How about the future? "The internet is impinging on many peoples' lives, and information managers are the best people to help researchers around the labyrinth. The internet is just in its infancy and we are all going to be witnesses to its growth and refinement. (...) Information managers have a large role to play in searching and arranging the information on the internet. I expect that there will be an expansion in internet use for education and research. This means that libraries will have to create virtual libraries where students can follow a course offered by an institution at the other side of the world. Personally, I see myself becoming more and more a virtual librarian. My clients may not meet me face-to-face but instead will contact me by email, telephone or fax, and I will do the research and send them the results electronically." # At the Pasteur Institute Library The Pasteur Institutes are observatories for studying infectious and parasite-borne diseases. After being a “traditional” librarian, Bruno Didier created in 1996 the website of the Pasteur Institute Library in Paris, France, and became its webmaster. He explained in August 1999: "The main aim of the Pasteur Institute Library website is to serve the Institute itself and its associated bodies. It supports applications that have become essential in such a big organization: bibliographic databases, cataloging, ordering of documents and of course access to online periodicals (presently more than 100). It is a window for our different departments, at the Institute but also elsewhere in France and abroad. It plays a big part in documentation exchanges with the institutes in the worldwide Pasteur network. I am trying to make it an interlink adapted to our needs for exploration and use of the internet. The website has existed in its present form since 1996 and its audience is steadily increasing. (...) I build and maintain the webpages and monitor them regularly. I am also responsible for training our patrons to use the internet." What has changed in his work? "Our relationship with both the information and the users is what changes. We are increasingly becoming mediators, and perhaps to a lesser extent 'curators'. My present activity is typical of this new situation: I am working to provide quick access to information and to create effective means of communication, but I also train people to use these new tools. (...) I think the future of our job is tied to cooperation and use of common resources. It is certainly an old project, but it is really the first time we have had the means to set it up." 1999 > The ULYSSES BOOKSTORE ON THE WEB