THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

the same manner as in the IIB itself, members being drawn
from regional or national sections and from the international
associations. The Committee was to have its own Secretariat
appointed by the IIB Council. The purposes of the Secretariat
were: to form «a liaison center for all who co-operate in the
tables of the Decimal Classification*, to keep «the list of collaborators
and the list of the Committee's documentation up
to date»; and to distribute and publish «news and important
facts on the work of the Committee». n A formal procedure was
set down for recommending, deliberating upon and then adopting
proposals for the revision and development of the Classification.
Preliminary drafts and plans were to be sent to regional
secretaries who had the responsibility of seeing that they
were reproduced in as many copies as needed and distributed
wherever appropriate. Copies were also to be sent to the General
Secretariat of the IIB and to the appropriate officials in relevant
international organisations. After three months, if a delay
was not requested for further consideration, a draft was
considered to have been adopted officially by the Classification
Committee. An annual General Assembly of the Committee was
to be held at the time of the IIB's annual meeting, and would
decide between opposing claims when they arose. The Secretariat
was designated as having been provisionally assumed by
Nider, and Donker Duyvis was appointed Secretary. The temporary
nature of the location of the Secretariat apart from
IIB's General Secretariat was emphasised and explained by the
difficulties encountered by the IIB in Brussels at this time.
These, then, were the major steps taken by the group meeting
in The Hague to ensure that the Institute regained its strength
and influence on the widest possible base.
The Hague meeting also decided to call a conference of
the IIB in its newly constituted form in Geneva on September
8, 1924. At this meeting the new statutes could be ratified,
and the IIB formally apprised of what had been happening in
Brussels. It could also discuss the draft agreement between the
IIB and the League's International Committee on Intellectual
Co-operation which had at last been drawn up, and could now
be presented to the IIB fcr ratification. A Bulletin was published
in July containing the draft statutes and the League agreement
by way of preparation for the conference. 12
Ironically, during this year of adversity for the IIB in Belgium,
its negotiations with the League appeared at last to be
about to bear some fruit, though the wider questions of the UIA
and the League were no" nearer to being settled than ever. In
December 1923 La Fontaine had participated in a meeting of
the International Committee on Intellectual Co-operation in
Paris. There the Committee's Sub-Committee on Bibliography
had recommended that an agreement between the League and
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