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Oral history interview with Nathalie Dusoulier

  • 2000-Jun-19

Oral history interview with Nathalie Dusoulier

  • 2000-Jun-19

Nathalie Dusoulier begins her interview by discussing her family background and education. She recounts how she started working in information science from her background in pharmacology. She then speaks about her employment at Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique [CNRS]. She describes the number of different forms her career at CNRS took, from indexing articles to directing the biology and human science sections of CNRS's publication, Bulletin Signalétique. She talks about the different methods used to index and her first experiences with automation and computing. Dusoulier then segues into discussing the commercialization of Institut de l'Information Scientifique et Technique [INIST] and its collaborations with various international organizations.

She then speaks about a variety of other information science organizations including International Council of Scientific Unions Abstracting Board [ICSU AB], United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Programme Générale d'Information [UNESCO PGI], Federation for Information and Documentation [FID], and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions [IFLA]. Dusoulier's interview continues with details of her employment at INIST. She talks about her transition from the United Nations and moving to Nancy, France to set up INIST. She talks about hiring INIST's staff and setting up the center. She continues her earlier discussion about commercialization of information and INIST by talking about INIST Diffusion. She concludes her interview by talking about recent changes in technology and their impact on information science.

Property Value
Interviewee
Interviewer
Place of interview
Format
Genre
Extent
  • 35 pages
Language
Subject
Rights Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
Rights holder
  • Science History Institute
Credit line
  • Courtesy of Science History Institute

About the Interviewer

W. Boyd Rayward is a research professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Chamapaign. He turned to librarianship after graduating in English literature from the University of Sydney. He received his PhD from the Graduate Library School at the University of Chicago in 1973. He has held positions in the University of Chicago (where he became Dean of the Graduate Library School). He served as professor and head of the School of Information Library and Archive Studies and Dean of the University's Faculty of Professional Studies at the University of New South Wales in Sydney where he is now professor emeritus. He has published two books related to Paul Otlet, Belgian documentalist and internationalist, and a great many articles on history of national and international schemes for the organization and dissemination of information.

Institutional location

Department
Collection
Oral history number 0201

Related Items

Interviewee biographical information

Born
  • October 18, 1927
  • Nice, France
Died
  • August 20, 2010

Education

Year Institution Degree Discipline
1954 Université de Paris. Faculté de pharmacie PhD Pharmacology
1957 Institut Pasteur (Paris, France) Virology
1958 Institut de Pharmacie Industrielle

Professional Experience

Centre national de la recherche scientifique (France)

  • 1961 to 1963 Abstractor and Indexer of Scientific Literature in Medical, Agricultural, and Biological Sciences
  • 1961 to 1964 Editor and publisher of Bulletin Signalétique in Medical, Agricultural, and Biological sciences.
  • 1965 to 1977 Deputy Director and Director of Documentation Center

United Nations

  • 1978 to 1981 Director, Inter-organization board for information systems, Geneva
  • 1981 to 1986 Deputy Director and Director, United Nations Library, New York
  • 1986 to 1988 Director, United Nations Library and Archives, Geneva

Institut de l’Information Scientifique et Technique

  • 1988 to 1994 Director and CEO

Honors

Year(s) Award
1989 Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur, awarded by the French President
1992 Miles Conrad Memorial Award, National Federation of Abstracting and Indexing Societies
1995 International Council for Scientific and Technical Information Fellowship

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PDF — 214 KB
dusoulier_n_0201_FULL.pdf

The published version of the transcript may diverge from the interview audio due to edits to the transcript made by staff of the Center for Oral History, often at the request of the interviewee, during the transcript review process.

Complete Interview Audio File Web-quality download

4 Separate Interview Segments Archival-quality downloads