THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

The Institute pursues its work according to an overall plan, standardised
methods, and a convention having the purpose of forming
a Universal Network of Documentation, Publication and Information.
It co-operates in the International Center formed by the Union des
Associations Internationales. 8
The statutes recognised three categories of members: effective,
associate and honorary. Effective members were the only
ones with the right to vote. In Article 9, «Representation», effective
members were described as regional or national organisations
having documentation or bibliography as their object.
Where such organisations did not exist, the Council of the IIB
could designate national representatives. Any international organisation,
governmental or non-governmental with goals involving
human knowledge could also become effective members
of the Institute. 9 These statutes as a whole did not express radically
new ideas. They expressed, however, a new emphasis on
national or regional sections as underlying the Institute's organisation.
Otlet had always recognised the importance of national
organisation for achieving the international goals of the
IIB, but had never viewed it as having the exclusive importance
it was given in these statutes.
The statutes changed the Institute's emphasis in yet another
way. The RBU was now only one of the works and collections
for which the IIB would maintain an international center,
a «center for co-ordination*. The Universal Decimal Classification
on the other hand, the means in Otlet's eyes to the end
of the RBU, was implicitly recognised as having achieved an
enhanced importance in the affairs of the Institute. This importance
was made quite clear by the creation of an International
Committee for the Decimal Classification.
The continued absence after the War of published revisions
of the Classification particularly disturbed Donker Duyvis who,
in 1921, had become secretary of a committee to consider suggestions
for revision of parts of the Classification. In January
1922 he had himself prepared revisions for organic chemistry
consisting of nineteen typed pages, and for the chemistry of
colloids. He also attempted to interest the International Union
of Pure and Applied Chemistry in the Classification, and in
July 1924 it applied for representation as a special international
organisation on the IIB Council. 10 Donker Duyvis had, in fact,
quickly become the hub of activity on the Classification, and
he helped Otlet draw up the constitution of the Classification
Committee, which formalised the work of his 1921 committee
and laid down appropriate procedures and controls for dealing
with the Classification.
The Classification Committee now became the official body
through which the IIB exercised its rights over the Classification.
Representation in the Committee was «confederative» in
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