e sector
and the general public) through publications and databases.

Christiane Jadelot is an expert in computerized lexicography. She is currently
in charge of putting the eighth version of the Dictionnaire de l'Academie
francaise (Dictionary of the French Academy) (1932-1935) online.

*Interview of June 8, 1998 (original interview in French)

= What is the history of the INaLF website?

At the request of Robert Martin, the head of INaLF, our first pages were posted
on the Internet in mid-1996. I helped set up these web pages with tools that
cannot be compared to the ones we have nowadays. I was working with tools on
Unix, which were not very easy to use. We had little practical experience then,
and the pages were very cluttered. But the INaLF thought it was very important
to make ourselves known through the Internet, which many firms were already
using to sell their products. As we are a "research and services" organization,
we have to find customers for our computer products, the best known being the
text database Frantext. I think Frantext was already on the Internet (since
early 1995), and there was also a draft version of volume 14 of the TLF (Tresor
de la langue francaise). So we had to publicize INaLF activities in this way. It
met a general need.

= How did using of the Internet change your professional life?

I began to really use it in 1994, with a browser called Mosaic. I found it a
very useful way of improving my knowledge of computers, linguistics,
literature... everything. I was finding the best and the worst, but as a
discerning user, I had to sort it all out and make choices. I particularly liked
the software for e-mail, file transfers and dial-up connections. At that time I
had problems with a programme called Paradox and character sets that I couldn't
use. I tried my luck and threw out a question in a specialist news group. I got
answers from all over the world. Everyone seemed to want to solve my problem! I
wasn't used to this kind of support. The French are more used to working alone,
without reaching out.

= What do you see the future?

I think we have to equip more and more laboratories with high-tech hardware and
software so we can use all these new media. We have got projects for schools and
research centers. The French education ministry has promised to give all schools
cable line access, which is a pressing national need. I saw a TV programme about
a small rural primary school's experie