THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

the present eighth edition (sic) should not give to adversaries the
means of saying: look the decimalists themselves are not able to
agree amonst themselves.
Some weeks later, May Seymour wrote that she had had no
time to respond to a request by Otlet for detailed reasons for
the increasingly frequent and obvious divergencies between
the two classifications. In a sudden fury, La Fontaine picked
up his pen and addressed her in forceful but slightly broken
English:
You write: it has been impossible as yet to make out for us a schedule
of reasons for variation from CD tables. We can only answer one
thing: that variation is for the success whole over the world of the
DC the greatest hindrance which can be placed in our way. The CD,
as we have comprehended it, is penetrating in the most different domains
of science and knowledge. You are only thinking of library
work: that is the mistake. You affirm you wish to keep in perfect harmony
with I. I. B. We are obliged to state that you are in perfect
disharmony. We unfortunately have no more hope to convince you. If
we must send to you notes about the drafts submitted by you it is
because we think it is our duty to do so. Please communicate this
letter to Mr. Oewey.
La Fontaine then proceeded to a detailed criticism of aspects
of the classification. Under 013 he wrote, referring to the use
of the parentheses and the colon, «how is it possible not to understand
that the system of CD is more clear and adequate as
DC». At 641 his ire broke out again: «we can only say one thing
that it is vexing, vexing, vexing, to see all our subdivisions
changed without the least utility» and he pointed out that at
641.4 only one of the Belgian subdivisions was maintained by
the Americans yet many of the variations were quite arbitrary.
He followed this remark with eight angry exclamation
points. 80
This, however, by no means marked a rupture of relations
between the two groups, though there was a general slackening
off of correspondence. In 1909 the Belgians had begun
to work on new tables for medicine, hoping to achieve a perfect
parallelism between 611-Anatomy and 616-Pathology.
A provisional manual incorporating much of the new material
and many of the modifications of the old material was
prepared for Dentistry. Otlet wrote to May Seymour that the
International Federation for Dentistry (which published the
manual after the War) was showing great interest in it. It
required far-reaching and particularly «delicate» decisions, he
believed, and in a detailed letter, examined why discordances
between 611 and 616 had arisen and were now hindering the
development of the tables. He recognised that a final decision,
involving so much change from the original classification, lay
in Dewey's own hands, for the IIB had faithfully followed and
was firmly committed to following the earlier 1894 edition. It
proved impossible, despite repeated application, to get a defi-
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