THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

minations between the publisher, Fourez, Masure and the
Revue's editor, which were exchanged well into 1909, Masure
alleging that he had sent the copy to Fourez in time, Fourez
claiming it had come late. 40 This altercation was particularly
rancorous because in 1907 the three parties had worked out
a system of penalties for lateness at 20 francs per day exacted
by the Revue. il By 1910 the position had become impossible.
Desperately preparing for the 1910 Brussels Exposition and
a series of conferences organised by the OIB, Masure wrote
that the bibliography would be late, but «to apply the penalties
in this case would be very unfriendly*. 42 This elicited a
stiff response: «The Revue cannot disorganise its services because
the OIB organises a conference!* 43 By June the penalties
for the previous three months had reached more than
1200 francs. «\Vhat», wrote the editors, «will the Institute
offer to pay?» 44 In 1911 the OIB was punctual except for
January, but in 1912 and 1913, when more conferences took
place, the trouble began again. At the end of 1912 (when the
OIB had been late with the Bibliography every month), the
total penalties for the three years, 1910, 1911, 1912, reached
3,850 francs. The first payment for a number of years made
by the Revue to the OIB for the printing of the Bibliographywas
made in July 1914: 115 francs! 45
It was clear that the Conferences of 1910 and 1913 absorbed
most of OIB's energies, so that it could not keep to the
printing schedules for the Revue economique internationale.
It also became clear that in its relations with its own printer,
Fourez, the OIB was, economically, walking a tightrope.
Fourez's bills for 1905, 1906, 1908, for example, could not be
paid at once. The most often repeated excuse was the absence
from Brussels of the peripatetic La Fontaine, who had become
Treasurer, or the necessity of waiting for the OIB's governmental
subsidy. 46 Evident in all of this is a reaching by itsdirectors
just beyond the OIB's budget and organisational
ability, a tendency to move on to a later series of tasks before
a basis in the assured consolidation of former ones was
achieved. Consequently the assumption of new work at the
OIB invariably interfered with the performance of former
work. As the Office expanded, most of its publishing activities
were interrupted and in some instances terminated. La Fontaine,
beginning his work on the Bibliographia Economica Universalis,
ceased to compile the Bibliographia Bibliographica.
The expansion of the Institute in 1910 led to the cessation of
the Repertoire des brevets and the silence of the IIB Bulletin
which was only broken briefly in 1914. Though the Decimal
Classification was discussed, revised and newly developed in
part after 1905, very little of it was published after that time
and none of it was published on a regular basis.
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