Fair question, but no - they're 32-bit on a 32-bit. I was being stupid in a different way, though, so my problem has changed to the one listed below.
I am now confused as to why I can't nm the Intel shared libs themselves. It is the format of those that is not understood. Of the .so's only libguide, libguide_stats and libimf may be nm'ed. File also doesn't dig the rest (output below), so presumably the magic number isn't being recognised and the files are consequently tested for ascii-ness. I'd understand if nm gave "no symbols", but the files should be recognised surely?
bash-2.05$ file /opt/intel/compiler70/ia32/lib/*.so
/opt/intel/compiler70/ia32/lib/libCEPCF90.so: ASCII text
/opt/intel/compiler70/ia32/lib/libF90.so: ASCII text
/opt/intel/compiler70/ia32/lib/libIEPCF90.so: ASCII text
/opt/intel/compiler70/ia32/lib/libPEPCF90.so: ASCII text
/opt/intel/compiler70/ia32/lib/libPOSF90.so: ASCII text
/opt/intel/compiler70/ia32/lib/libcprts.so: ASCII text
/opt/intel/compiler70/ia32/lib/libcxa.so: ASCII text
/opt/intel/compiler70/ia32/lib/libguide.so: ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, Intel 80386, version 1, not stripped
/opt/intel/compiler70/ia32/lib/libguide_stats.so: ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, Intel 80386, version 1, not stripped
/opt/intel/compiler70/ia32/lib/libimf.so: ELF 32-bit LSB shared object, Intel 80386, version 1, not stripped
/opt/intel/compiler70/ia32/lib/libintrins.so: ASCII text
/opt/intel/compiler70/ia32/lib/libunwind.so: ASCII text