THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

It was clear that just as the old order was changing everywhere else
in Europe, so was the balance of power shifting in Belgium. The
Liberals of the old school had had their day. And so now had the
Catholics. 50
An uneasy coalition government was formed under the
leadership of M. Delacroix. Otlet and La Fontaine sought to
have his earlier promises confirmed. 51 Early in 1920 the Minister
for Public Works informed Otlet that he would urge
the Council of Ministers to implement the project of constructing
a Palais Mondial in the Pare de Woluwe according to
-the plans now completed by the government architect. He
also confirmed the government's permission to allow the UIA
in the meantime to centralise its constituent parts in the
Palais du Cinquantenaire. 52 A subsidy was provided to support
the move of collections, offices and personnel from the several
locations they occupied in the center of Brussels. The move
•cost nearly half a million francs, a sum provided by the
.government, it was alleged, only because of La Fontaine's
-friendship with the Minister. 53
For Otlet, there were two great tasks in 1919 and 1920:
this move, and a series of conferences by which the UIA and
its constituent parts,, especially the I IB, would once again
become powerful international influences. He was, characteristically,
formidably dedicated to these tasks. His friend
Leon Losseau, interested above all in the OIB-IIB, developed
a plan for its work after the War. He submitted his
plan to Masure for comment before sending it to Otlet. Manure
discouraged him. «I don't really think that it will be
necessary to speak to Otlet just now. For the moment his
-sole objective is the transfer of the IIB (nothing, only that)
to the Palais du Cinquantenaire and the organisation of a
great congress for next year—all things which will advance the
tables of classification, and the work of developing the repertories.*
54 This was in October 1919. By July 1920 the move
was well under way and Otlet was less than ever available.
«I don't see Otlet regularly», wrote Masure to Losseau. «Our
paths cross but we don't meet. The documents from the Rue
-de la Regence are already removed; those in the Chapel
{Ancien Chapelle St. Georges] will leave in three weeks, and
the Repertory in our first location, Rue du Musee, will be
transferred afterwards.* 55
Despite the urgency of these matters, Otlet made an effort
in the middle of 1919 to gather up one more thread of his
pre-war work, contact with Melvil Dewey in the United States.
He wrote a letter of greeting to Dewey expressing hope
for the future, announcing the beginning of new work in Europe
of revising and expanding the parts of the Decimal Classification
for the applied sciences, and asking for the latest
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