Digital libraries and innovation

During the Internet emergence period, it was all of the scientific actors and transnational firms that committed to a surprising collaborative dynamics4 who, in tune with achievements an

coordinated by

Fabrice Papy

Digital Libraries and Innovation

Fabrice Papy Cyril Jakubowicz

First published 2017 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Press Ltd and Elsevier Ltd

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Contents

Chapter 1 Digital Building of

“Information Society” 1

1.1 “Information Society” infrastructures 1

1.2 Improving citizenship through digital technology 5

1.2.1 Digital libraries and technical fantasy 6

1.2.2 Availability and access to digital resources 9

1.2.3 Technological exceptions 12

1.3 Digital libraries and IR skills 18

1.4 Digital and information skills 22

1.5 Individualized paths in digital libraries 23

Chapter 2 Innovations 27

2.1 Digital libraries: a crucible for innovation 27

2.2 Definitions and typologies of innovation 31

2.3 The innovation movement regarding library computing 33

2.4 Innovation regarding library interfaces 37

2.4.1 Innovation actors in library interfaces 38

2.4.2 Innovation through usages 40

2.4.3 Innovation through hybridization 44

2.4.4 Identity innovation: new features of library interfaces and digital libraries 46

2.4.5 Meaning innovation 50

2.4.6 Desirable innovation 51

2.4.7 Desired innovation 52

2.4.8 Conviction: intention (motivation) and assiduity 54

2.4.9 Appropriate innovation 56

2.4.10 The new industrial revolution 61

Chapter 3 Digital Library Collaborations Focused on Technology 67

3.1 Collaborative models inherited from W3C recommendations 67

3.2 XML technologies and semantic descriptions 76

3.3 OAI-PMH: unqualified Dublin Core data production and sharing 85

3.4 Catalog FRBRization: from an obsolete model of collaboration focused on documents to a collaboration model focused on data 92

Chapter 4 Re-engineering Digital Libraries While Focusing on Usages 99

4.1 Possible usages, actual usages 99

4.2 Web technologies and anthropocentric perspectives 104

4.2.1 REST 105

4.2.2 DOM and XSLT 107

4.2.3 CORS 109

4.2.4 AJAX 111

4.3 User experience and cross-cutting Information Retrieval 112

Conclusion 115

Bibliography 135

Index 157

1

Digital Building of

“Information Society”

1.1 “Information Society” infrastructures

Approximately two decades – a short time at the level of human societies – were needed so that successive governmental action plans1

could provide substance to a political project regarding the digital evolution of our societies Within a few years, in the most economically and technologically developed countries, the need for an information transformation from human societies to tertiary economies appeared [MAT 07, RIF 05, THE 02, PET 98, MAY 97, HEN 96]: “Organizational changes driven by the implementation of new relationships with information, its processing and dissemination,

1 It was in 1998 that the Programme d’Action Gouvernemental pour la Société de

l’Information (PAGSI – Governmental Action Program for the Information Society)

was launched by the Comité interministériel pour la Société de l’Information (CISI –

Inter-ministerial Committee for Information Society): “The governmental action program entitled ‘Preparing the entry of France in Information Society’ intends to facilitate citizen’s access to administration via the Internet, universalize the online availability of public data, dematerialize administrative procedures, and make administration electronically accessible These guidelines led to a significant development of central administrations, decentralized services and State public institutions websites, as well as numerous initiatives presented on the site of the

Programme d’Action Gouvernemental pour la Société de l’Information (PAGSI –

Governmental Action Program for the Information Society)” – Circular of October 7,

1999 on the websites of State services and public institutions

can be the matrix of new major economic regulations and of the development of a new knowledge economy that needs to be theorized” [PET 98, p 341]

Knowledge, its availability and, more generally, the access to reliable and current information in markets, which proves to be of significant advantage for individuals, communities, companies and countries, has become extremely competitive due to economic globalization [DEL 12, BEN 09, UNE 05, UNE 03, OCD 04]

Beyond the substitutive dematerialization of the administrative and institutional operating modes and, more generally, of lifestyles, numerous observers saw these transformations as the expression of a new paradigm; that of a “rupture society” [DOU 13, DON 09, BER

08, RIF 05] yet considered by some as utopian: “The first of these phases would be the chaotic phase of innovation gestation, where rhetoric takes the form of a ‘rupture utopia’ Then, an implementation phase would follow, at the end of which the utopian reflection would either be embodied by an experimental project, a ‘utopia-project’, or would fail or refuse to face (technical and social) reality and would thus get lost in a ‘utopia-delusion’” [BER 02, p 6]

In light of the most recent digital developments, in the known context of economic globalization, it is more a “suppletive dematerialization”2 that the action plans, focusing on the Information Society Technologies (ISTs)3, sought to address [ASS 07, CER 02]

2 Like the Agence de développement de l’Administration Électronique (ADAE –

Electronic Administration Development Agency) created by a Decree in 2003 within the framework of the Electronic Administration 2004/2007 (ADELE) project At the end of its mission in 2007, the ADAE was integrated into the General Directorate for State Modernization (Decree No 2005 of December 30, 2005)

3 The European Parliament and Council of Europe prefer the term Information Society Technologies (ISTs) to the term, more often used, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) Even though they are very synonymous, the term “IST” has the advantage of reflecting the political, economical, social, cultural, etc ambitions assigned to ICTs (see Recommendation of the European Parliament and the Council of December 18, 2006 on the key skills for education and training throughout life Official Journal of the European Union, L394/310

During the Internet emergence period, it was all of the scientific actors and transnational firms that committed to a surprising collaborative dynamics4 who, in tune with achievements and devices leading to the adhesion of millions of Internet users, provided the

“high-frequency” rate of digital technological innovations (search engines and directories, social networks, digital documents, broadband, development languages for the Web, etc.)

Conversely, preparatory stages for the organizational, administrative and political foundations of an emerging “Information Society” (technical infrastructures, content production, governance of information systems, network security and robustness, legal adaptation and regulation, actor training and skills, data confidentiality, protection of privacy, sustainable development,

“digital policy”5, etc.), which were considerably less spectacular, were implemented at a far slower pace, due to the complexity of the architectures to be defined, the infrastructures to be developed, and the social and cultural regulations to be foreseen These tedious stages took place one after the other in the background of the vivid productions of tireless research and development from the economic actors of electronics, IT and telecommunications, whose media-friendly activities have made the headlines of non-specialized and specialized media6 for many years

Free from society, cultural, political and citizen issues with no immediate link to the economy or market shares to be won in an

4 The World Wide Web Consortium, created in 1994, is the main actor of production and distribution of World Web normalized technologies (HTML, XML, CSS, SSL, DOM, RDF, HTTP, SOAP, etc.) The consortium includes, among its 440 members, a large majority of international technological companies (see https://www.w3.org/ Consortium/Member/List, seen on 02/27/2016)

5 The Service d’Enquête des Fraudes aux Technologies de l’Information (SEFTI –

Information Technology Fraud Investigation Service) was launched in February 11,

1994 It reports to the Sub-Directorate for Economic and Financial Affairs within the Directorate of the Judicial Police of the Prefecture of Police of Paris

6 The number of pages indexed by Google and Yahoo!, and their technological war (engine vs directory), the RIS IT clusters, fundraising, stock exchange listing, the number of active users on Facebook or Twitter, etc

emerging digital economy, these ICT industrial actors never had to trouble themselves with matters such as individual liberties, digital divide and unequal access to the products and services of this

“Information Society” in the making The first years of Internet propagation were accompanied by the main technological firms, with

a great deal of advertising and communication operations, aimed at a wide audience already receptive, even familiar with, to techno-scientific evolutions, [NAY 14, BEA 12, MUS 10, PRA 92, LEV 96], advocating, on the one hand, their capacity for digital innovation and hinting, on the other hand, at the unavoidable turmoil that such innovations were going to create7

The 1990s and 2000s were years of technical and scientific enthusiasm regarding ICTs (and the Internet backbone8), used and popularized over and over again by the mass media, which offered a proactive story of the upcoming digital metamorphosis in society to a wide audience [DOU 13, BEN 09, QUI 03, BAL 03, CAS 01] This exuberant story about a digital world in the making benefited from a converging rhetoric – given the concerned technological fields – between the public structures of scientific and technical research, and industrial actors, whose research–development programs were often interwoven9 If academic contributions could be seen as representing a

7 “Digital technology is a metamorphosis of mentalities, mobilities and means, all at once It causes a boom of opportunities, both from the usage point of view, but also in their governance.” Soufron J-B “Digital strategy: Heetch convicted, the State sticks its head in the sand”, Lemonde.fr, March 5, 2017

8 Internet/Web, which increased its daily presence with Web 2.0, blogosphere, social networks, and even more individually, through applications linked to mobile phones, etc

9 Among the fund allocation procedures of the Agence Nationale de la Recherche

(ANR – National Research Agency), the consortium agreement aims to encourage collaboration between one or more companies and one or more research bodies (see Regulation on the ANR aid allocation procedures No ANR-RF-2013-1) By way of illustration, the research platform ISIDORE, which collects, indexes and values resource metadata produced by Humanities and Social Sciences, was partly created by the companies Antidot and Sword SA Those actively took part as consortium

providers, gathering teams from the Très Grand Équipement Adonis, the Center for

Scientific Communication (CNRS), the CNRS Humanities and Social Sciences Institute, and the Ministry of Higher Education and Research

scientific neutrality in the traditional processes of scientific and technical information dissemination (journals, seminars and books), however, their proximity to industrial partners within the framework

of research–development collaborations altered this neutrality

Through public–private collaborations, the results of scientific and technical research amalgamated into innovating products and services developed by industrial partners and contributed to their economic activities and commercial strategies: “Obviously, ICT applications should help to achieve major development objectives (in terms of health, education, etc.), whatever the impact of the ICT sector on the domestic economic performance (…) Thus, ICTs play a double role, both by improving the domestic economic performance, and by giving social impetus A double use that decision makers in terms of ICTs and development must be aware of ” [OCD 04, p 27]

The abundant techno-scientific production in the field of ICTs (hardware and software engineering), along with the significant marketing capacities of high-tech industrial actors present on every continent, and further amplified by traditional media, for which the birth of the “Information Society” meant great positive evolutions for human societies subject to the economic order, drowned out the discrete institutional rhetoric focused on citizen involvement in the emerging digital society [BOU 09, BEN 04, ABR 96, BRO 94]

1.2 Improving citizenship through digital technology

In this new society context, the development of robust technology

to disseminate information10 ensuring that the public service met the expectations and needs of citizens, appeared late: delivering

10 All the institutional websites must, in particular, comply with the framework imposed by the State’s Internet Charter The State’s Internet Charter, derived from

Circular 5574/SG of February 16, 2012, defines an Internet Départemental de l’État

(IDE – State Departmental Internet) model, aiming at ensuring the accessibility (RGAA) and security (RGS) of institutional sites (http://references.modernisation gouv.fr/) Beyond simple structure and display issues, it is a question of not confusing the user with information obtained from different services, which could prove to be inconsistent, or even diverging and contradictory

information accessible to all in a complete, fluent and consistent manner, taking part in public debate and action, reinforcing the transparency requirement from rulers, etc

Thus, the National Support Point of Territorial Digital

Development (Point d’Appui National Aménagement Numérique des

Territoires – PAN ANT)11 and the last two “Digital France”12 plans signaled the end of many other infrastructural projects, which were demanding steps, without which no strong digital construction could

be reasonably considered at the country level

1.2.1 Digital libraries and technical fantasy

The online availability of all the administrative procedures (services and resources), the dissemination of public and private content13, the digitization of cultural, educational14 and scientific15

11 http://www.ant.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/

12 Digital France 2008–2012 (Digital economy development plan, http://www francenumerique2012.fr): 95% of the 154 operating measures were successfully completed The Digital France plan 2012–2020 (Achievements and future prospects, http://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/rapports-publics/114000700/) aims

to reinforce the competitiveness of the digital economy sector

13 The digitized collection of the National Library of France (1.5 million documents), the French cadastral map making it possible to view 597,208 map sheets online, and 30,000 educational resources offered by Thematic Digital Universities, etc

14 At the educational and cultural levels, the portal http://www.histoiredesarts culture.fr offers full access to 5,000 resources in art history of the Ministry of Culture and Communication This online documentary device was designed to address the needs of the education community (school, high school) concerned with the new teaching of art history (see Official Gazette of the Department of Education No 32 of August 28, 2008)

15 The digital video library (25,000 audio-visual resources) canal-u.tv, directed by the

Mission Numérique pour l’Enseignement Supérieur (MINES – Digital Mission for

Higher Education), gathers educational documents validated by the scientific councils

of Thematic Digital Universities (there are more than 30 higher education institutions participating in the production of resources)

resources, etc resulted in important digital developments intended to provide all citizens – beyond these visible large projects – with significant evidence of a construction reasonably correlated to the claims of a “Knowledge and Information Society” [MAY 97]

Large digital libraries, nowadays gathering primary information resources designed to satisfy, if not the citizen project, at least the political project of the “Information Society”, inherited during their technical and conceptual development process a technical fantasy shaped by spectacular technological proposals: search engines and directories, social networks, e-commerce, etc [FLI 01, BER 02]

Web technologies designed, developed and deployed by the active industrial members of the World Wide Web Consortium, both in respect to the publication, sharing and surrender of electronic information [TGE 11], and the underlying sophisticated computer architectures [PAP 14, QUI 03], influenced all digital production animating the World Web (blogosphere, social networks, merchant sites, etc.) Without any scientific or institutional safeguard of technological possibilities, this influence extended as far as the representations of designers who, in addition to the development of technical platforms, developed a usage and digital practice fantasy for users/Internet users: “The fantasy proposed to users is largely based

on the designers’ utopias, but [ ] nevertheless underwent a number of transformations (…), we note that the views of Information Society practitioners, whether at the techno-scientific, economic and/or political levels, while referring to early phantasmagorias, greatly stray from it through a very immediate and practical perception of the challenges linked to ICTs” [BER 02, p 7]

These biased representations, but which are nevertheless shared by Web practitioners within their professional communities (graphic designers, integrators, programmers, administrators, community manager, etc.), first guided the design of techno-documentary devices, and then revealed their unsuitability for invisible user audiences, or rather that were mismatched with the designer’s representations [BOU 09] Generally, practitioners, who are experts in their field and convinced by the intuitive nature of the produced devices,

make the mistake of thinking that beginners will replicate behaviors, during sessions of interactions with devices, similar to their own [CHE 16, CHE 08] The digital breach that these devices make tangible no longer concerns unequal access to computer equipment [KIY 09], but technical skills and a proficiency in communication practices essential to the use of online resources: “…our results show that an e-administrative divide stems from both the access and processing of information, and the computer and Internet skills and usages We note inequalities in the face of administration concerning information processing The Internet does not improve information acquisition, since it is administration professionals and the most educated individuals who use administrative sites” [BAC 11, p 230] Involved in the preparation and monitoring of large infrastructure projects, States, who are actors in the “Information Society” construction, arrived late in the effervescence of online information publication, with no hope of being able to alter its trends The very prominent technological prerogatives (HTML, XML, CSS, Flash, etc.), which were standardized by consensus, distributed free of charge

by international private organizations, and quickly popularized worldwide by communities of practitioners who claimed, thanks to their technical ability and the constant refinement of technological tools (editors, browsers, formats, development languages, etc.), a creative and innovating capacity, did not leave States with the slightest chance to intervene in order to make technological evolution compliant with the requirements regarding information site use and access to all citizens with no exception: “But their reflection on the digital divide led to the consideration of other factors than those of dissemination: the factor of information use ( ) Yet, in order to measure actual use, it is no longer technology access alone that is considered, but the access to educational, social and cultural resources that is concerned, as it conditions the possibility of adopting information technologies as much as it facilitates its actual use” [IHA 09, p 47]

1.2.2 Availability and access to digital resources

In France, the Référentiel Général d’Accessibilité des

Administrations (RGAA – General Repository for Administration

Accessibility)16 tends to guarantee access for disabled persons to the online public communication services of the State and local authorities This institutional framework reflects a special concern not

to further the information isolation of disabled persons, who are rarely considered in the sophisticated graphic, interactive and ergonomic proposals of online publication This framework, which mainly links access and disability, suggests that access for all is taken for granted Apart from the fact that this framework only concerns public administrative structures, it does not bring about any response, or any solution to the fact that “…the digital divide is not only the result of unequal access to equipment and technologies This inequality is in fact doubled by the unequal distribution of digital literacy, in other words the technical skills and proficiency in legitimate communication practices (including the famous ‘netiquette’) required

by these technologies ( ) despite an increasingly widespread access to the network, the persistent illegitimacy of some forms of expression

on the Internet continues to keep the working class away from the standards of autonomy, self-fulfillment and recognition imposed in these new public spaces by dominant classes” [MER 16, p 91]

Thus, the RGAA, which is mainly inspired by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), was launched in 1996 by the World Wide Web Consortium and confirms the delay of the State which, by adopting recommendations that the most commercial sites do not yet

16 Decree No 2009-546 of May 14, 2009 (implementing Article 47 of the Act No 2005-102 of February 1, 2005 on equal rights and opportunities, participation and citizenship of disabled persons) requires an implementation of access within two years (from the Decree publication) to the online public communication services of the public institutions under its authority, and three years to the online public communication services of local authorities and the public institutions under their authority, https://references.modernisation.gouv.fr/rgaa-accessibilite/

implement17, has abandoned the thought of completely reviewing the cognitive and socio-cultural issues of digital access [MAN 00]

It is interesting to note that the WAI directives are in fact in contrast with the CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and DOM18

(Document Object Model) evolutions supported by the same W3C In fact, these two recommendations increase the graphic and animation possibilities of Web pages, on the one hand, and the modification of page content19, on the other hand, which seem incompatible, or even contrary to the WAI directives

The scope of online communication services under the responsibility of the State is also extremely wide It concerns legal information issued by ministries, local authorities, town halls, public institutions, private structures with a public service delegation (energy, transport, health, etc.), associations, etc The diversity of the actors is such that controlling online content access is unrealistic, and even simply impossible

Within these organizations, the often heterogeneous nature of the library objects and resources to be digitally managed and distributed determines specific technological choices for which the RGAA access directives are not applicable, and therefore removed by designers

17 The graphic and organizational designs of websites, in particular when they are intended for business (e-commerce of products or services), seek to be original in order to provide Web pages with semiotic and interactional features that will give the site a very different identity from that of competitive sites

18 The Document Object Model (DOM) Technical Reports, http://www.w3.org/ DOM/DOMTR

19 DOM makes it possible to dynamically modify sections inside the pages (data and presentation) It is the history mechanisms of browsers that become ineffective by being incapable – as was expected with static Web pages or Web pages dynamically generated in full – of tracking the local modifications of the page being viewed In the last CSS version, new animation possibilities appeared, even though they were little compatible with the readability issues of visually impaired persons or with the motor skills of the elderly

Gallica, the digital library of the National Library of France and its partners, reflects the discrepancy between the institutional will to ensure the accessibility/usability of the free access digital resources and the actual accessibility of the techno-documentary devices that are digital libraries Thus, Gallica, accessible online since 1997, enriched every week by thousands of new features, and nowadays offering several thousand freely accessible documents often in image, does not provide a page regarding accessibility20 and complies poorly with the practical and mandatory RGAA directives

The A criterion (minimum compliance criterion21) applied to the issue “Does each image have a textual alternative?”, aiming at checking that each image bearing information has a relevant textual alternative (and possibly a detailed description), is poorly complied with by the pages of the different online collections The inspection module of the Web page source code that browsers natively propose makes it possible to check, by displaying the attribute “alt” and its assigned value, whether it does bear the relevant replacing information (see Figure 1.1)

<img style=“vertical-align: baseline;” cl_14474-bandeaux-750” src=“http://www.musee-moyenage.fr/media/oeuvres/39- 40-vitraux-de-la-sainte-chapelle/vitrail-quatre-personnages-cl_14474-bandeaux-

title=“vitrail-quatre-personnages-750.jpg” alt=“vitrail-quatre-personnages-cl_14474-bandeaux-750” width=“750”

height=“204”>

<img src=“http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b69488325/f1.highres” title=

“Titus Manlius: [estampe] / G.P.” alt=“Titus Manlius: [estampe] / G.P.”

class=“img-thumbnail content”>

Table 1.1 Extracts from the html (<img >) code of two pages referenced by

Gallica In the first extract, the attribute “alt” uses the computer file name, and

in the second one, it uses that of the attribute “title”, allowing the user to display the superimposed series of characters when the mouse passes over the image

20 On March 4, 2016, the page http://gallica.bnf.fr/html/und/accessibilite gave access

to the following information: “Accessibility This page is under construction” On the same date, the Europeana site did not give any access to this “accessibility” page

21 The maximum compliance criterion is the triple “A” (AAA) The technical framework of the RGAA 3.0 devotes 19 criteria only to the image object

Given the volumes of digital resources to be managed, the costs of qualified staff and technical means to deploy, in addition to the partisan rhetoric of designers as to the technological specificities of their projects, legitimizing a kind of derogatory exception to accessibility (as understood by institutions), mean that digital libraries, although established on the initiative of public authorities, tend to stray from the legal and citizen frameworks intended to prevent the rise of unequal access to information22

1.2.3 Technological exceptions

The constant innovation/obsolescence process in Web technologies (HTML/XML, HTML/XHTML, HTML5/Flash, Frame/DOM, DHTML/AJAX, WSDL/REST, XLST/Responsive Design, etc.) is an excuse to call upon technological exception in the developments of digital libraries Software firms, which are often partners or providers

of these sophisticated devices, to whom the public authorities entrust their conceptual and technological development, efficiently – from a viewpoint focused on technology – implement the latest digital solutions This urgency to implement such solutions finds its peremptory justification in an accepted rhetoric as to the improvement

of technical performances generated by the adoption of these new technological processes, which are carefully adjusted to the specificities of library issues and the technical availability issues of the platforms to be developed

22 Regarding the RGAA, sanctions for non-compliant online public communication

services (services de communication publique en ligne – SCPL) remain an insufficient

deterrent It is above all the wronged users who should come forward by taking steps

to report any defect in the SCPLs viewed At the end of an administrative procedure,

it is the Minister in charge of disabled persons or the prefect who shall give formal notice to the public institution to comply with the RGAA The institution will then have one month to indicate the steps taken to remedy the situation After this deadline, the SCPL will be reported in a list electronically published by the Minister in charge

of disabled persons

Ultimately, digital libraries organized according to the interoperability model supported by Web technologies became

“recurring exceptions” to the State’s Internet Charter Designed according to technological models intended to facilitate, on the one hand, their maintenance and scalability and, on the other hand, access from a wide variety of equipment with variable technical features, digital libraries were built on the technological wave of the tools promoted by the W3C members

By abandoning these information pillars of the “Information Society” for a dominant technological control, it is by necessity that these sophisticated techno-documentary devices are abandoned for the usage representations of designers [DUP 11, CIA 10, GUY 09, CHE 08, PAV 89] After a usage study on the Persee.fr portal,

Chauvin et al [CHA 09] mentioned that “After 2 years of existence, a

very significant increase in the number of journals since its release online (tripled), and several hundred thousand connections, the success of the portal in terms of appropriation by its users remains mixed In fact, the difficulty in significantly seeing some consistency

in the registered users consulting the site, (generic and thematic) forums integrated to the portal not being used, the lack of interest from Internet users for complementary services (despite being free of charge), features like advanced research being very little used, and finally the difficulty in identifying visitors’ profiles and their effective use of the portal, are so unclear that they make the tangible impact of the portal on the research community obscure”

This failure of online information systems to meet users’ expectations and to allow for their ability to use them tends to increase nowadays: “The Defender of Rights notes that the dematerialization of procedures by public services excludes many users, who are left unable to proceed with the required steps” [DEF 16, p 81] This current observation, which is the exact opposite of the digital projects

launched (and funded) by public authorities23, which are, however, aware of the risks of the digital divide within society, reflects the logics focused on technology, and the intractable “edge effects” of computer logics and modeling, which insidiously take precedence over the design and implementation of computer systems

The computer developments essentially led by a team of engineers who are experts in their field – often unfamiliar, or even unaware of the psychological, cognitive and ergonomic conditions under which users will interact with the computerized information devices – will generate non-use situations, which will fuel the exclusion dreaded by the public initiators of the “Information Society”: “If it is true that new technologies are supposed to be at the service of the human being, it should be noted that they raise numerous questions and often create obstacles to the performance of our activities, whether daily or less frequent” [DIN 08, p 19]

It is then that the issues regarding information failure or dissatisfaction, which are raised during the creation of these information devices, although they were thought of at the political level in order to prevent them, are going to be felt by individuals with the weakest social, cultural, educational, economic, legal, etc background, as a new injustice linked to “digital society”, adding up

to that of traditional society [VIT 16, KIY 09, WOL 00]

23 The “Internet Usage Delegation” (Délégation aux Usages de l’Internet – DUI),

attached to the Ministry of Education, and created by the Decree of December 8,

2003, was responsible for proposing all of the measures to extend Internet access: training families, children and the general public to use new technologies The

“Digital Agency” (Agence du numérique) (Decree 2015-113 of February 3, 2015),

now attached to the Director General of companies, (http://www.entreprises.gouv.fr/ agence-du-numerique) replaced the DUI, which, while pursuing the missions initially entrusted to the DUI, saw its activities extend within the framework of the “Digital France” plans The Digital Agency must help equip and support households, in particular those lagging behind in digital use (seniors, families with low income, persons with low education levels or unemployed, etc.)

The logics focused on technology of the techno-documentary devices that are equipping the technical infrastructure of the

“Information Society” are amplified by the competitive context of companies, contracting authorities and usual software firm sponsors, who demand that the applications developed comply with the framework of the business processes specific to the company If interoperability is mentioned within the developments entrusted to software firms, its aim above all is to make the technical collaborations of distinct processes more flexible, as the latter are generally autonomous but can circumstantially have some impact (stock management, invoicing, accounting, customer relations, etc., see Figure 1.1)

Figure 1.1 Schematic technological interoperability of merchant sites The

purchasing of products via the Internet creates a succession of technical operations handled by different applications, which are part of the Information System (IS) of the company (front-end merchant, CRM, stock management, accounting) or outside it (IS of the banking institution, secure payment Website) The SOAP or WSDL protocols (represented by the bi-directional arrows) facilitate inter-application cooperation by standardizing the messages exchanged in the XML format The network communication architecture transmitting the standardized messages is distributed (client–server) and relies on the HTTPS protocol, which is widely used on the Web

This functional interoperability within the company, implemented

by technological processes promoted by the W3C and its members, is not, however, designed to take part in a global operation within a hypothetical network in constant development, which would be composed of companies with varied activities, and possibly competing Such a perspective of an upward interoperability, which would generate a kind of information meta-system, the components of which would be fueled by the information systems of the occasionally linked companies, obviously seems incongruous within the context of current economic globalization

In fact, software firms, which deploy for their business customers interoperable applications meeting the current technological standards

in software engineering, restrict this interoperability with the internal processes of the company, even neutralizing any opening feasibility for security reasons (intrusion, hacking and fraud)

Technological interoperability as deployed by software firms, under the control of the contracting authorities that are their customers, is then a containment interoperability, which these computer engineering companies replicate as an implicit management rule, common to all their clients

By taking charge of the order of public authorities for the development of digital libraries intended to provide the users and citizens of the “Information Society” with resources, software firms also introduced, at odds with the W3C24 project, this containment interoperability in each development of the society digital project The large digital libraries with cultural, scientific and technical resources (HAL, Gallica, Canal-U, Persee.fr, SUDOC, revues.org, ISIDORE, etc.), which should operate according to the W3C generic principles of interoperability and offer users homogeneous and immediately identifiable interaction features, see their ergonomics and opening surfing possibilities reduced by the computing development practices of software firms derived from the restrictions of companies [CAR 10]

24 To lead the Web (of documents and data) to its full potential by developing shareable protocols that will help its evolution and ensure its interoperability

To this restrictive logic driven by private organizations was added the marketing strategies of commercial mega-sites (merchant sites, mainstream social networks, participative sites, etc.) to convert casual Internet users-visitors into active customers and keep them under their sphere of influence: “Here, we are mainly making a connection with a rationalized interaction logic based on the usage and appropriation by companies not only of their Website, but also of community spaces…” [DOR 10, p 40]

It is thus that the creation of user/customer accounts on free sites mechanically followed the footsteps of merchant sites25 regarding their needs (order, payment and invoicing), either by creating confidential and secure spaces (for online payment) or by using mainstream social network features26 By registering – even outside of any business activity – the converted Internet user gets the benefit of a few additional services, for which they would not qualify if they remained

an anonymous visitor

These functional logics, guided by the corporate world and digital marketing, implemented by default by the software firm development teams in digital libraries, blossomed with greater ease since the interoperability control by public authorities, which made the order, failed While institutional directives for public communication services were indeed defined (RGAA, State’s Internet Charter), their application was postponed, or even suspended, in sophisticated technological developments such as digital libraries

25 On these free sites, the term “basket” is used to memorize some actions during surfing, like what merchant sites offer to make a purchase On the SUDOC portal, in the menu bar, “my basket” allows the Internet user to memorize, during his viewing session, the bibliographic notes they selected, and which they will then be able to export

26 On the Université Ouverte des Humanités (UOH – Humanities Open University)

portal, the creation of an account allows the user to benefit from space to store favorites and send comments (http://www.uoh.fr/front/account_create) On Persee.fr, the user account inside the portal present in the first versions was removed and replaced by the use of accounts registered on social networks like Facebook, Google+ and Twitter

As public authorities did not intervene in these complex developments, and with the maturation of Web technologies, they entered into a phase of industrialization of heterogeneous, converted

or natively digital content production (text, image, video, audio, 3D, etc.) It is a multi-faceted technological interoperability with a variable geometry that is spreading to the detriment of citizens Technological interoperabilities are now available in different versions, imposed by the designs focused on the technology of digital platforms: encapsulated, collaborative, conditional, federated/delegated, partial, etc., which require users to have information and digital skills, and extrapolation capabilities for the complex operation of computer systems, which are far from being known by all citizens [FEY 07, RIE 06]

These skills mobilized in complex operations of Information Retrieval (IR) have been fueled for many years by scientific work and studies Questioned on a regular basis with each delivery of a digital device which is part of the building of the “Information Society”, they are eliminated straight away: “Since the 70s, the issue of information skills that should be acquired at school and university is recurring With ICT development, the notions of ‘information culture’ or information literacy emerged If there are different co-exiting approaches to the concept, they agree on these points: being

‘infoliterate’ is to know how to properly find and use information” [SIM 08, p 23]

1.3 Digital libraries and IR skills

Widespread access to information, its production and sharing result

in unavoidable changes in the way we understand Information Retrieval (IR) It no longer only applies to narrow sectors linked to a greater or lesser extent of the technical and scientific information world, but indeed concerns all the physical and moral, individual and collective entities of our changing societies [BER 08]

The Internet requires that everyone should be minimum27

connected and have the essential information and digital skills in support of a beneficial control of information, if they want to continue

to have access to leisure, culture and knowledge [BOU 15, GRI 11, UNE 05, WOL 00, MAY 97]

The emergence of the Internet and its worldwide rise in a very short time, causing a spectacular technological shockwave [MUS 10, BER 08], concealed the period when hypertext/hypermedia devices stagnated in the face of the human problems raised, on the one hand,

by cognitive and educational issues (disorientation, information overload, cognitive overload, cognitive profile) and, on the other hand, by the organization of hypertext extensive networks, which were potentially connected, reviewable by nature, indefinitely incremental, and manually or (semi)automatically produced by many designers (author logics/reader logics) [KEF 16, CAT 14, CHA 07, CRA 01, CAS 96, BAR 96, CON 87]

Scientific contributions on hypertexts and hypermedia highlight the problems that are still very topical in relation to the drafting of hybrid library objects (text and hypermedia), scriptwriting (narrative material design and configuration), the activity of subjects, reading/drafting practices (annotations and training), or even information contextualization28, which at best appear to be avoided by Web technological solutions, and more often mishandled by them [PIE 14, ANG 11, IHA 09, ISA 07] While disorientation and dissatisfaction problems have not been solved by the technologies used in websites, the digital equipment of informational mass improved neither tracking conditions nor the ease of surfing/exploration: “Digitized informational documents published online are meant to be quoted, reproduced, commented and shared anywhere on the Web Consequently, compliance with their usage should ideally go as far as the Web and its different applications, by exploring the

27 In case of transport malfunctions, pollution risks, weather warnings, etc., users are now guided towards online services (Websites, microblogging, social networks, etc.), which regularly offer updated information

28 Context information acquisition aiming at supplementing primary information and/or accompanying the information/cognitive profile of users/readers

multiplicity of their reuse, the diversity of their neighborhood and the radicality of their transformations A program that no study tool nowadays can pretend to be respecting: we only have a series of slightly burred photograms of a film that keeps being shot every day” [CHE 16, p 46]

The use of the technical features offered to users by digital libraries, which remains uncertain, and often confusing, deepens the divide between the assessment by designers of devices which, according to them, work properly (approach focused on technology) and the assessment by users of the same (anthropocentric approach), for whom the main difficulty consists of reconciling their cognitive activity with the technical features found on the devices they are driven (or forced) to integrate into their constructive activities [CIA 10, CHE 08, DIN 08, CIA 05]

This observation can be generalized to most digital libraries which, without the implementation of a very strong mediation, are underused

by potential users The latter only very anecdotally use the tools associated with the reader/user accounts that they are encouraged to create free of charge in order to benefit from various advanced features [PAP 15, FAR 08, PAP 07d] They merely use basic tools (basic search), they are not aware of the underlying mechanism logic (relevance calculation, disambiguation, federated search, etc.), and finally make little use of the advance search possibilities, which require the mobilization of library skills that they do not have (syntax

of query languages, lexical diversity, spelling variation, synonymy, proximity, etc.)29

This again confirms the artificial nature of the recurring cycle of obsolescence and innovation, which especially takes hold of the devices mediated by ICTs, for the sake of improving users’

29 “ Recent studies show that, in most cases, requests made include two terms or less (Jansen, Spink, Saracevic, 2000), which is very little to represent a need for information ( ) We know that making a query by means of Boolean operators is counter-intuitive for users who are not specifically trained to do so (Avrahami and Kareev, 1993)…” [SIM 02, p 405]

(productive, cognitive, information, etc.) activity, or providing better access30 to digital collections31, which can be dynamically reorganized according to opinions, and which are guaranteed by the software engineering teams responsible for developing them, provided that the latest technologies are used

Digital artefactualization which, for the sake of innovation, revisits several occasion territories of human activities already instrumented, takes advantage of contradictory positions which, by neutralizing communication, leave these performative information processing technologies entirely free While some authors write about the possibilities offered by these memory and intelligence technologies [LEV 97, STI 86], others question the actual suitability of these technologies for mental processes, and the new procedures to access knowledge that should be taught [LED 15, DEN 06], in order to collect the cognitive benefits promised by the information and knowledge supported by digital technologies: “Thus, we should probably work not only with non-users who never got involved in the practice of connected computing, people who abandon and disengage after trying to use the Internet, but also with individuals who, if they have the hardware (computer and connection) allowing them to access the network of networks, only develop however little usages in terms

of frequency, duration, and/or usage types Taking into account these poor users requires us to understand well, from the perspective of appropriation, a social phenomenon which is often reduced to mainly infrastructure indicators (that is to say a problem linked to the adoption of innovations)” [BAC 11, p 230]

30 We should differentiate resource availability

31 More than 54 million library objects are gathered in Europeana: images, texts (OCR), audio sequences, video sequences and 3D objects (source: Elisabeth Freyre,

“TEL et Europeana: exemples thématiques de coopération entre institutions

culturelles” (TEL and Europeana: thematic examples of collaboration between

cultural institutions), 12 April 2023, séminaire européen de l’École Doctorale SHS,

“Humanités Digitales” (Digital Humanities), University Lille 3

1.4 Digital and information skills

Like general search engines became the prevailing technological model in terms of Information Retrieval (IR), digital libraries limit IR

to the practice of query (inquiry) as it potentially guarantees, by means

of a full-text search, finding any resource likely to meet the user’s expectations [SIR 16, RIE 06, SIM 08, BEA 02, ASS 02] This query logic is so prominent that digital library administrators do not dare try

a digital resource organization, such as the one prevailing – thanks to universal classifications (Dewey, CDU, LCC, etc.) – in physical libraries While it seems absurd to organize a physical library by filing books or journals mainly according to publishers and their collections, many journal portals32 only offer this unique other access mode as an organization principle When there are attempts to organize them according to scientific disciplines, sub-disciplines or scientific grouping (even arbitrary), they consistently result in a list of journals

In Europeana, the digital collection of which is mainly supplied by European libraries, the use of universal classifications is ignored and replaced by completely unprecedented and little documented organization processes33 These deliberate choices by designers give priority to a technological solution to the problem of information and knowledge organization – minimalist in the end (query by a keyword) – which has a significant impact on the usability and acceptability of digital information devices by less competent audiences Whatever they are, discrete organization attempts highlight, on the one hand, the considerable weight granted to information search algorithms and, on the other hand, a representation of an Internet user

or a user with established information and digital skills In practice, according to the experience of Internet users, query mechanisms lead

to success or silence In fact, the tools made available to Internet users by these library environments do not any way allow them to create a semantic reorganization of the results obtained, or to make them available to other users in the logic of sharing and collaboration

32 Persee.fr, cairn.info, erudit.org and revues.org

33 For example, search for images by color and search by kind or themes

“2.0” that is, however, now gained [AGU 08, PRO 06, PAP 03] Finally, more generally, with the diversification and increase34 of digital media (audio, video and image), platforms of mass publication and dissemination of audio-visual resources, such as DailyMotion, YouTube, Vimeo, etc revealed that search technological processes in audio-visual contents remain very primitive compared to the sophistication of the search techniques and algorithms used by general search engines for text documents Although significant scientific progress has been achieved in terms of the automated analysis of video and audio content (signal processing and vectorization), indexing and search devices related to video and audio resources are ineffective in finding audio and video resources, if they have not been the subject of a specific indexing by metadata

1.5 Individualized paths in digital libraries

The construction mechanisms of reading “virtual network” or reading paths, commonly described in scientific literature linked to hypertext, are still studied [BOU 12, KOS 11, MAD 09, GOL 97, BUR 96] Naturally, it does not concern the elementary functions allocated to the “authors” of dynamic websites, designed from Content Management Systems (CMS), in which two types of clearly identified Internet users coexist: on the one hand, Internet users who view the information posted online and, on the other hand, administrators who enjoy the privileges of being able to update in form and substance (insertion, removal, modification of data and documents, access allocation) the Intranet/Internet sites

In these virtual networks developed by readers-authors35, this is indeed the ability to express multiple points of view (as well as

34 YouTube: 100 hrs of videos posted online every minute, 1 billion single users every month, more than 6 billion hours of video viewed every month; Apple ITunes Store: 6 million songs available in 2008, 4 billion titles sold; Flickr: more than 5 billion online iconographic resources, etc

35 The “Lectacteur” (reader-actor) according to the neologism created by Jean-Louis Wessberg, Présences à distance, L’Harmattan, Paris, 1999 The term

“comsommacteur” (consumer-actor) is becoming common with a more commercial

version of Internet users’ activity

semantics) on the resources available within one or more interoperable library environments [LAU 02, PAR 02] The hypertext surfing36 of a reader within a set of resources organized into a network results in the construction of a viewing path, which can be materialized under the form of a re-usable digital document (in XML, for example) This viewing path is built throughout the links that the reader activates in the resource nodes visited, or by means of the interface controls that the reader uses (previous resource, following resource, associated resource, resource of the same nature or type, backtracking, character string search, history, related network(s), etc.) The resources visited, possibly reorganized to sometimes disrupt the unexpected initial search/reading path (serendipity), then end up representing a “point of view” on a specific theme or search context Once reading paths are uncluttered, reorganized, supplemented and identified (by the author,

a community of authors, a collective, etc.), then they can be made available to new Internet users They could be the subject of a continuous update, by adding/removing resources and by semantizing the “nodes” and links composing this virtual network [PAP 03, BAR 96]

These viewpoints, materialized by reading paths that can be made available to Internet users by authors/administrators, offer themselves

a mode of access to digital resources through information and/or cognitive profiles, or by theme at minimum In this period of the Web, before the emergence of digital social networks, issues regarding the exploitation of online resources, indexed by search engines, found the first step to a solution with RSS feed aggregators (NetVibes, Google Reader, Planet, FreshRSS, etc.), which made it possible to gather pages and comments within an elementary “virtual network”

It is from the perspective of these Internet user-author/Internet user-reader surfing paths widely studied in historic works on hypertext, which we are considering the appropriation of digital libraries by users This approach, which requires actual information and technical skills, is to date excluded from the global interoperable framework, within which all online public communication services

36 Associative surfing

organized by public authorities fall [NOY 07] Beyond the digital skills it implies for users-citizens, this approach, on the one hand, has the advantage of overcoming the over-reliance on the technological interoperability versions produced by software firms and, on the other hand, replaces the need for training all citizens in information and digital culture [DRO 12, LE 10, CHA 10, CHA 09, FLU 08, BAL 98]

The issue of the access to heterogeneous documents in constant evolution, intended for the many, fuels problems, which traditional libraries have been facing for a long time Despite the outdated assimilation they can be the subject of, physical libraries are still fully playing their socio-cultural part, by offering all audiences, from the youngest to the oldest, whatever their social background, access and mediation to vast collections gathering information and knowledge of all kinds The distributed physical architecture they offer to all users,

by means of a cross-linked organization of facilities with different sizes and uses, which are structurally compatible (municipal, departmental libraries, secondary school libraries, university libraries, etc.), by optimizing positive pooling [POU 15], makes a variable geometry operation possible, which provides users with a great diversity of library resources, cultural proposals and technical services This reinvention principle, integrated into libraries and their staff, along with the daily close relationships they maintain with their audiences, led, after an uncertainty period linked to the pressure of digital technology, to original expressions, the hybrid library resulting directly from it

2 Innovations

2.1 Digital libraries: a crucible for innovation

The innovations that appeared in the field of digital libraries originate from the transformations experienced – and still being experienced – by physical libraries before them “Not only are digital libraries intricate technological systems comprising scanning, storage, transmission, display and printing components, they are also embedded in complex social systems, comprising librarians, engineers, funders, scholars, and general users” These libraries first integrated computer applications in order to manage their document collection technically [HEG 85] With the inauguration of the Web phenomenon and the more participatory Web 2.0 [SEV 13, PIR 10, QUO 10, VID 09, RIE 06], they undertook to offer digital access to an audience more or less familiar with online services [CER 10, THO 02] Libraries then gradually took over the field of library interfaces and portals intended for their users: “Web 2.0 then reflects the transition from interactivity to interaction and thus contributes to the construction of networks no longer based on information exchange, but on knowledge sharing It is a set of principles and practices allowing the web to become an exchange platform between users, online services and applications rather than just a display” [QUO 09, p 11]

This technical evolution focused on use and users captures attention, especially in terms of the innovation perspectives it implies

If the study of innovations in the field of digital libraries previously required taking an interest in those that initially characterized – and still actually do – physical libraries, the fact remains that these innovations fall within a much wider dynamic known as the “third industrial revolution” [DEN 04, CAR 00]: “The divide likely to be introduced by the business model of the digital library studied is reflected in particular by a radical change in the prevailing revenue model This case makes it possible to go beyond a strictly instrumental approach to the business model, and sheds light on the way socio-cognitive and pragmatic dimensions interact and establish an acceptability of the innovating business model” [LAI 12, p 75]

Thus, the evolutions of digital libraries do not represent a separate set of singular innovations They are the result of an “innovation movement”1 giving them a specific dynamic intrinsically linked to the unwavering socio-cultural purpose of libraries2 Focusing on this movement first led us to analyze the upheaval that marked Integrated Library Management Systems (ILMS), especially in France, and then, more specifically, the evolution of library interfaces However, doing

so entails the risk of drawing a list of innovations which only has a restricted analytical interest Using the concepts developed by economic science allows us to understand the meaning of this movement The objective is to use the theoretical corpus developed by the economic theory of innovation in order to understand the evolution

of digital libraries and view them in the larger context of this new industrial revolution

Innovation has become a “key word”, in other words a convenient

signifier In his conference on Innovation at the ENSCI (École Nationale Supérieure de Création Industrielle – French National

Institute for Advanced Studies in Industrial Design) in October 2013, philosopher P.-D Huyghe explained the term as “a signifier making

1 A movement born from the advent of Web 2.0 at the beginning of the 2000s (2003)

2 For instance, the Library Charter adopted by the Conseil supérieur des bibliothèques

(Library Higher Council) on November 7, 1991 (http://www.abf.asso.fr)

you wonder what exactly it is the sign is for”3 The current economic situation dominated by recession turned innovation into a central and antagonistic theme However, the economic crisis is not limited to the business world but is also political and affects the democratic model According to Marcel Gauchet:  “The fact that democracy no longer has sworn enemies does not prevent it from being tempered by an intimate adversity, which is ignored as such, but which does not make its effects any less daunting” [GAU 07, p 55] Other historians noted

a political crisis, like Pierre Rosenvallon who blamed it on what he

defines as impolitics: “the failure to globally understand problems

linked to the organization of a common world” He considers that

“there is no longer any politics, if actions cannot fall within the same narrative and be represented on the single public arena” [ROS 06,

p 29] The crisis is also social, with the spectacular increase in

inequalities as specifically analyzed by T Piketty [PIK 13] The OECD Secretary-General revealed on Thursday May 21 2015, by presenting the report “In it together: Why Less Inequality Benefits All”, that “inequalities in OECD countries have never been as high since [the OECD has been measuring them], [ ], we have reached a critical point” Whether it is in the political, economic or social field, innovation is regularly mentioned, sometimes as a poison, often

as a cure4

Thus, the democratic process innovation adopted by Iceland highlights its political dimension: “Icelanders responded to the financial crisis in 2008 by launching an incredible project for a new

‘crowdsourced’ constitution (drawn up by citizens) During the first stage, one thousand people selected by a draw worked on what the

3 http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x15s35v_l-innovation-comme-maitre-mot-1-3_tech

4 The ambivalence of mentioning innovation finds an illustration in a study led by the

Director of the Chair of the Collège de France, Philippe Aghion, entitled “Économie

des institutions, de l’innovation et de la croissance” (Institution, Innovation and

Growth Economy) It shows that contrary to ground and speculative rent [PIK 13],

innovation is a factor of growth of the revenue inequalities exclusively at the top of the

ladder (top 1%) In addition, this is not its only social impact In fact, the study shows that innovation increases social mobility (change in a person’s social status compared

to that of their parents)

values of the text should be Then, 25 people selected to form an assembly spent four months writing It is roughly the time it took Americans to write their constitution, but here the difference is that every week they posted their drafts on Facebook There was feedback and comments from people in Iceland, but also from all over the world In the end this dynamic created a beautiful constitution, approved by two thirds of the population”5 It is interesting to note that

the title of this interview is “La segmentation du monde que provoque

Internet est dévastatrice pour la démocratie” (The world segmentation

caused by the Internet is devastating for democracy), which clearly shows how innovation is an ambivalent term There the author develops an analysis in line with that of P Rosenvallon, when he states: “the algorithms supplying people with information on platforms like Facebook increasingly generate a world in which everyone lives in their own information bubble However, in that world, the very idea of political action focused on general interest is nearly impossible We do not know how to build a space in which people could discuss the same political issues, from a common framework and a shared understanding of facts Nowadays, we have all the reasons to worry about the way the Internet fuels polarization and reduces the understanding of common problems, because of algorithms and network architecture.”

Innovation has replaced the positivist notion of “progress” and extends the techno-scientific position of our society [PRA 92] The meaning of the term was brought to such a commonplace level that it was emptied of its substance Innovation – beyond a vague and inoperative concept for analysis – is alternatively a scapegoat or an incantation In the face of such crises, whether it is held responsible for it or not, it is perceived – thanks to its innovating dimension – as the only remedy after the failure of improvement policies

To be relevantly used, it then seems necessary to clearly define the term innovation and explain how its use is helpful for reflection on the evolution of digital libraries

5 Interview of Lawrence Lessig, initiator of the Creative Common license, France Culture on 12/22/2016

2.2 Definitions and typologies of innovation

The definitions of innovation in economic sciences are numerous [GAG 11, SCH 11, CHR 97]6 Invention is defined as “a human activity

of imagination and new achievements, techniques, goods or services corresponding to some functions and so meeting needs”7 Regarding innovation, we will use the definition given by Gérald Gaglio: “an

innovation is an invention that has spread” [GAG 11, p 4]

It should be noted that innovation is a notion defined ex ante: it is

only once the invention has spread in society that it can be qualified as

an innovation Yet here, our purpose is to give an account of evolutions and dynamics Consequently, we will sometimes use – in a slightly abusive way from a strictly economic point of view – the term innovation for inventions with a high potential of diffusion

Numerous typologies are added to this definition of innovation Here, we will mention that of Schumpeter [SCH 11a], the very first one to differentiate five types of innovation:

– products (goods or service);

– production methods;

– markets;

– organization modes;

– sources of supply;

as well as that of OECD Oslo Manual8 (2005):

– product technological innovations (goods or service);

– process technological innovations;

– innovations of organization and marketing service

6 The Oslo Manual published by the OECD also offers a few definitions: http://www oecd.org/fr/science/inno/2367554.pdf

7 See the lectures of Gilles Garel at CNAM, “Management de la conception

innovante” (Innovation design management)

8 This typology is mentioned here because the Oslo Manual, in Europe, serves as a basis for the development of Community Innovation Surveys

However, these typologies are incomplete as they are outdated They do not take into account two types of recently identified innovations, the significance of which is paramount for the advent of the third industrial revolution: social innovation and business model innovation (which concerns in particular, as we will see, the ILMS market) Business model innovation is the development of new unique concepts supporting the financial viability of an organization, including its mission, and the processes to materialize these concepts The main objective of business model innovation is to create new sources of income by improving service and product value and the way they are delivered to customers

Social innovation corresponds – according to the Centre de

Recherche sur les Innovations Sociales (Center for Research on Social

Innovation)9 – to “an intervention initiated by social actors to respond

to an inspiration, meet a need, provide a solution, or take advantage of

an opportunity for action, in order to modify social relationships, transform a framework for action, or propose new cultural orientations” It is different from the other types of innovation because, beyond the economic added value, it aims at improving welfare: “Economists build according to social welfare, to assess different socio-economic situations – defined as the distributions of resources and welfare between individuals – and to indicate which seems the most desirable for society from the distributive justice point

of view This rule of social assessment associates with each economic situation a synthetic measurement of the collective welfare, and the public decision maker chooses the option allowing them to maximize this index level” [CLE 09, p 58]

socio-The business model describes the logic of the system through which an organization creates, delivers and acquires value [TEE 10] The business model reflects the way a company (more generally, an economic entity) creates value thanks to the organization of its production, the structure of its financing and the structure of its

9 http://crises.uqam.ca/

relationship with its clients [OUA 12] Innovations intrinsic to the model can concern these three components

Other typologies classify innovations according to their scope and use the notion of innovation degrees:

– degree of radicality (incremental/radical);

– degree of disruption (sustaining/disruptive)

Incremental innovation aims at improving an existing product or service It represents the lowest degree of innovation On the contrary, radical innovation is defined as the creation of a new type of product

or service10 Sustaining innovation helps to “sustain” a market, facilitating its growth Conversely, disruptive innovation “creates, transforms or destroys a market” [CHR 97]

Specifically in relation to innovating library interfaces, we will refer to the typology established thanks to Catherine Muller’s work in

2015 [MUL 16] and further presented in “Étude de repérages sur les

interfaces documentaires innovantes” (Study on innovating library

interfaces) [ENS 14]

2.3 The innovation movement regarding library computing

“Enquête annuelle du marché des logiciels métier destinés aux

bibliothèques” (Annual survey of the business software market

intended for libraries) carried out in 2016 by the Tosca Consultant Office made a stark observation: “Open source imposes its codes”11 Out of approximately 40 software suppliers that took part in the survey12, Tosca identified 53 Integrated Library Management System (ILMS) offers, including 13 in open source Open-source (or free) software proposals, out of all the business software intended for libraries, went from 26 to 34 offers between 2014 and 2015