THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

at the IIB to complement the other Offices and Institutes added
to its structure. 95
The major work of the conference was introduced by Otlet
and La Fontaine's «Present State of Bibliographical Questions
and the Systematic Organisation of Documentation*. It
developed more generally many of the points made in the IIB's
«Report...» and it provided a full, generalised explanation of
what Otlet and La Fontaine had been attempting to achieve
at the OIB-IIB in the last few years. 96
Having surveyed the present organisation of bibliography
throughout the world and concluded that it consisted of a
multitude of unco-ordinated organisations having little or no
sustained relationships with one another, Otlet observed that
one could see in them, nevertheless, «the parts of a vast whole»,
that they formed «the living elements of a general organisation
which needed only encouragement and system in order
to emerge»- But bibliographical organisation should not be
considered independently from the organisation of science.
«The medium of the organisation of scientific work is the book,
above all in its latest form, the periodical*. So highly developed
had science become, Otlet observed, «the only conception
which corresponds to reality is to consider all books, all periodical
articles, all the official reports as volumes, chapters,
paragraphs in one great book, the Universal Book, a colossal
encyclopedia framed from all that has been published...». An
index is necessary for such a vast and complex work, and for
this the RBU must serve as the prototype. It is also necessary,
of course, to have the documents themselves. Otlet then
described the trend in contemporary libraries towards universality
of collections. As their collections, and the methods of
organising them, have developed «libraries have become establishments
of the first order for scientific investigation, the culture
of the people and the instruction of adults». Looking into
the future, we will see them becoming «Universitates Litterarum,
modern universities of the written word encroaching daily
on the domain hitherto reserved for the universities of the
spoken word...». Eventually will emerge the true universal
library. This will be «the Archivium of humanity, and the RBU
will be its true catalog after having appeared for so long
as the catalog of a purely ideal universal library».
To these elements, existing now and full of promise of
their future, the book (the Universal Book), the Library (the
Universal Library), yet a third element must be added. This
was quite new: the Scientific and Technical Office. The business
of the Office should be information as opposed to documents.
Though Offices of the kind Otlet was describing often
had libraries attached, they fulfilled their functions by means
of the compilation of dossiers. Gradually, said Otlet, we may
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