THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

to be typed. A member of the Office staff had to search the
repertories as we search a card catalog for cards apparently
relevant to a request, remove the cards or the appropriate
drawers from the repertory, type a copy of each card, and then
replace the cards or drawers.
That the copying problem was very seriously regarded at
OIB there is no doubt, both for compiling the repertories, and:
subsequently for consulting them and preparing bibliographies
from them. It lay behind Otlet and La Fontaine's concern to
find a cheap and simple method for the reproduction of cards.
Facing this problem for the first time in 1895, Otlet wrote for
advice to the Library Bureau in Boston. 58 Shortly afterwards
he and La Fontaine began to explore the possibility of using a
certain kind of typewriter and a specially prepared zinc plate
for producing a master for copying. For this they sought advice
and technical information from Cedric Chivers manager of
the London branch of the Bureau. 59 It seems that the problem
of using a typewriter for preparing printed card copy was never
resolved and cards for the repertories and from them had
to be laboriously typed again and again as necessary.
The printing of cards by conventional means was itself a
novelty in Europe when Otlet and La Fontaine proposed to
create and distribute their RBU. When they set about organising
a class for Bibliography in the Section for Science at the
International Exposition of Brussels in 1897, they seized upon
this occasion as an opportunity to discover by means of an.
international competition a solution to their card copying problems.
They offered a prize of 500 francs for a machine or procedure
which would fulfil these specifications:
1. Printing a small number of copies (50—100) should be easier and
more rapid than with the machines and procedures presently available;
2. It should be more economical;
3. The type-plate for each card should be storable in a handy way
so as not to take up much space, in order to permit its future use. 60
Nothing came of the competition, and at the second International
Conference of Bibliography held in Brussels later in
1897, a commission to study the matter further was set up. el
Eventually in 1899 the Office appointed its own printer who
was to specialise in printing its bibliographic material. e2 Unfortunately
this step proved something of an embarrassment
to the Office. Writing to Richet in 1902 to refuse financial
assistance for the Bibliographia Medica, La Fontaine commented:
«We have ourselves a deficit of more than 22,000 francs,
and the heavy charge of a printing shop which Otlet has created
has taken us very much beyond what we had originally
forecast*. 63
One must conclude that the OIB was simply not equipped
financially or technically to perform the functions which it ad-
126