Phoenix ascendant: French higher education and its significance for research and learning for library, book, print, and media culture history.(The Long March of French Universities)(Book Review)

The Long March of French Universities. By Christine Musselin. New York: Routledge Falmer, 2003. 224 pp. $85.00. ISBN 0-4159-3497-4.

Cultural interests possess and express transcendent power, whether it be effete or popular preoccupations. The rise of mass consumerism and mass entertainment among industrial and postindustrial nations has exerted an unbridled and unmistakable influence on higher education as well as library and information services, wherever these institutions exist. In a society and culture as highly articulated and as hoary as France, such conditions are complex and certainly nuanced. Unlike most national education systems, France possesses a highly centralized system emanating from Paris. Most governmental structures are situated on a national basis via centralizing authority and prerogative. All ministries focus their raison d'etre within the nexus that is Paris.

Since the founding of the first universities in Western Europe during the Middle Ages, universities have evolved, reflecting principal relationships with both secular and ecclesiastical concerns over learning and the prerogatives exercised by universities and similar institutions. (1) Often, the genesis and evolution of such institutions have reflected a fascinating history of institutional adaptation. Christine Musselin examines the changes that French universities have undergone since 1968, when the French government had to institute necessary reforms after student activism forced changes to be considered and installed. (2) Although medieval in origins, French universities underwent a less glorious period until the French Revolution. After several phases of abolishment, reconstitution, and renewed lease in 1896, universities were essentially ciphers, controlled by individual faculties, especially law, medicine, and philosophy. (3) After May 1968 universities could manage budgets and assume autonomy, something that Parisian central authority did not permit. Not until the late 1980s did universities begin to truly utilize their 1968 and subsequent prerogatives to establish degree programs and create innovative pedagogy as well as govern themselves further.

Musselin describes these institutional and administrative conditions and maneuverings vis-a-vis governmental interests and reactions. Dynamic tensions are explored and set within a context of policy and sociological observation. Musselin provides ample justification and assurances as to how these transformations, now celebrated by all universities, originated. Treating only university structures as opposed to the grandes ecoles but reflecting the two-dimensional world inhabited by both forms of higher education, Musselin brings the most illuminating analysis of French university transformation in terms of history and its bearing on change. (4) Informed by fifteen years of empirical work, this study offers insight into university resistance and adaptation, resulting in flexibility of institutional response.

French universities enjoyed a renaissance, unlike prior to 1968, when faculties and the professoriat dominated any reformative or administrative considerations emanating beyond their purview. Today, as Musselin so well demonstrates, French universities are much freer to originate policies concerning degree programs, administrative authority, budgetary interests, and relationships within provincial and national necessities. The creation of more employment-related specialty degree programs and research projects aligned with economic and industrial interests is a sign of such changes. Although still highly disciplinarily oriented, attempts are being made to bridge various disciplines within dynamically enriched degree programs focused on multidisciplinary and even interdisciplinary activity. (5) Today, as Musselin suggests, French universities can now enjoy their strengths and embark upon a future full of promise as autonomy becomes de rigueur.

LIS Education and Disciplinary Power

Library and information science has, for the most part, developed alongside various higher education structures as its definition has evolved. As French higher education has undergone essential read-justments, so too is this reflected in LIS and library, book, print, and media culture history and studies. (6) Currently, programs providing personnel for libraries are in place in a number of universities, where students can take short degree programs in book culture, emphasizing book arts, marketing, and programs leading to lower echelon library positions. (7) The most famous is the Ecole nationale superieure des sciences de l'information et des bibliotheques (ENSSIB), which prepares students, selectively matriculated for higher echelon positions, in a way similar to the grandes ecoles concept of providing future functionaries, that is, technocrats for French society. Several distinguishing features characterize this school: it is highly selective, and it emphasizes a multidisciplinary approach to libraries and the book arts, considering sociology of knowledge, information science, sociology of reading, as well as pertinent disciplines relevant to an acculturative education and training to a bureaucratic career. (8) As an example of higher educational institutional culture, ENSSIB speaks to Musselin's observations concerning autonomy. Although standing outside formal university structures, ENSSIB has a relationship with Universite de Lyon II, where students may prepare doctoral theses in library and information science proper.

Often theses and dissertations offer a clearer profile of a discipline's intellectual orientation if not evolution. With this in mind, a cursory bibliometric exploration of LIS research and library, book, print, and media culture graduate student studies was undertaken. Bibliometric examination revealed certain instrumental and normative qualities in graduate student research. Intellectual trends as well as professional considerations are illuminated, speaking again to the state of LIS and library, book, print, and media culture history.

Among the degree programs offered by ENSSIB is the formation initiale de bibliothecaire (FIB), which reflects the general characteristics of library and information science training. (9) During a de visu examination of subjects treated for this designation, one finds topics treating library policy, reference issues and concerns, collection management and content studies, as well as automation, Internet usage, Internet analysis, and database construction (table 1). Subject resources for disciplines and their usage are treated, as are documentation and cataloging problems, together emphasizing technical expertise and knowledge. The large number for 1995 indicates a larger count, not representative of the normal progression of student research achievement.

Another degree program training students for positions requiring knowledge and skills in more technical and technologically oriented areas is the diplome d'etudes superieures specialisees (DESS). An examination of subjects treated by students in their research indicates a dominant interest in database design and execution, Internet studies exploring various approaches to data, and management thereof. Web design and imagery, virtual libraries and electronic provision of information, utilization studies of scientific and technical knowledge, user studies and information retrieval comprise a major…