THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

Nevertheless, whatever difficulties and inadequacies were
revealed as time went by and as the growing Office and
Institute creaked and groaned in their reaching towards internationalism,
the Bulletin did appear for 16 years; the Bibliographia
Economica Universalis, a comprehensive but by no
means complete work, 47 appeared for 11 years; the enormous
Manual of the RBU was published; and regular work was done
over the decades from the beginning of the Institute's active
life to the War, on the Bibliographie de Belgique and the
Bibliographia Technica. If this work was not consistent inquality,
and was neither always efficiently nor punctually performed,
it was at least undertaken and met some need. This
is an achievement which should not be deprecated.
OTLET
Once an obscure advocate practising law unwillingly and
with little success in the Court of Appeals in Brussels, by
1905, a decade after the foundation of the OIB—IIB, Otlet
had become a man of sufficient stature to act for the government
at important international gatherings concerned with.
bibliography. He was at the head of the OIB, a semi-official
agency of government, and of the IIB, which he always represented
as nestling, because of the OIB, in some vague,
ill-defined way under the protective mantle of the government.
Dedicated, hard-working, friend and acquaintance of
many placed high in the social, professional and political
circles of the day, he soon settled into a position in Brussels
of assured but not obtrusive eminence. From this position and
cementing it and increasing its importance, he took an activepart
in various ventures related to his interests.
In 1905 he helped form a Musee du Livre with the participation
of a number of organisations concerned with printing and
publishing, and became its President. The source of the
collections of the Museum was, at Otlet's suggestion, an
exhibition of photogravure held in 1906 and sponsored by the
Cercle d'Etudes Typographiques of Brussels. 48 In 1906 the
Musee du Livre organised an exhibition of Belgian art and
literary books and a series of lectures at Ostend in the holiday
season. One of a formidable series of lecturers which included
his old maitre, Picard, and the poets Lemonnier, and Verhaeren,
Otlet opened the exhibition with an address entitled
«Aspects of the Book». 49 Later he delivered the inaugural
address at the official opening of the Musee du Livre in
Brussels. 50
One of the organisations which participated in the forming
of the Musee du Livre was the Union de la Presse Periodique
Beige. As editor of the IIB Bulletin, Otlet had been a member
of the Union for a number of years. In 1906 be became Vice-
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