10.6092/issn.1973-9494/578
What kind of formal training and continuing education are provided in France for special collection librarians, and how do they prepare librarians for the variety of educational roles they have to play? To answer these two questions I will mostly rely on my experience of ten years as director of Enssib, the school that has a monopoly on the initial training of all French librarians and provides most of their continuing education, hoping this will be of interest to our Italian partners with whom we work to define “new professional figures” dedicated to the preservation of cultural artefacts.
application/pdf
1973-9494
578
en
François Dupuigrenet Desroussilles
Conservation Science in Cultural Heritage
Enssib and the preservation of special collections in France
Text.Serial.Journal
https://conservation-science.unibo.it/
Articles
2008-02-21
2004-02-28
2015-11-02
209-214
CSCH
François Dupuigrenet Desroussilles
2004
10.6092/issn.1973-9494/578
209
1973-9494
en
214
Enssib and the preservation of special collections in France
https://conservation-science.unibo.it/article/download/578/559
E
     NSSIB AND THE PRESERVATION
     OF SPECIAL COLLECTIONS IN FRANCE


François Dupuigrenet Desroussilles
Institut d’Histoire de la Pensée Classique dell’Ecole Normale Supérieure Lettres
et Sciences Humaine
Lyon (France)




Institutional Context

   Among the elements of context necessary to assess the French situation, one of the
most peculiar is the very existence of an institution such as Enssib, the Ecole nationale
des sciences de l’information et des bibliothèques. In a higher education system that is
rapidly changing to conform to a competitive pattern, most senior civil servants, in
France, are still trained in selective schools, the grandes écoles, where you enter by com-
petitive exam, immediately acquiring the status of civil servant. This means, among other
things, that students receive a salary instead of paying to study. The best known are
Ecole polytechnique, Ecole nationale d’administration, or the Ecole normale supérieure.
After completing their courses there, students enter a corps, a body literally, meaning a
profession in the civil service, over which most of these schools have a training monop-
oly. The diplomas students receive are not university degrees but rather professional cer-          Quaderni di Scienza della Conservazione
tificates attesting to their entering one of the corps.
   Enssib is one of those grandes écoles, although more recent than most, having been
founded in 1992. Students who want to become librarians are selected after at least three
years at the university, whatever their initial background. They study at the school for 18
months that are divided into three periods of fundamental courses from January to June,
an internship that leads to the writing of a dissertation from July to December, and spe-
cialized courses from January of the second year to June. After that they will either be
appointed by a national commission in libraries depending from the state, that is all uni-
versity libraries, plus the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Bibliothèque publique
d’information in Paris, or they will have to look for a job in a library depending from a local

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                                                                                    authority. Continuing education is also mostly provided by Enssib, with programs negoti-
                                                                                    ated annually between the school and the ministries of Culture and Education. A librari-
                                                                                    an in France, special collections specialist or not, cannot escape Enssib.
                                                                                       A second element of institutional context, opposed to the hyper-centralization of train-
                                                                                    ing, is the dispersion of special collections. Collections of ancient books, traditionally
                                                                                    defined as books published before 1810, represent a total of circa 10 million copies: 3
                                                                                    million in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, 6 million in the local libraries, 1 million in
                                                                                    the university libraries. Similar figures would apply to manuscripts and non-book materi-
                                                                                    al. Institutions responsible for special collections are therefore mostly outside the univer-
                                                                                    sity, outside the educational world. On one hand we have the BNF, with its special col-
                                                                                    lection specialists and its tradition of high-level scholarship, on the other more than 300
                                                                                    local libraries with special collections whose origin stems from the revolutionary confis-
                                                                                    cations of the period 1789-1795. The revolutionary origin of the ancient part of most spe-
                                                                                    cial collections owned by local libraries explains that these collections still belong to the
F.D. Desroussilles - Enssib and the preservation of special collections in France




                                                                                    central state. They are called “fonds d’Etat”, state collections, and explain the presence
                                                                                    of a limited number of state librarians in local libraries.
                                                                                       Beyond that aspect of things the role of the central state in a country where decen-
                                                                                    tralisation laws are only a quarter of a century old is still pivotal in cultural policy in gener-
                                                                                    al and in library policy in particular. “Taking the fat from the mammoth”, as has been graph-
                                                                                    ically called by a former minister of education the transfer of responsibility from central gov-
                                                                                    ernment to local authorities, is a process that is indeed taking place, but at a slow pace.
                                                                                    Regarding special collections the state represented by the ministries of culture and educa-
                                                                                    tion, and by the Center for scientific research (Centre national de la recherché scientifique)
                                                                                    plays a leading part in national programs for conservation, cataloguing and digitising, such
                                                                                    as the recently completed databases of illuminated manuscripts Enluminures and Liber
                                                                                    floridus, freely accessible on the internet, or the Catalogue collectif de France, opened to
                                                                                    the public in 2001, on the internet as well, with its 16 million records of printed books and
                                                                                    periodicals coming from the BNF, the university libraries, and the municipal libraries.

                                                                                    Heritage versus information?

                                                                                       Nevertheless, responsibility for these collections is now clearly a shared burden
                                                                                    between the state and local authorities, which brings into question their very nature. The
                                                                                    term special collections is seldom used in France outside the Bibliothèque nationale and
                                                                                    its départements specialises. The most common term used to qualify what, in libraries, is
                                                                                    not strictly speaking information, is “le patrimoine”, the heritage. Regardless of their con-

                                   210
tent or their relevance, library collections are now part and parcel of a general movement
for the preservation of heritage that has often been ironically dubbed “la fièvre patrimoni-
ale”, heritage fever. Anything can be heritage, and all collections can, in a way, be called
special.
    Heritage policy does correspond to a general taste, or whim, of the public, and has for
deciders the advantage of being politically correct. Who would dare to be against her-
itage? But how does that translate in real life? The paradox of the present situation is that
librarians are strongly invited on one hand to provide content, digitised content of con-
temporary relevance – realizing in the digital world the XVIIIth century utopia of the library
as an encyclopaedia of useful knowledge –, and on the other hand to organize access to
collections of artefacts the value of which lies less in a content that is frequently accessi-
ble otherwise, but in their very nature of objects belonging most of the time to communi-
cation systems and cultures deeply different from ours. To use a term that has become a
buzz word in the cultural world, a mediation appears very necessary to educate the pub-
lic, the political authorities, and, last but no least, the librarians themselves, to the special
nature and the special needs of special collections. It is sometimes disconcerting, in truth
disheartening, to have to explain that these special needs have a cost, and a high one at
that. Conservation is costly, as are scholarly cataloguing, intelligent digitalisation, and all
“valorisation” policies to use another buzz word.
    Difficult decisions have to be made. On what ground? In libraries that assert increas-
ingly to be user centred what is the public directly interested by the heritage and what
are its educational needs? Strangely enough the “sociologie des publics”, developed by
such luminaries of French thought as the radical sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, and wide-
ly used as a policy tool for library management, has totally bypassed the heritage and
special collections. We lack any kind of serious quantification in that field – contrary to           Quaderni di Scienza della Conservazione
the numerous studies dedicated to museums and their public. To give a ballpark figure
though, it is often estimated that special collections in France concern four categories of
public:
–   a professional public, the special collection librarians acting in French libraries, wha-
    tever their professional status, roughly 150 people
–   a scholarly public composed of students and researchers in the university, around
    15.000 people
–   a public of collectors of all kinds, book lovers etc. estimated at 150.000
–   a general public that supports initiatives in the heritage field, more or less 15.000.000
    people.

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                                                                                       The categories mentioned all share one characteristic, beyond their dubious num-
                                                                                    bers, that of not being represented in a unified way. There is no such thing as a library
                                                                                    heritage lobby. In libraries special collection librarians are a minority, in the university
                                                                                    as well, and the numerically important population concerned by the heritage is frag-
                                                                                    mented, in political terms, between a number of local institutions. To this consideration
                                                                                    I must add the obvious fact that even more than paper products, digital ones have an
                                                                                    audience that goes way beyond the political community that decides to fund them.
                                                                                    Catalogues, databases, virtual exhibitions and the like are international by nature,
                                                                                    pointing to the fact that in Europe in general, and in France especially, no collection is
                                                                                    ever totally local.
                                                                                       All that means that to bridge the gap between special collections and their publics,
                                                                                    librarians have to think and act both local and global, both with next door neighbours and
                                                                                    with distant friends, well aware of the risky nature of their endeavour and of the difficul-
                                                                                    ties they will encounter.
F.D. Desroussilles - Enssib and the preservation of special collections in France




                                                                                    Where do we go from here?

                                                                                       To try and accommodate the various needs of the public, Enssib has chosen to act in
                                                                                    five directions. Putting Enssib forward is not due to sheer vanity but to the still hyper-cen-
                                                                                    tralized French situation.
                                                                                       First, in the initial training of librarians, where management skills and technology are
                                                                                    justly dominant, we have always kept a significant volume of teaching hours for the his-
                                                                                    tory of collections and the history of the book – in a broad sense. This choice has been
                                                                                    criticised, in the past, as an obsolete attitude – there was even a student strike against
                                                                                    the history of the book in the early eighties – but we now see it as a competitive advan-
                                                                                    tage, so to speak, in a Europe where most library schools have reduced dramatically or
                                                                                    totally suppressed, this kind of teaching.
                                                                                       Secondly, we have developed a series of continuing education sessions designed to
                                                                                    form a cycle dedicated to the heritage and special collections, from rare book or prints
                                                                                    cataloguing to the preservation of ancient photographs or the creation of virtual exhibi-
                                                                                    tions on the web. The public concerned here is mostly made of librarians who find them-
                                                                                    selves confronted with a career change or a special initiative that requires specific train-
                                                                                    ing. You can consult the programs on our web site (www.enssib.fr).
                                                                                       Thirdly, some of these continuing education sessions already take the form of virtual
                                                                                    classes that start three months before the actual face-to-face sessions and offer both a
                                                                                    specific course and individual tutoring. A good example is the course on ancient prints

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prepared by one of our specialists. We are constructing a library of teaching products in
the field, both for continuing education and initial training.
    To open even more the educational offer for special collections, Enssib as one of the
institutions behind a learned body, the Institut d’histoire du livre organizes since 2002 a
Book History Workshop on the model and with the help of the Rare Book School. It
presently offers five sessions in parallel during the month of April. Contrary to the gener-
al nature of continuing education programs mentioned earlier, courses in the Book
History Workshop are highly specialized and aimed not only at librarians in public insti-
tutions but to a wider audience of booksellers and collectors. Most of them are taught in
English, there again contrary to regular continuing education programs, to accommodate
an international audience. Probably because of the lack of such courses in Europe, and
the quality of teachers such as Michael Twyman or Kristian Jensen, to name but two, this
bold initiative has had a lasting success that will lead us to open a second session in the
summer.
    Finally, because we are convinced that traditional French style training for a closed
profession is no longer an option in its present form – just think that it is impossible now
for a foreigner to follow the curriculum of French librarians, and that conversely the
French diploma for librarians is not recognized abroad –, we have opened last year with
the university Lumière Lyon 2 a master’s degree called “Cultures de l’écrit et de l’image”.
Its aim is precisely to train special collections librarians, both French and foreign, that will
not necessarily have the title of “conservateur” but will be able to answer the needs, per-
manent or temporary, of public or private institutions. More and more in fact we see that
freelance personnel on a contractual basis fulfill tasks that traditionally were entrusted to
a permanent personnel of librarians, cataloguing special collections for example, or
organizing an exhibition. It is yet rare in libraries, but already common in museums. We                    Quaderni di Scienza della Conservazione
think it is important that training these new “professional figures” be done with the guar-
antees that our tradition can offer. Enssib and the Dipartimento di Storie e Metodi per la
Conservazione dei Beni Culturali of the University of Bologne (sede di Ravenna), have
started a collaborative effort to offer a truly European perspective to our students in the
field.

Riassunto
Quale “training” e formazione sono svolti in Francia e come si preparano i conservatori per le colle-
zioni speciali di libri? La esperienza maturata in 10 anni come direttore di Enssib mi consente di
rispondere alla domanda. La Scuola svolge l’iniziale “training” per i conservatori e provvede alla loro
formazione continua, potendo così rappresentare un esempio interessante per i partners italiani e
per definire le “nuove figure professionali” nell’ambito della conservazione dei beni culturali.

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                                                                                    Summary
                                                                                    What kind of formal training and continuing education are provided in France for special collection
                                                                                    librarians, and how do they prepare librarians for the variety of educational roles they have to play?
                                                                                    To answer these two questions I will mostly rely on my experience of ten years as director of Enssib,
                                                                                    the school that has a monopoly on the initial training of all French librarians and provides most of
                                                                                    their continuing education, hoping this will be of interest to our Italian partners with whom we work
                                                                                    to define “new professional figures” dedicated to the preservation of cultural artefacts.


                                                                                    Résumé
                                                                                    Quel “training” et formation se déroulent-ils en France et comment se préparent les conservateurs
                                                                                    pour les collections spéciales de livres? L’expérience mûrie en 10 ans comme directeur de Enssib
                                                                                    me donne la possibilité de répondre à la question. L’Ecole effectue le " training " initial pour les
                                                                                    conservateurs et s’occupe de leur formation continue, pouvant ainsi représenter un exemple inté-
                                                                                    ressant pour les partenaires italiens et pour définir les " nouvelles figures professionnelles " dans le
                                                                                    domaine de la conservation des biens culturels.


                                                                                    Zusammenfassung
                                                                                    Wie waren die Trainings- und Ausbildungsprogramme in Frankreich und wie werden die
F.D. Desroussilles - Enssib and the preservation of special collections in France




                                                                                    Konservatoren für die speziellen Sammlungen von Bücher ausgebildet? Meine 10-jährige Erfahrung
                                                                                    als Direktor von Enssib setzt mich in die Lage, auf die Frage zu antworten. Die Schule organisiert
                                                                                    das anfängliche Training und Programme für die fortdauernde Ausbildung für die Konservatoren.
                                                                                    Das ist ein interessantes Beispiel für die italienischen Partners und um die neuen Berufsprofile im
                                                                                    Rahmen der Erhaltung der Kulturgüter auszubilden.


                                                                                    Resumen
                                                                                    ¿Cuáles son los sistemas de preparación y formación utilizados en Francia y qué adiestramiento
                                                                                    reciben los conservadores para las colecciones especiales de libros? La experiencia acumulada en
                                                                                    10 años como director de Enssib me permite responder a la pregunta. La Escuela proporciona a los
                                                                                    conservadores, no sólo la preparación inicial sino también una formación continua, lo cual repre-
                                                                                    senta un ejemplo interesante para los colegas italianos y para definir las “nuevas figuras profesio-
                                                                                    nales” en el marco de la conservación de los bienes culturales.




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