THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

expect them to become more widely established, more precise
in their functions, more effective in their information-providingroles.
Gradually, the idea of 'consultation' will be substituted
for that of reading. The repertory will replace the library, and
the dossier, unique lor each question, formed from analytical
elements on separate sheets or cards, will appear containing,
by extract all that has been written on a subject and kept up
to date».
This was an important notion for Otlet and had two farreaching
consequences. One was that eventually we might be
able to suppress the publication of various kinds of important
material in little general demand but for which, hitherto, there
had been no alternative means of access. A few manuscript
copies dispatched to central offices would then suffice. Moreover,
the techniques of the Office, if carried out as described,
would help to eradicate erroneous, misleading, out-of-date, or
simply repetitive material.
The second consequence of the notion of Scientific and
Technical Offices Otlet explored in some detail. One would expect
that as Offices became more widely established the actual
forms of publication would begin to adapt to their needs.
Journals and books would appear on cards, or on detachable
sheets as «autonomous elements* to allow easy interpolation in
an appropriate dossier. Otlet had actually explored this idea,,
a development from his view of what bibliographical publications
should be like, as early as 1901 when he had described
what he called «revues a decouper», 97 and in 1906 a card edition
of the periodicals' index section of the Bibliographie de
Belgique was issued. In 1907 the Belgian Sociological Society
experimented with this new form of publication Otlet was advocating
in its journal which was edited by Cyrille Van Overbergh.
Van Overbergh was working closely with Otlet on the
Mont des Arts project and on a study of international organisations
which was published as a monograph in the new form
by the Belgian Sociological Society and the IIB.
Otlet was careful to suggest that the library and the
office should not be thought to be antagonistic,, that there was
no question that eventually one would supplant the other. Both
were to be necessary in the future. They would form separate
departments of a single organisation. «One can summarise such
a conception by saying: 'the book of the future is the Office'.
Certainly the Office is very much the form which the Encyclopedia
should take in this dawn of our twentieth century, in
order that we might inherit the learned centuries preceding it.»
Nowadays, Otlet observed, encyclopedias tended to be works of
popularisation and not of synthesis of the whole of intellectual
production as they had been in the past. The Office would
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