THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

under contract from the Belgian government. In 1895 the OIBprepared
a second part to this bibliography, an index to
selected Belgian periodicals, and provided classification numbers
for the books listed in the first part of the bibliography.
The periodicals' index appeared again in 1896 slightly augmented
in size. In 1897 and 1898 the OIB did not participate
in preparation of the Bibliographie de Belglque. But after 1899'
the association of OIB with the Bibliographie was continued
uninterrupted until after the War. In 1906, with a subsidy
from the Government, the Office became responsible for an
edition of the bibliography on cards, copies of which were
distributed free to a number of great foreign libraries. 7 This
was an important step for the OIB in its role as a national
institute of bibliography attempting to cooperate as fully as
possible with the International Institute of Bibliography in
the elaboration of the RBU. The Bibliographie de Belgique,
as Otlet and its editor, Ernest Vanderveld, proudly pointed
out to the fifth International Publishers' Congress in Milan
that year, now fulfilled all the requirements formulated by
the IIB for a national bibliography. 8 The relationship of the
OIB with the Bibliographie de Belgique was constantly renegotiated
over the years as the contracts for the publication
of the bibliography expired and were themselves renegotiated.
In 1911 Otlet was appointed to a Commission supervising the
publication of the bibliography. 9 In 1912 and 1913 the periodicals'
index, now called «Bulletin des sommaires», which, like
the parent bibliography itself, gradually increased in size with
the years, was issued on special lightweight sheets of paper
printed on one side only. When the Mandate of the Commission
of 1911 expired in 1914 and the compilation of the bibliography
was assigned at that time to the Bibliotheque Royale
He Belgique, it was announced that «the publication of the
'Bulletin des sommaires' . . will henceforth be exclusively
entrusted to the OIB». 10
The fact that the OIB saw the entire bibliography in
various stages of preparation gave it ample opportunity to
fulfil another of the tasks of a national institute of bibliography
— the gathering of publishing statistics, and these were
tabulated and published from time to time in the IIB Bulletin.
The OIB did little, however, for retrospective bibliography
in Belgium though it tried to the extent of entering into a
series of negotiations with the Ministry of the Interior and
Public Instruction for the compilation and publication of a
Bibliographie Naiionale for the period 1880 to 1900. This
was to continue work already completed and published for
the period 1830 to 1880. The negotiations, however, seem not
to have ended in any agreement. 11
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