LINGUIST List 3.597

Tue 21 Jul 1992

FYI: Prof. Zhu Dexi; CNN; Minitel

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  • , Prof. Zhu Dexi
  • Victor Raskin,
  • "Jack Kessler", FYI France: some new information sources

    Message 1: Prof. Zhu Dexi

     Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1992 09:54 PDTProf. Zhu Dexi
    From: <HSLAPOLLAccvax.as.edu.tw>
    Subject: Prof. Zhu Dexi


    Prof. Zhu Dexi, one of the most respected and renowned linguists of China, passed away at 6:06a.m., Sunday, July 19, at the age of 71. His death is a great loss to linguistics, and to all who knew him. Prof. Zhu had been diagnosed as having an advanced stage of lung cancer last Dec. while visiting at the University of Washington. Subsequently he left for Palo Alto, CA to be with his children and received qigong treatment from a qigong master from China who also used Chinese medicine for his treatment. This May, because of some severe pain in his leg, he went to the Stanford University Hospital for radiation treatment. At the same time, he was also using a new drug recently invented in China. Unfortunately he contracted some kind of infection or cold and had been quite sick since some time in June. In the early morning of July 16, his son found him suddenly out of breath. Within 5 minutes he was sent to the Stanford University hospital by ambulance but by that time he had already suffered brain damage because of the lack of oxygen.

    A Zhu Dexi Memorial Fund has been set up to help his family and to remember him not only as an eminent leader-scholar in our field, but also as a beloved friend. Please send contributions to:

    Zhu Dexi Memorial Fund 424 College Ave., Apt. A Palo Alto, CA 94306

    (Tel. of the Zhu family: 415-327-3309)

    Message 2:

    Date: Mon, 20 Jul 92 1:06:32 EST
    From: Victor Raskin <raskinj.cc.purdue.edu>
    Subject:


    Yet another media alert... Did anybody see the 90-second feature on CNN Headline News Sunday, July 19, 1992, evening about endangered languages of Mexico and an anthropologist from the University of Florida who is trying to record them? The correspondent (I think Frank Cable was the name--seriously!) presented it as something nobody had ever done before and the anthropologist as an unsung hero. I wonder whether the LSA Secretariat considers it its duty to call the network and set the record straight. I know that CNN will not run a disclaimer, but maybe somewhere in their database endangered languages will be entered under linguistics and linked to Franz Boas and his illustrious company for four-five generations down. --

    Victor Raskin raskinj.cc.purdue.edu

    Message 3: FYI France: some new information sources

     Date: Thu, 16 Jul 92 00:26:01 -0FYI France: some new information sources
    From: "Jack Kessler" <kesslerwell.sf.ca.us.in.relay>
    Subject: FYI France: some new information sources


    Two new ideas for those of you who have been wondering what's been happening at the Bibliothe`que de France and in French libraries generally:

    1) The Bibliothe`que de France's "3615 Tolbiac" information service now has been launched on Minitel. It presents a very good overview and current events summary for anyone wishing to obtain an introduction to the B.de France controversy or for someone wanting to catch up with the latest news.

    For those of you who haven't yet used Minitel: this is the same Minitel service which is so omnipresent -- 6 million distributed terminals, many millions more free distributed pc software, every hotel, home, and bicycle shop -- in France. Joint ventures now have been launched with four of the US BabyBells -- Pacific Telesis' is called "101 Online" -- but still the easiest thing is to telephone (914) 694-6266 and request their free pc or MAC diskette. The simple login procedure on the diskette will set up an account which will bill to your VISA card. Use charges vary from free to many dollars per minute, but there is a great deal of interest which you can reach for under 30 cents per minute.

    Minitel will give you access to about 14,000 French online services, including the French telephone books and train schedules and the CNRS' enormous PASCAL/FRANCIS (their online "Bulletin Signaletique"), and now including many library services and an increasing number of French online public access catalogs (all the bibliothe`ques municipales are working hard on this). All the services are divided among a set of different "kiosk" numbers, which correspond to different rates of fee for their use. These are "3614", "3615", "3616", etc.: numbers which you enter from your main Minitel screen (in the US I believe you still must use the prefix "F" before the above numbers to connect to France). The Minitel "Guide des Services", reached by entering "MGS" from the main screen, is an incomplete but still very useful indexing system for finding service names and kiosk numbers (The Bibliothe`que de France's "Tolbiac" is on 3615.)

    2) For those of you who simply can't get enough of Parisian controversy, the latest issue of _Le De'bat_ (mai-aou^t 1992 nume'ro 70, ISSN 0246-2346) contains a hair-raising article by the journal's director, Pierre Nora, dredging up all the criticism and juicy gossip which has been flung against the B.de France project so far, and flinging it once again. Nora is not a fan of the Bibliothe`que de France. His renewed attack is seconded by George Le Rider, in a second piece subtitled "...des correctifs insuffisants." These two are followed, however, by three articles on the impending grave problems of, respectively, the university libraries, the Sorbonne library, and the BPI library at the Beaubourg Centre Pompidou. This naive outsider wonders whether, if Nora and other critics have such violent objections to the solutions being proposed for the Bibliothe`que Nationale collection, they might have some constructive suggestions for what apparently is a deteriorating situation among French libraries generally, according to their own journal?

    Jack Kessler

    kesslerwell.sf.ca.us