Subject: FYI France: Humor -- Bruno Mannoni on "L'Internet ame'ricain" This month in FYI France: 1) FYI France Online Service news; 2) Bruno Mannoni, President of the French Internet Society, on the perils faced by a non - American navigating "L'Internet ame'ricain"; And be _sure_ to look at Artech House's handsomely re - designed Web site, with its very nice front - cover feature of my new book, "Internet Digital Libraries: The International Dimension": same address as before -- http://www.artech-house.com . XXX 1) FYI France Online Service news In February three files are free: 1.00 Print Libraries in France, 5.00 Book - Dealers in France, and 9.00 Internet Training and Consulting. Since January 15, 178 entries are new or have been revised. Come take a look at, http://www.fyifrance.com XXX 2) Bruno Mannoni, "Chopped Liver" [For any of you English - speakers who think that it's fun not knowing how to speak it: The posting here is very funny. It is written by the President of the French Internet Society: an able guy named Bruno Mannoni, whose excellent work you all can see on the Web site which he built and maintains for the Ministry of Culture, at http://www.culture.fr . Here he waxes irreverent and occasionally hilarious about the adventures of a non - English - speaking information - seeker on the English - Only "Ouebbe". There is a serious point here, but it also can be read just for fun. JK.] From: Bruno Mannoni Subject: Chopped Liver A little humor. One nice evening your doctor tells you that, "the RIBA-3 test confirms your positive serology for hepatitis C, just as the results of the ELISA test indicated". He makes you go to the specialists at the hospital. There you learn that you must submit to a certain number of tests ("liver biopsy", "amplification de l'RNA", and other joys which will indicate whether you will benefit from "treatment with interferon alpha-2b supplemented with ribavirin"). Confident in Medicine and in Science, you nevertheless regret having skimped in your own "basic science" and "beginning math" courses (on the question, "what is the function of chlorophyl", I scored 0/20...) and you tell yourself, "I am going to find out something about this just to be sure that I have not fallen into the hands of some quacks". You quickly are reassured, for -- thanks to the Internet -- you learn that the Professor of Medicine who is taking care of you is the author of numerous articles on this subject in scientific journals (in English) of great authority (the journals, not the English). Cruising along on the Internet you quickly discover that the abstracts of the New England Journal of Medicine, the British Medical Journal, and many other scientific medical journals (in English) are available online for free, and that the Center for Infectious Diseases in Atlanta has a super Web site. Beginning your reading, you quickly discover that you urgently need a review of genetics, and of biology, in order to understand things like "the double helix of the DNA which recovers after the division of a segment of RNA infected by the virus in order to attack the liver..." For this you bless the US Department of Energy for its excellent "Primer on Molecular Genetics" (Human Genome Project), which is accessible online. You finish by having obtained a "baque - ground" sufficient to upset both you and your boss, who asks the reason for this sudden interest in "superoxy dismutase" growing out of your researches on AltaVista (where you learned that "the case of being SOD negative on a RIBA-3 confirms the positivity to HCV", something which your doctor overlooked), and also the specialist who does the biopsy for you when you demand details about the "polymerase chain reaction of RNA", the "classification of cirrhoses in ana - path", and the specifics on "genotype 1 sub - type 3b". You subscribe to an econference on hepatitis - c (in English). You spend two days figuring out a translation for "milk thistle" (_everybody_ in the US knows what _that_ is), only to discover that it is "chardon marie" and that your pharmacist has no idea what it is. Happily a German server explains to you that the main active ingredient of this plant is "silymarine", and that this is sold in France under the name of "*******". You delightedly link over to a new site which you have found, "www.vidal.fr": it is closed for repairs (oh well). All this just to say that in several months of research on the Net, on a precise subject, the only information which I was able to obtain in French came from Canada, and that further research of even this information led me inevitably to pages written in the English language (these are numerous, and they are well done). We are talking here about a major public health problem (600,000 people afflicted in France, 3.5 million in the USA, 400 million in the world), which overtaxes the World Health Organization's network. We are talking about an illness, the treatment for which has involved the testing of new experimental remedies -- you would like to be well - informed. People are, elsewhere, but in English. That French scientists publish in English does not shock me -- on the contrary. As they say in Las Vegas, the cards have been played... There certainly will be the information - poor and the information - rich. And one must understand English to have scientific information which is "up to date" and to take part in a "society of information". p.s.: It seems that France is one of the countries which is most advanced in the control and treatment of this infection. You learn that on the servers, in English. We don't even know how to be chauvinistic any more! That's the game. p.s.2: In fact, on the Minitel, in the MGS directory, when you enter "hepatite C" you immediately find the "Association des victimes de la transfusion sanguine", which offers several videotex screens on the subject. XXX FYI France (sm)(tm) e - newsletter ISSN 1071 - 5916 * | FYI France (sm)(tm) is a monthly electronic newsletter, | published since 1992 as a small - scale, personal, | experiment, in the creation of large - scale | "information overload", by Jack Kessler. Any material / \ written by me which appears in FYI France may be ----- copied and used by anyone for any good purpose, so // \\ long as, a) they give me credit and show my e - mail --------- address and, b) it isn't going to make them money: if // \\ if it is going to make them money, they must get my permission in advance, and share some of the money which they get with me. Use of material written by others requires their permission. FYI France archives are at http://infolib.berkeley.edu (search for FYIFrance), or via gopher to infolib.berkeley.edu 72 (path: 3. Electronic Journals (Library-Oriented)/ 6. FYIFrance/ , or http://www.univ-rennes1.fr/LISTES/biblio-fr@univ-rennes1.fr/ (BIBLIO-FR econference archive), or via telnet to a.cni.org , login brsuser (PACS / PACS-L econference archive), or at http://www.fyifrance.com . Suggestions, reactions, criticisms, praise, and poison - pen letters all will be gratefully received at kessler@well.sf.ca.us . Copyright 1992- by Jack Kessler, all rights reserved.