigm of a state based on a bureaucratic order. This paper deals with Prussian historiography and its connexion to archives as media, that is, the idea of the state as an administration that transmits its own records through the structure of its files. Since the Allies' decision in 1947 to put an end to the “Land” of Prussia, the memory of Prussia remains in the “Geheimes Staatsarchiv” (Preussischer Kulturbesitz) in Berlin. But Prussia as a state still exists in the method of organization of its archives.

From the judicial memory of the German States to the historical conscience of the nation : archival and historiographical views among German speakers (end of 18th to 19th Century) Based on empirical data, it is difficult to demonstrate the concrete effects of archival and library classifications on a given historiographical practice. Against fast and loose inferences, I suggest that we direct attention to the insurmountable limits of such an enterprise, starting with the simultaneous historization of two types of discourse that are incongruous : the archivists' views and the so-called historicist historiography of German writers (end of 18th to 19th Century). If we recognize that in both cases we witness a fundamental paradigm shift (that is, from the judicial memory of the German States to the historical conscience of the nation), the connection between archival classification and historiographical practices appears neither direct nor unequivocal : beyond printed materials other kinds of sources must be extracted in order to provide evidence for the connection.

Classification as a reflection of state authority in Soviet archives In opting for the so-called pertinence-based principle contrary to the provenance-based principle, the Soviet archival discipline made the painful experience of ideological classification until in the 1980's. Objectivity replaced what was called “party spirit”. Thanks to the works of Avtocratov, Tsapline and Starostine, the community of archivists realized that a classification preserving best the integrity of the original connections among sources of historical information was most transparent for scholarly research.

(De) construction of archive Archivists and historians usually consider archives as repositories of historical sources and the archivist as a neutral custodian. Sociologists and anthropologists see “the archive” also as a system of collecting, categorizing, and exploiting memories. Archivists are hesitantly acknowledging their role in shaping memories. However archival holdings, archival documents, archival institutions, and archival systems contain tacit narratives which must be deconstructed in order to understand the meanings of archives. Although Technology is not the only factor to determine the structure and the content of archives because cognitive and cultural factors also play an important role, the structure and the writing depend on it.

Towards a new archival paradigm The archival tradition, based on provenance principle's respect of holdings and on medievalists' erudition, reached its full development with the publication of the Dutch textbook of Muller, Feith et Fruin and the introduction to the historical studies of Langlois et Seignobos in 1898. The reexamination was guided by the principle that archival materials must be treated with methods and techniques that are subject to international standards of validity. Roughly 40 years ago, the emergence of information technology, the changes in administrative setting, and in the utilization of archives, brought about a paradigm shift. The new paradigm could concentrate on the function of memory that is the archive-institution's objective.

The Computer, the Net and the writing of history Historians have been facing computers and internet for at least a decade. For some of them it has, or will, change the way History is written. Using available studies and looking at historical websites in the French and Italian context, we stress the lack of empirical evidence proving that the availability of electronic resources has already affected the way history is written. As for the future, considering that available technologies evolve quickly, and that the rules governing the way history is made (rarely an object of study) are produced by complex social and mighty organisations whose changes suppose social, cultural, and economic transformations, we conclude that it can not be predicted by looking only at the way present technological artefacts operate.

With the development of technological practices, can we speak of new historical subjects or simply of historical documents on new data medium ?

The organization of knowledge in the era of the global village : a universal point of view on the world After short history of the classification's and terminological approaches that generated a “linguistic abuse” — the price to pay in the international exchange of scientific knowledge— the danger of universalism in its attempts to uniform the representation of concepts in the digital era is stressed.

Rameau : From myth to necessity Beyond the meta-language and its pretence to universality brought by computerization, classification in the field of social sciences is particular : the theoretical elaboration raises more conflicts than in other fields because words which say the social world belong to it and contribute in return to shape it almost as much as express or reflect it.

Rameau and Opac : towards a « googleisation » of practices ? “The first wagon loads looked like diligences and the first cars like horse-drawn-carriages. Minds, which are used to now outdated technologies, use new tools with old protocols, is what I call the “diligence effect” (Jacques Perriault). “Diligence effect”, “serendip effect” and other challenges for media sciences. Could Rameau be finally a splendid example of the “Diligence effect” raised by Jacques Perriault ?

About some wrong perspectives from the on-line Catalog of the Bn
F The history of the construction of the BnF's on line Catalog makes obvious what we may call “wrong perspectives” that have to be pointed out to the users. These “wrong perspectives” are the result of the chronology of the retrospective conversion, indexing and gathering of documents.

Two different conceptual schemes : classification in the archives and in research During the 19th Century, archivists and historians performed their tasks in one and the same conceptual/methodological environment. The belief of collaborating together in the study of the past has been progressively etiolated to the point that henceforth the question of the archives' defining characteristics gained fundamental importance for understanding of how our knowledge is organized and how we reach our knowledge of the past. Today, the disciplines of history and of the archives are found in different intellectual spaces. This is the result of the evolution of activities that are at same time conceptual, technical, and practical. Among the consequences of the intellectual separation between the disciplines, we must count the need for a reconsideration of what archives are that is different from dated views that are rooted in a past when the discipline of history was the foundation of archival disciplines.

Archives and technological change Technological change in the era of computerization has twice transformed the world of archives and it tends to bring about a change from the archivist profession to a blend of computing and archivist professions. The introduction of computerization in archival services has first modified and facilitated the material administration of documents through the use of tools dedicated to the review of holdings, to the administration of available space, and to the handling of communications. But it is in the immaterial, in the handling of information on one side, and in the conservation of the new supports of documents on the other that the major change in the archival world occurs.

Archival workshop and Computerization While respecting the logic of each workshop in the production line of knowledge (archives, libraries, research), one of the future's challenges is to be able to develop “with good intelligence” programs which would allow quality of indexing and reinforce the possibilities of contradictory researches.

How do we find an archive ? The computer as a tool has not rendered the work more intelligent, it simply allows more operations to be performed within one and the same process. It does not necessarily lead to greater productivity, but it allows the refinement of certain tasks, for example finishing the archives' indexation by augmenting the number of elements suitable for describing a set of documents. But this does not necessarily mean that they can be found more easily...

Search engines and the pragmatism of surveys By avoiding both the pro- and con- attitudes toward technology, oppositions that support debates between new and old professions, we could approach the computerization that confronts us by conceiving alternative tools that guarantee the control of document collections and of records, and by bringing history into the central role it can play. We merely touch here on the problem of the relationship between the logic of the network and historical time : search engines and the Web's system of indexing bring about a particular relation to history that often raise problems.

Archives for what history ? Or, on the link between a microfilm recorder and how history is made. In Jordan, the practice of academic historiography relies on a specific mechanism for conservation and classification, and for making the archives available. Archival materials are stored in accordance with principles of scholarship that are determinant of the amenities of access, reading, and interpretation. Access to the archives presupposes a know-how restricted to experts, solely endowed with providing an authorized interpretation.

Conversation with Orion – the on-line catalogue of the UCLA library The online catalogue, if properly questioned, plays the role of the devil's advocate. What we get may initially seem puzzling. Yet, this bewilderment will only last for a minute. Generally, premises (in particular, ideological premises) immediately regain control of the situation. However, we still have to deal with the unforeseen question raised by random choice. Like in chess, openings in research are important, at times decisive.

Y bis Meditation on the call number Y bis at the Bibliothèque nationale – not yet “of France”, “that teratological pleonasm”.