Part 6

[Summary] Founded in 1971 by Catherine Domain in Paris, France, Librairie Ulysse (Ulysses Bookstore) is the oldest bookstore dedicated only to travel, with 20,000 books, maps and magazines, out of print and new, about any country, all packed up in a tiny space, with some treasures impossible to find anywhere else. Catherine, an avid traveler herself, started a website in early 1999, as a virtual travel in the field of computing, despite knowing very little about computers. She wrote in late 1999: "My website is still pretty basic and under construction. Like my bookstore, it is a place to meet people before being a place of business. The internet is a pain in the neck, takes a lot of my time and I earn hardly any money, but that doesn't worry me... I am very pessimistic though, because it is killing off specialist bookstores." Ten years later, in April 2010, Catherine was much less pessimistic, because the internet had allowed her to become a publisher of travel books.

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Founded in 1971 by Catherine Domain in Paris, France, Librairie Ulysse (Ulysses Bookstore) is the oldest bookstore in the world dedicated only to travel. The bookstore launched its website in 1999 and a small publishing venture in 2010.

Nested on Ile Saint-Louis surrounded by the river Seine, Librairie Ulysse has offered 20,000 books, maps and magazines, out of print and new, about any country, all packed up in a tiny space, with some treasures impossible to find anywhere else.

# Beginning

What were the first steps of Librairie Ulysse? Catherine wrote on the bookstore's website: "After traveling for ten years on every continent, I stopped and told myself: 'What am I going to do for a living?' I was aware of the need to insert myself in a sociey in one way or another. I made a choice by deduction, refusing to have any boss or employee.

Remembering my grandfathers, one being a navigator, and the other one being a bookseller in Perigord [a region in Southern France], and noting that I needed to visit more than a dozen bookstores before finding any documentation on a country as close as Greece, a 'travel bookstore' came to my mind during a world tour while I was sailing between Colombo and Surabaya.

Back in Paris -- I already lived in Ile Saint-Louis -- I looked for a place, gathered information about the job of bookseller, did some internships in other bookstores, wrote index cards, and thought about a name for this new business.

One morning, while going out to buy my daily newspaper, I looked up and saw the sign of the bookstore 'Ulysse' [Ulysses in French], a reference to Joyce, at number 35 of street Saint-Louis-en-l'Ile. 'Here is a name!', I told myself. I climbed two stairs to get into this very small 16m2 store with a single beam. Four guys played poker. 'What a cute bookstore!', I said. 'It is for sale', one of the players answered without looking up. 48 hours later, I was a bookseller. This was in September 1971. The first bookstore in the world specializing in travel was born.

Twenty years later, I was hit by real estate development, like a number of people, and I had to move out. Luckily, my stubborn side -- I am a Taurus ascendant Taurus -- gave me the strength to move my bookstore a few meters away into a larger place, on number 26 of street Saint- Louis-en-l'Ile, in a quite uncommon building. First, this was the first building in which I lived in Ile Saint-Louis. Second, this building formerly hosted a bank branch that was famously burglarized by Spaggiari."

# In 1999

Even after she became a bookseller, Catherine went on traveling every summer, usually sailing on the Mediterranean, the Atlantic or the Pacific, while her boyfriend was running the bookstore.

She has been a member of the French National Union of Antiquarian and Modern Bookstores (SLAM: Syndicat National de la Librairie Ancienne et Moderne), the Explorers' Club (Club des Explorateurs) and the International Club of Long-Distance Travelers (Club International des Grands Voyageurs).

Catherine started the bookstore's website in early 1999, as a virtual travel in the field of computing, despite knowing very little about computers.

She wrote in late 1999: "My site is still pretty basic and under construction. Like my bookstore, it is a place to meet people before being a place of business. The internet is a pain in the neck, takes a lot of my time and I earn hardly any money, but that doesn't worry me... I am very pessimistic though, because it is killing off specialist bookstores."

Local bookstores were closing one after the other in Paris, having a hard time keeping up with the competition of Amazon.fr, Fnac.com and the likes.

# In 2005

Catherine nevertheless created a second travel bookstore in 2005, this time facing the ocean, in Hendaye, a city on the Southern coast of the Atlantic. Open from 20 June to 20 September, the bookstore can be found along the beach in a Moorish building, a historical monument that formerly hosted the casino. At high tide, the bookstore is like "a steamer of books that is going to set sail, and sometimes does", because it is flooded by the sea.

# In 2010

Ten years after starting her website, Catherine was much less pessimistic about the internet. This "new" medium had allowed her to become a publisher of travel books.

She wrote in April 2010: "The internet has taken more and more space in my life! On 1st April 2010, I became a publisher after some painful training in Photoshop, InDesign, and other software.

This is also a great joy to see that the political will to keep people in front of their computers for them not to start a revolution can be defeated by giant and spontaneous happy hours [organized in Europe through Facebook] with thousands of people who want to see, and speak with, each other in person.

In the end, there will always be unexpected developments to new inventions, among other things. When I started using the internet, I really didn't expect to become a publisher."

1999 > THE INTERNET AS A NOVEL CHARACTER

[Summary] Alain Bron is an information systems consultant and a writer living in Paris, France. The internet is one of the characters of his second novel, "Sanguine sur toile" (Sanguine on the Web), available in print from Le Choucas in 1999, and in PDF from 00h00 in 2000. His novel won the Lions Club International Prize in 2000. Alain wrote in November 1999: "In French, 'toile' means the web as well as the canvas of a painting, and 'sanguine' is the red chalk of a drawing as well as one of the adjectives derived from blood ('sang' in French). But would a love of colors justify a murder? 'Sanguine sur toile' is the strange story of an internet surfer caught up in an upheaval inside his own computer, which is being remotely operated by a very mysterious person whose only aim is revenge."

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The internet is one of the characters of Alain Bron's second novel, "Sanguine sur Toile", available in print from Le Choucas in 1999, and in PDF from 00h00 in 2000. This novel won the Lions Club International Prize in 2000.

# About the novel

Alain Bron wrote in November 1999 in an email interview: "In French, 'toile' means the web as well as the canvas of a painting, and 'sanguine' is the red chalk of a drawing as well as one of the adjectives derived from blood ('sang' in French). But would a love of colors justify a murder? 'Sanguine sur toile' is the strange story of an internet surfer caught up in an upheaval inside his own computer, which is being remotely operated by a very mysterious person whose only aim is revenge.

I wanted to take the reader into the worlds of painting and enterprise, which intermingle, escaping and meeting up again in the dazzle of software. The reader is invited to try to untangle for himself the threads twisted by passion alone. To penetrate the mystery, he will have to answer many questions. Even with the world at his fingertips, isn't the internet surfer the loneliest person in the world? In view of the competition, what is the greatest degree of violence possible in an enterprise these days? Does painting tend to reflect the world or does it create another one? I also wanted to show that images are not that peaceful. You can use them to take action, even to kill."

What part has the internet played in his novel? "The internet is a character in itself. Instead of being described in its technical complexity, it is depicted as a character that can be either threatening, kind or amusing. Remember the computer screen has a dual role -- displaying as well as concealing. This ambivalence is the theme throughout. In such a game, the big winner is of course the one who knows how to free himself from the machine's grip and put humanism and intelligence before everything else."

# About the author

Alain Bron is both an information system consultant and a writer. He explained in the same email interview: "I spent about 20 years at Bull. There I was involved in all the adventures of computer and telecommunications development. I represented the computer industry at ISO [International Organization for Standardization] and chaired the network group of the X/Open consortium. I also took part in the very beginning of the internet with my colleagues of Honeywell in the U.S. in late 1978. I am now [in November 1999] an information systems consultant, where I keep the main computer projects of firms and their foreign subsdiaries running smoothly. And I write. I have been writing since I was a teenager. Short stories (about 100), psycho-sociological essays, articles and novels. It is an inner need as well as a very great pleasure."

As for the aim of the internet, "the important thing is the human value that is added to it. The internet can never be shrewd about a situation, take a risk or replace the intelligence of the heart. The internet simply speeds up the decision-making process and reduces uncertainty by providing information. We still have to leave time to time, let ideas mature and bring an essential touch of humanity to a relationship. For me, the aim of the internet is meeting people, not increasing the number of electronic exchanges."

What was his best experience with the internet? "After my novel 'Sanguine sur toile' was published, I got a message from a friend I'd lost touch with more than 20 years ago. He recognized himself as one of the book's characters. We saw each other again recently over a good bottle of wine and swapped memories and discussed our plans."

2000 > ENCYCLOPEDIAS AND DICTIONARIES

[Summary] The first reference encyclopedias and dictionaries available online stemmed from print versions. Britannica.com was available in December 1999 as the web version of the 32-volume Encyclopaedia Britannica, first for free and then for a fee. The French-language WebEncyclo from Editions Atlas was available at the same time, for free, as well as the Encyclopaedia Universalis, for a fee. The first major online dictionaries also stemmed from print versions, for example the free Merriam-Webster Online launched in 1996, that included the Webster Dictionary, the Webster Thesaurus, and other tools. The French-language "Dictionnaire Universel Francophone en Ligne " from Hachette was available for free in 1997. The online version of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was available in March 2000 for a fee. Designed directly for the web, the Grand Dictionnaire Terminologique (GDT) was launched in September 2000 in Quebec as the largest free French-English terminology dictionary, and quickly praised by linguists worldwide.

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The first reference encyclopedias and dictionaries available online stemmed from print versions.

# Encyclopedias

Britannica.com was launched in December 1999 as the digital equivalent of the 32 volumes of the 15th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The website was available for free, as a complement to the print and CD-ROM versions for sale, with a selection of articles from 70 magazines, a guide to the best websites, a selection of books, etc., all searchable through a single search engine. In September 2000, the site was among the top 100 websites in the world. In July 2001, the website, not free anymore, could be searched for a monthly or annual fee. In 2009, Britannica.com opened its website to external contributors, with registration required to write and edit articles.

Launched by Editions Atlas in December 1999 and stemming from a print encyclopedia, Webencyclo was the first main French-language online encyclopedia available for free. It was searchable by keyword, topic and media (i.e. maps, links, photos, illustrations). A call for papers invited specialists in a given topic to become external contributors and submit articles in a section called "Webencyclo Contributif". Later on, a free registration was required to use the online encyclopedia.

Launched at the same time, the website of the print French-language Encyclopedia Universalis included 28,000 articles by 4,000 contributors, available for an annual subscription fee, with a number of articles available for free.

# Dictionaries

Merriam-Webster, a well-known publisher of dictionaries, launched in 1996 the website "Merriam-Webster Online: The Language Center" to give free access to online resources stemming from several print reference works: Webster Dictionary, Webster Thesaurus, Webster's Third (a lexical landmark), Guide to International Business Communications, Vocabulary Builder (with interactive vocabulary quizzes), and the Barnhart Dictionary Companion (hot new words). The website's goal was also to help track down definitions, spellings, pronunciations, synonyms, vocabulary exercises, and other key facts about words and language.

The "Dictionnaire Universel Francophone en Ligne" (Universal French- Language Online Dictionary) was the web version of the "Dictionnaire Universel Francophone", published by Hachette in partnership with AUPELF-UREF (which later became AUF: Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie - University Agency of Francophony). The dictionary included not only standard French but also the French-language words and expressions used worldwide. French was spoken by 500 million people in 50 countries. As a side remark, English and French are the only official and/or cultural languages widely spread on five continents.

The online version (for a subscription fee) of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was launched in March 2000 by Oxford University Press (OUP), followed by a quarterly update with around 1,000 new or revised entries. Two years later, Oxford University Press launched Oxford Reference Online (ORO), a comprehensive encyclopedia designed directly for the web and also available for a subscription fee. Its 60,000 webpages and one million entries could represent the equivalent of 100 print encyclopedias.

# The GDT from Quebec

With 3 million terms related to industry, science and commerce, the GDT (Grand Dictionnaire Terminologique - Main Terminological Dictionary) was the largest French-English online terminology dictionary. The GDT was designed directly for the web by OQLF (Office Quebecois de la Langue Francaise - Quebecois Office of the French Language) and launched in September 2000 as a free service. The GDT was a technological challenge, and the result of a partnership between OQLF, author of the dictionary, and Semantix, a company specialized in linguistic software. The GDT had 1.3 million individual visits during the first month, with peaks of 60,000 visits per day, which certainly contributed to better translations. The database was then maintained by Convera Canada, with 3.5 million visits per month in February 2003. A revamped version of the GDT went online in March 2003, with the database maintained by OQLF itself, and the addition of Latin as a third language.

2000 > THE WEB PORTAL YOURDICTIONARY.COM

[Summary] Robert Beard, a language teacher at Bucknell University, in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania (USA), co-founded yourDictionary.com in February 2000 as a follow-up of his first website, A Web of Online Dictionaries (included in the new one), launched in 1995 as a directory of online dictionaries (with 800 links in fall 1998) and other linguistic resources such as thesauri, vocabularies, glossaries, grammars and language textbooks. yourDictionary.com included 1,800 dictionaries in 250 languages in September 2003, and 2,500 dictionaries in 300 languages in April 2007. As a portal for all languages without any exception, the site also offered a section for endangered languages, called the Endangered Language Repository.

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Five years before co-founding yourDictionary.com in February 2000, as the portal for all languages without any exception, Robert Beard created the website A Web of Online Dictionaries (WOD) in 1995.

Robert Beard was a language teacher at Bucknell University, in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. In September 1998, his website provided an index of 800 online dictionaries in 150 languages, as well as sections for multilingual dictionaries, specialized English dictionaries, thesauri and other vocabulary aids, language identifiers and guessers, an index of dictionary indices, the "Web of Online Grammars", and the "Web of Linguistic Fun", i.e. linguistics for non-specialists.

Robert Beard wrote in September 1998: "There was an initial fear that the web posed a threat to multilingualism on the web, since HTML and other programming languages are based on English and since there are simply more websites in English than any other language. However, my websites indicate that multilingualism is very much alive and the web may, in fact, serve as a vehicle for preserving many endangered languages. I now have links to dictionaries in 150 languages and grammars of 65 languages. Moreover, the new attention paid by browser developers to the different languages of the world will encourage even more websites in different languages." (NEF Interview)

Fifteen months later, Robert Beard included his website into a larger project, yourDictionary.com, that he co-founded in early 2000.

He wrote in January 2000: "The new website is an index of 1,200+ dictionaries in more than 200 languages. Besides the WOD, the new website includes a word-of-the-day-feature, word games, a language chat room, the old 'Web of Online Grammars' (now expanded to include additional language resources), the 'Web of Linguistic Fun', multilingual dictionaries; specialized English dictionaries; thesauri and other vocabulary aids; language identifiers and guessers, and other features; dictionary indices. yourDictionary.com will hopefully be the premiere language portal and the largest language resource site on the web. It is now actively acquiring dictionaries and grammars of all languages with a particular focus on endangered languages. It is overseen by a blue ribbon panel of linguistic experts from all over the world. (...)

Indeed, yourDictionary.com has lots of new ideas. We plan to work with the Endangered Language Fund in the U.S. and Britain to raise money for the Foundation's work and publish the results on our site. We will have language chat rooms and bulletin boards. There will be language games designed to entertain and teach fundamentals of linguistics. The Linguistic Fun page will become an online journal for short, interesting, yes, even entertaining, pieces on language that are based on sound linguistics by experts from all over the world."

As the portal for all languages without any exception, yourDictionary.com offered a section for endangered languages called the Endangered Language Repository.

As explained by Robert Beard: "Languages that are endangered are primarily languages without writing systems at all (only 1/3 of the world's 6,000+ languages have writing systems). I still do not see the web contributing to the loss of language identity and still suspect it may, in the long run, contribute to strengthening it. More and more Native Americans, for example, are contacting linguists, asking them to write grammars of their language and help them put up dictionaries. For these people, the web is an affordable boon for cultural expression."

How about the future of the web? "The web will be an encyclopedia of the world by the world for the world. There will be no information or knowledge that anyone needs that will not be available. The major hindrance to international and interpersonal understanding, personal and institutional enhancement, will be removed. It would take a wilder imagination than mine to predict the effect of this development on the nature of humankind."

2000 > A STANDARD FORMAT FOR EBOOKS

[Summary] With so many formats showing up in 1998-2001 for new electronic devices, the digital publishing industry felt the need to work on a standard for ebooks. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the U.S. launched the Open eBook Initiative in June 1998, with a 25-people task force named Open eBook Authoring Group. In September 1999 was released the first version of the Open eBook (OeB) format, based on XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and defined by the Open eBook Publication Structure (OeBPS), with a free version belonging to public domain and a full version to be used with or without DRM by the publishing industry. The Open eBook Forum (OeBF) was created in January 2000 to develop the OeB format and OeBPS specifications. Since 2000, most ebook formats have derived from the OeB format, for example the PRC format from Mobipocket and the LIT format from Microsoft.

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With so many formats showing up in 1998-2001 for new electronic devices, the digital publishing industry felt the need to work on a standard for ebooks.

On top of the "classical" formats -- TXT (text), DOC (Microsoft Word), HTML (HyperText Markup Language), XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and PDF (Portable Document Format) -- other formats were the Glassbook Reader, the Peanut Reader, the Rocket eBook Reader (for the Rocket eBook), the Franklin Reader (for the eBookMan), the Cytale software (for the Cybook 1st generation), the Gemstar eBook Reader (for the Gemstar eBook) and the Palm Reader (for the Palm Pilot). Some formats were meant for a given device, either a PDA or an ebook reader, and couldn't be used on other devices.

# Open eBook (OeB)

The National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) in the U.S. launched the Open eBook Initiative in June 1998, with a 25-people task force named Open eBook Authoring Group. In September 1999 was released the first version of the Open eBook (OeB) format, based on XML (eXtensible Markup Language) and defined by the Open eBook Publication Structure (OeBPS), with a free version belonging to public domain and a full version to be used with or without DRM by the publishing industry.

The Open eBook Forum (OeBF) was created in January 2000 as an industrial consortium (with 85 participants in 2002) to develop the OeB format and OeBPS specifications. Since 2000, most ebook formats have derived from the OeB format, for example LIT from Microsoft and PRC format from Mobipocket.

# LIT from Microsoft

Microsoft launched its own PDA, the Pocket PC, in April 2000, with the Microsoft Reader, for people to read books in LIT (from "literature") format, a format based on the OeB format. The Microsoft Reader was also available for computers in August 2000, and then for any Windows platform, including for the new Tablets PC launched in November 2002.

Microsoft was billing publishers and distributors for the use of its DRM technology through the Microsoft Digital Asset Server (DAS), with a commission on each sale. Microsoft partnered with Barnes & Noble.com in January 2000 and Amazon.com in August 2000, for them to offer ebooks for the Microsoft Reader in their eBookStores soon to be launched. Barnes & Noble.com opened its eBookStore in August 2000, followed by Amazon in November 2000.