THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

Arctowski's plea and the implicit criticism of OIB had considerable
effect. After a number of meetings between various
interested individuals, a Commission of the kind he had proposed
was set up. A Decree issued on 5 May 1908 indicated
its function as
to lend its scientific collaboration to the OIB for indexing and classing
works published in Belgium concerning the sciences. The bibliographical
notices which will be prepared are destined to enrich the
Repertories and Bibliographical collections of Belgium, and are regularly
to be sent to the Bureau of the International Catalogue of Scientific
Literature in London. 28
The OIB undertook to prepare and maintain the manuscript
of the notices involved, and to limit and co-ordinate the work
of the various specialists compiling them, the final manuscript
being reviewed by a plenary session of the Commission before
dispatch to London. 29 Though the original suggestion for the
work of the Commission was limited to preparing material for
the Royal Society's Catalogue, Otlet had ensured that the
Commission's charge was couched in more general terms.
One meeting, for example, concluded with the resolution
there is occasion to collaborate in the preparation of the RBU,
characterised by the use of cards, the development of the Decimal Classification,
and the publication of bibliographical notices for each
branch of science from a central organisation; there is also occasion
to encourage the publications of the Concilium Bibliographicum, the
Bibliographia Universalis, (and to) collaborate in the International
Catalogue of Science for the bibliography of Belgian scientific
works. 30
Otlet prepared a list of societies likely to be able to assume
responsibility for various subject areas, 31 and became anxious
to develop a concordance between the Royal Society's classification
and the Decimal Classification. 32 During the following
years he supervised and organised the co-operation of Belgium
with the Royal Society, for the OIB did in fact become the
Belgian regional bureau of the Royal Society's Catalogue,
although it seems that its collaboration was never wholehearted
nor particularly persistent. 33
A natural extension of the OIB's work in co-ordinating
bibliographical activities in Belgium and facilitating the co-operation
of various associations and societies concerned with
it, was the gathering at the OIB of information on Belgian
learned societies. In 1904 a circular was prepared and sent out
to determine the name, the headquarters, the date of foundation,
the officers, the sessions, the work, services, collections,
publications, affiliations, the library holdings and the state
of their organisation, and the budget, of these groups, for an
Annuaire des societes scientifiques, artistiques et litteraires de
Belgique which was published in 1905. 34 This small volume,
limited to notices about «free associations of all kinds whose
objects and endeavours complement the action of official aca-
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