july04b.indd


CONFERENCE CIRCUIT 

Parisian
migrations



A
report
of
the
Western
European
Studies
Section’s


Paris
conference



by Denis Lacroix 

From March 22 to 26, 2004, 120 North American and European academics met 
in Paris at ACRL’s Western European Studies 
Section (WESS) Second International Confer­
ence. Participants spent the week discuss­
ing “Migrations in Society, Culture, and the 
Library” at various locations: la Bibliothèque 
nationale de France (BNF) (François­Mit­
terrand site), l’Espace Georges Bernanos 
(near the Opera Garnier and the Galeries 
Lafayette), and the Salon du livre (Porte de 
Versailles). The sessions, organized social and 
cultural events, and personal experiences in 
the French capital provided both a theoretical 
exploration and a practical discovery of the 
issues and realities of the changing world of 
libraries and publishing. 

Speakers and attendees discussed the 
migrations of literature, book collections, 
and art in the context of evolving formats 
and reflected upon the realities of publish­
ing. Jean­Noël Jeanneney, BNF’s president, 
observed that the migration of print to elec­
tronic format has re­established the book’s 
original nomadic identity, thereby potentially 
facilitating unrestrained social proliferation. 
This uncontrollable migration, according to 
keynote speaker Jean­Claude Guédon (Uni­
versity of Montreal), has concerned authori­
ties from Gutenberg’s time to ours. In work­
ing toward the formation of what Guédon 

calls new “epistemic communities,” librarians 
need to become aware of the effects of textual 
migration on readers. Roger Chartier, director 
of the École des Hautes Études en Sciences 
Sociales, concluded the conference by stating 
that “medium defines or redefines the reader­
ship, the meaning, and the status that a work 
has.” Chartier predicted that the future of the 
electronic migration of texts depends on how 
well the online medium manages to exceed 
its present tendency towards fragmentation 
and discontinuity. 

Salon du livre 
At the Salon du livre, WESS members 
benefited not only from the 160,000­square­
feet of exhibition floor space occupied 
by 1,500 publishers, but also from two 
informative panel sessions hosted by the 
national publishers’ union of France. The 
topic was the present and future of French 
publishing as seen by a number of publishers 
and authors. Le Bureau international de 
l’édition française (BIEF) and les éditions 
Grasset, du Seuil, Gallimard, Buchet­
Chastel, de l’Herne, and la Découverte 
contributed to the portrayal of the French 
book world. Buchet­Chastel invited authors 
Michela Marzano and Ong Thong Hoeung, 
l’Herne presented Jean­Paul Charnay to the 
audience, and Le Seuil not only celebrated 

About the author 

Denis Lacroix is the French/Spanish librarian at the University of Alberta-Canada, e-mail: denis.lacroix@ualberta.ca 

© 2004 Denis Lacroix 

C&RL News July/August 2004 / 385 

mailto:denis.lacroix@ualberta.ca


its author and editor Jean­Louis Schlegel, but 
also its online database of Roland Barthes’ 
textual and audio documents. 

Olivier Nora, president of les éditions 
Grasset, pointed out that French and Ameri­
can publishing resemble each other in the 
importance of supply and demand in the 
adult book trade, but differ significantly 
nonetheless. Speaking from a French per­
spective, he noted five main points of diver­
gence. First, the fixed book price favors a 
bottom­up structure and allows a wide range 
of publishing houses, both big and small, to 
exist in a symbiotic relationship. Second, in 
order to prevent unequal competition in the 
publishing industry, France does not permit 
book advertisements on television. Third, 
French writers generally do not hire agents. 
They simply send their manuscripts directly 
to publishers. Nora likened French publishers 
to both hunters and farmers, while stating that 
their American counterparts are only farmers. 
This dual approach sustains publishers who 
take risks on emerging authors in hopes that 
they may flourish in the future. Fourth, the 
French book market benefits from an aid 
structure, which includes aid to bookstores 
and publishers. Finally, French publishers are 
a tight­knit community, which Nora describes 
as “endogamous and conniving.” 

Learning about libraries 
WESS conference participants also took part 
in a tour of BNF and the Centre Culturel 
Calouste Gulbenkian, which presented the 
opportunity to learn about French libraries 
and their rich multicultural heritage. Two 
groups toured the François­Miterrand site 
of the BNF, which opened in 1996, and 
discovered its Haut­de­Jardin Reference 
Library and its Rez­de­Jardin Research 
Library, as well as its extensive closed 
stacks, whose resources are served to the 
public through 300 electronic carts traveling 
on 5 miles of rails. From the depth of its 
nearly 250 miles of shelving, its 200,000 
rare books, and five library sites, BNF has 
uncovered and is exhibiting until June 20, 
2004, 130 exceptional Chinese works dating 
back to the fi fth century A.D. Entitled Chine, 
l’Empire du trait,1 this exhibit breaths life 
into BNF’s collection of Chinese calligraphic 
works, paintings, and poetic texts, which are 
a good example of textual migrations2 from 

one continent to another. Migration and 
multiculturalism are also an integral part of 
the Centre Culturel Calouste Gulbenkian,3 

whose library opened in 1965 and provides 
access to more than 70,000 volumes in 
every subject area of the humanities relating 
to Portuguese culture. The encyclopaedic 
nature of the library attempts to encompass 
the entire Lusophone world. 

Culture and comradery 
Receptions at Paris’ 6th district’s City Hall and 
Altitude 95 in the Eiffel Tower, sponsored by 
Jean Touzot Librairie Internationale and Aux 
Amateurs de Livres International respectively, 
provided conference attendees with a taste 
of exquisite French culture and nurtured 
social and professional relations. Jean­Pierre 
Lecoq, mayor of the 6th district, and Jean­
Denis Touzot, president of the Librairie Jean 
Touzot, warmly welcomed WESS participants 
to a concert and reception at city hall. French 
music and literature had a place of honor 
during this sonorous concert of pieces by 
Claude Debussy, Hector Berlioz, and Henri 
Duparc, as well as the vocal arrangements of 
Théophile Gautier, Stéphane Mallarmé, Paul 
Verlaine, Jean Lahor, and Charles Baudelaire’s 
poetry. The celebration of French culture 
ended with mingling over sushi and wine. 

Similarly, Aux Amateurs de Livres treated 
conference attendees to a champagne aperitif 
before accompanying them down Avenue de 
Suffren and up to the Eiffel Tower’s fi rst fl oor 
restaurant, Altitutde 95, in a double­decker 
elevator. 

Inspired by their Parisian experience, 
WESS members have resolved to continue 
to create and foster cooperative relations be­
tween French and North­American libraries, as 
well as to plan a third international conference 
in five to seven years. 

Notes 
1. Sylvie Lisiecki, “L’art du trait en Chine,” 

Chroniques de la Bibliothèque nationale de 
France 25 (January­March 2004): 9–10. 

2. The exhibit has also migrated to the 
digital medium as it is partly viewable through 
the BNF’s virtual exhibit page: expositions. 
bnf.fr/ (accessed June 15, 2004). 

3. See the Centre’s homepage for a link 
to the library’s catalog at www.gulbenkian 
­paris.org/. 

386 / C&RL News July/August 2004 

http:paris.org
www.gulbenkian