THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

The major problem facing the Palais Mondial, as Otlet
now saw it, was how to extricate it from politics in Belgium
and in the League, and so assure it freedom for unhampered
development. Should the Palais Mondial be kept in Brussels,
and American intervention sought to ensure its financial support
and to influence the government into shouldering its
resposibilities for it? Should it be set up in some other European
city? Should it, or a duplicate of it, be moved to America,,
perhaps established in conjunction with the Lake Placid Club
run by the Deweys? 37 These were some of the alternatives
examined by Otlet and Godfrey Dewey. No decisions were
made, but Dewey's visit and his interest were reassuring to
Otlet who certainly took from their meetings a vision of some
of America's abundant wealth flowing into and strengthening
his now foundering institutions.
At its meeting in July-August 1923, the International Committee
on Intellectual Co-operation having adopted unanimously
the Sub-Committee on Bibliography's resolutions about the
IIB, debated the problem of creating international libraries
and of compiling an Index Bibliographicus which would
provide listings of bibliographical institutions and periodicals
in all countries in the world and in all areas of knowledge.
This latter project was approved almost at once by the
League's General Assembly, which, when it met in September,
urged that use should be made of the work of the IIB
wherever possible. 38 Bergson spoke to the Assembly about the
crippling problems faced by the Committee because of its
meagre budget which had been reduced in 1923 to nearly half
its former already inadequate amount,; and its lack of a permanent
executive body without which continuous international
action was impossible. 39 The League's Council, supported by
the Assembly, eventually authorised the Committee to accept
outside funds and «a somewhat desperate appeal directed to
the 'generosity of the various states and even of the private
associations' was issued». 40
During October 1923, Geddes, who had arrived in Europe
and was in almost daily contact with Otlet, visited Paris and
held long conversations with Bergson. «He is quite honest and'
open», Geddes reported to the suspicious, persecution-prone
Otlet. «It is a pity that you don't try personal contact with him
and his Committee in place of doing everything by correspondence.»
Leon Bourgeois, it turned out, Geddes informed Otlet,
had been the stumbling block which had prevented Bergson
and the Committee acknowledging and fully understanding
Otlet's ideas and the work of his institutions in Brussels. It
seemed to Geddes that
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he is (they are) ignorant not only of your work, but too much;
of all things of this order... However, it is necessary to say that