THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

The ultimate material expression of the institution would
foe the actual physical buildings constituting the world centre.
«The Center», Otlet observed, «is... the whole of its installations,
collections, services, all the architectural forms
'objectifying and visualising' the idea of the institutions 28 In
its initial stages, the center would have one building, but later
it would grow into
a great colony, a universitas, with its many institutes swarming
around the central structure. And yet later one may entertain the vision
of a 'city' where each nation will be represented by its pavillion each
great special organisation of world life, by its building... M
In its «ideal form», this is what the Center would be
like — a Mondaneum (the spelling was later changed to Mundaneum).
No longer did Otlet use the name «Palais Mondiab.
"What he called the «Palais Mondial and its Institutes» were
merely a first and imperfect version of the Mondaneum, and
had suffered grievous assault in Brussels. The Conference that
Otlet now proposed to call at Geneva, and to which this report
was directed, was intended «to unite all effort to reconstruct
immediately the institutions grouped at the Palais Mondial, to
strengthen and to complete them». 30 The tasks to be faced by
the Conference, then, were to prepare and have adopted an
appropriate statute, and to choose a suitable location which
would be accepted by the world as «extra-territorialised», a
location where the Mondaneum could grow absolutely freely,
unhampered by any restriction of nationalist interest. Otlet
described what he meant by «extra-territorial» at some length,
pointing out that in the Vatican, the Holy City of Jerusalum,
the principalities of Liechtenstein and Monaco and elsewhere,
freedom from national control, an internationally respected
Jocal independence, worked very well. This is what was needed
for the new Center-City he wished to see arise from the old
Palais Mondial.
In presenting this plan for a Mondaneum, the new Palais
Mondial, Otlet critically examined the work of the League of
Nations and other international organisations in order to
suggest possible «modalities» of their collaboration with the
Center. Two particular grievances came out strongly in his
account of the League: its decision to restrict representation
to governments, and the activities of the International Committee
on Intellectual Co-operation. The League's Council
had decided in 1923 not to transmit within its secretariat documents
originating from individuals and non-governmental
associations and quite specifically limited its representation to
governments. In Otlet's view, grave consequences for the international
associations had resulted for
282
There exists no firm organic disposition regulating the relations of
international associations with the League of Nations. The international