THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

that the town's library need only be small if full utilisation
of the «million and more books» in the surrounding area
could be arranged. Some «bibliographical aid» was «urgently
required* for this, he wrote to La Fontaine. «Could you and
M. Otlet», he asked, «give me therefore such an indication as I
can lay before the trustees of how... the International Bibliographical
Institute would be prepared to assist them in the
matter — of course with an approximate indication of the necessary
outlay on their part.» 50 They would also require, he
observed, «a bibliography as complete as possible of all that
is being done in Education, in Civic and Social Betterment,
in Parks and Gardening, and the like. Pray tell me... if the
Institute could suppiy bibliographies and under what conditions?»
51 La Fontaine had no doubt of the help the Institute
could offer. «I am going to get in touch with my friend Otlet»,
he replied,
and we will communicate to you soon our ideas and observations as
to the general plan of the whole city. As to the bibliographical part
we accept very willingly the preparation of the special bibliographies
for you at a nominal price, and if, as I suppose, you should want
them to be as complete as possible, it will be easy to do perfect work,
but the price of the cards will go up to 15 centimes each. As to the
methodical catalog prepared for all the books in the neighborhood of
Dunfermline, we could also do this and eventually furnish the necessary
number of copies. Only, for that, we would have to know if catalogs
existed already and if it is possible to obtain a sufficient number
of copies. 52
La Fontaine was of course thinking in terms of compiling a
union catalog on the basis of already existing and therefore
dated printed catalogs.
When Otlet in his turn replied ten days later to Geddes'
letter to La Fontaine, he wrote at great length in the most general
vein. What should be created, he said was a Scottish
section of the Institute, like the French section «which has
not developed rapidly for want of funds». The Scottish Institute
would house a complete duplicate of the RBU, would contain
a union catalog of Scottish libraries (which would be added
to the RBU in Brussels) and would set up an indexing service
for Scottish periodicals. 53 A year earlier Otlet had sketched
a very ambitious program for the IIB in Scotland:
we would establish a complete duplicate of our repertories destined
for your principal libraries. This would be established in manuscript
and would be kept up to date by duplicates of all the new cards which
we insert each day in our repertories. We could also establish duplicates
of parts, such as, for example, contemporary bibliography, bibliography
of some of the branches of science, to be used by each of
your universities or scientific centers. 54
But it was clear that the IIB could not have done any of
this, should negotiations have been successful with Geddes and
his colleagues. The nearest that the IIB ever came to the pro-
124