Agence Europe. Bulletin Quotidien Europe n°786 - 22/1/2001 & 23/1/2001

ISABELLE BOYDENS: Informatique, normes et temps. Etablissements Emile Bruylant (67 rue de la Régence, B-1000 Brussels. Tel: (32-2.5129845)). 1999, 571 pages. ISBN 2-8027-1268-3.

This book is the re-written version of the thesis presented by the author in view of the gaining of the title of doctor in philosophy and literature, direction Information and Documentation, at the Free University of Brussels. This concerns a multidisciplinary work that gathers together in a clever manner computing, history and statistics. This permanent interaction of several disciplines, which it is not common to bring together is illustrated by the preface that is written by four members of the jury - Belgian and French - and its broken into four perspectives: programmers, managers, computing and history, computing and epistemology. The author started from two realisations. Firstly, the databases are comparable to glasses in which we would barely see, but which we cannot remove to compare the "true" reality with that which we perceive through them. Then, the issue of time is fundamental as the database and the reality it apprehends are influenced reciprocally while transforming themselves at different speeds. After having studied from the inside, for several years, the functioning of the "LTAG" database of the Belgian National Security Office (three hundred fields and four million recordings per quarter), Isabelle Boydens shows how to optimise the flow of information and enrich the basic model, while minimising the management costs. A clever work reserved for specialists. (LD)