Watching the library change, making the library change? An observatory of digital influence on organizations and skills at the Bibliothèque nationale de France Un observatoire de l'influence du numérique sur les organisations et les compétences à la Bibliothèque nationale de France En Fr

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Since 2010, the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) has been testing a new way of tracking the influence of handling its increasing digital collections on the way its librarians do their job. ORHION (observatoire des Organisations et Ressources Humaines sous l'Impact Opérationnel du Numérique: Organization and Human Resources under Digital Influence), is an informal "observatory" of challenges and practices in what is usually a very structured, even hierarchical, institution. In this paper, we propose to explain how the library experimented with atypical methods of sharing challenges and practices in the digital domain. When the national library got a new major building and a complete reorganization in the 1990s, its digital projects were carried out by a dedicated Digital Library Department. But by the mid 2000s, digital had become mainstream: digital projects became digital routines, digital R&D became day-to-day operations. Thus, in 2008, the dedicated Digital Library Department disappeared into various other library services and operations. Digital was just one means among others for the library to fulfill its long-standing missions. However, with digital actions disseminated across the library, there was a lack of a centralized place to discuss shared difficulties and put experiences together. Throughout 2008 and 2009, the idea of an informal group of librarians interested in sharing their experience of the challenges digital collections posed to their daily activities was put to the test. This group progressively developed into something which was officially endorsed for the long term by BnF's top management in 2010, and yet unique in its structure and methods at the library, ORHION. It has fostered a spirit of openness about challenges caused by digital collections across the library, along with other concomitant initiatives. Its innovative way of working may be considered to have helped emerging needs and issues now being embraced across the library and its various entities as well as hierarchical levels.