THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

of journals, 10 to say nothing of the catalogs of an English
and a Belgian public library." These works had in common one
or another of a variety of acceptable entry forms (of which
examples were given in the IIB Bulletin for 1899), 12 the use
of the Decimal Classification, and an arrangement whereby they
were issued in card editions, in sheets or books with one side
of each sheet blank, or at the very least, in such a way that
each economical and standardised entry formed a complete
entity.
As the years went by a number of important publications
were added to the Bibliographia Universalis. One of these was a
Bibliographia Medico, edited in Paris by Richet and Baudoin,
who were of that first enthusiastic French group of OIB collaborators
and who had been instrumental in forming the Bureau
Bibliographique de Paris. This bibliography was intended
to continue the famous American Index Medicus which had been
begun by John Shaw Billings in 1876 but which had terminated
in 1899. The Bibliographia Medica, however,, failed after
three years. «Our poor Bibliographica Medica is dead», Richet
wrote to La Fontaine at the beginning of 1902 in the hope
of an offer of financial assistance from OIB.' 3 «We can do nothing
for it», La Fontaine wrote back, «...I have a thousand
regrets for not coming to your aid, but we have to take a radical
stand vis-a-vis all the publications which have adopted
our ideas — or it would close the institution*. 14
The Office itself continued its program of bibliographical
publication. It issued a number of non-periodical bibliographies
such as Sury's Bibliographie feminine beige, Vurgey's
Bibliographia Esthetica 15 and La Fontaine's Bibliographie de
la Paix. 16 La Fontaine also compiled a Bibliographia Bibliographica
which appeared as an annual between 1898 and 1902.
It also became associated with two substantive journals. The
first began as Index de la presse technique in 1903 under the editorship
of A. Louis Vermandel. Its title changed in 1904 to
Revue de I'ingenieur et index technique and English and German
editions of it were issued. The bibliographical part, called
Bibliographia Technica, was prepared by Vermandel but revised
at the OIB. The other journal began as Revue economique
hongroise in Budapest, but in 1905 was retitled Revue economique
international under two Belgian editors. Masure and
La Fontaine undertook to compile a Bibliographia Economica
Universalis for the editors, but the compilers had entire responsibility
for the preparation and actual printing of the Bibliographia
Economica Universalis which was also issued separately
from the Revue by the OIB.
The nature and «meaning» of the Bibliographia Universalis
and the relation of its Contributions created some conceptual
and practical difficulties. Otlet, for example, responding
8* 115