User Profiles and Usage Meanings of Documentary Sites on the Internet: the Example of REDOC and REDOST

At the time of the conception phases of the documentary networks REDOC and REDOST on the Internet, the CAUTIC team invested in the means to monitor and interpret the usage of the new information and communication technology on order to help its conceivers to produce a service which makes sense to its users. The inquiries and sociological observations have allowed the separation of professional user profiles from those of the general public from which REDOC and REDOST seem to have more or less adapted to the technical, functional, relational and individual demands. This approach to «Assisted Conception by Usage» shows that the production of new services for on-line information must bemade within the framework of reflections on the development of the role of librarians and archivists in the mediation of information. This last must take into consideration the usage meanings of their public through the different phases of production and distribution of their information services.
Read