In fact, employees were not so much afraid of technology as they were afraid of losing their jobs. In 1996, unemployment was already significant in any field, which was not the case when film and television were invented. What would be the balance between job creation and lay-off in the near future? Unions were struggling worldwide to promote the creation of jobs through investment, innovation, vocational training, computer literacy, retraining for new jobs in digital technology, fair conditions for labor contracts and collective agreements, defense of copyright for the re-use of articles from the print media to the web, protection of workers in the artistic field, and defense of teleworkers as workers having full rights. The European Commission was expecting to have 10 million teleworkers in Europe by the year 2000, which would represent 20% of teleworkers worldwide.
Despite unions' efforts, would the situation become as tragic as suggested in a note of the symposium's proceedings? "Some fear a future in which individuals will be forced to struggle for survival in an electronic jungle. And the survival mechanisms which have been developed in recent decades, such as relatively stable employment relations, collective agreements, employee representation, employer-provided job training, and jointly funded social security schemes, may be sorely tested in a world where work crosses borders at the speed of light."
Twelve years later, outsourcing has become a "standard" in information technology, to cut the costs. How many companies care about fair labor conditions for the employees of their outsourcing partners?
1998: LIBRARIES TAKE OVER THE WEB
= [Overview]
The first library website was the one created by the Helsinki City Library in Finland, which went live in February 1994. Four years later, in 1998, more and more traditional libraries had a website as a new "virtual" window for their patrons and beyond. Patrons could check opening hours, browse the online catalog, and surf on a broad selection of websites on various topics. Libraries developed digital libraries alongside their standard collections, for a large audience to be able to access their specialized, old, local and regional collections, including images and sound. Librarians could now fulfill two goals that used to be in contradiction - preservation (on shelves) and communication (on the internet). Library treasures went online, like Beowulf on the website of the British Library. Beowulf is the earliest known narrative poem in English, and one of the most famous works of Anglo-Saxon poetry. The British Library holds the only known manuscript of Beowulf, dated circa 1000, and digitized it for the world to enjoy.
= Libraries create websites
Libraries began creating websites as a "virtual" window, as well as digital libraries stemming from their print collections. Thousands of public works, literary and scientific articles, pictures and sound tracks became available on the screen for free.
On the one hand, books were taken out of their shelves only once to be scanned. On the other hand, books could easily be accessed anywhere at any time, without the need to go to the library and struggle through a lengthy process to access the original books, because of reduced opening hours, forms to fill out, safety concerns for rare and fragile books, and shortage of staff. Some researchers still remember the unfailing patience and an out-of-the-ordinary determination they needed to finally get to a given book in some cases. People could now access digital facsimiles, and access the original books only when needed.
Before broadband internet became mainstream, full-screen images were quite long to appear on the screen. After enthusiastically posting large image files, librarians decided to post small images that people could either see as is, or click on to get a larger format.