THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

ment nor to encourage her to find a congenial occupation of
some kind. There was now little money and few of those
diversions characteristic of Edouard Otlet's household in the
days when Otlet courted her, days in which the family was
aggressively prosperous. She must often have felt isolated and
bored. The death of his father released Otlet from any familial
constraint to prolong the marriage.
These years of Otlet's private life, however, were by no
means completely shadowed by the death of his father and
by his divorce. He was a regular visitor to the house of Henri
La Fontaine's sister, Leonie. The visits eventually assumed an
almost invariable pattern as the years went by. He dined with
her every Tuesday evening. Indeed, so strong became the
habit of these visits for Leonie that they were continued for
a time, as it were, by proxy after Otlet's death, by his colleague
and disciple, Georges Lorphevre. At some time during the
period of his divorce proceedings he met a friend of Leonie
La Fontaine's, a wealthy Dutch woman, Cato Van Nederhasselt,
who was older than he. She expressed interest in his
work and desired to participate in some way in it. Their
acquaintance developed apace through visits and correspondence
and the consequence, disappointing a tenuous hope
that Leonie La Fontaine was thought to cherish, 58 was Otlet's
second marriage in 1912 to Cato Van Nederhesselt. This was
a very successful marriage, as far as one can gather, from,
which Otlet continually drew strength.
THE CONGRESS OF MONS AND THE MONT DES ARTS
In 1905 an International Exposition was held at Liege in
Belgium. The OIB exhibited excerpts from its repertories
and examples of bibliographical equipment and supplies. It
was also a member of the Exposition's Commercial Office and
it assembled, classified, and prepared for consultation at the
exposition a large collection of catalogs, prospectuses, circulars
and other industrial and commercial material. As on
similar occasions, a large number of international conferences
were held. Though no conference of the IIB was called, its
officials participated in a number of others such as that of
the International Union of Photography, a Congress for the
Extension of French Language and Culture and the International
Congress of the Press. A culmination of these international
conferences was one sponsored by the Belgian government.
It was intended to provide a kind of «summary» and
«crown» of all the others. 59 Presided over by the King and
held at Mons, it was called the International Congress for
World Economic Expansion. Otlet presented a long report to
it containing proposals for the development of the OIB by
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