THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

e three versions of the Classification: an abridged version, a
library version, and a bibliographic version, the last being the
European version. Dorcas Fellows, as editor of the American
version, was appointed «to check up entries (1st for an abridged
ed.) report differences and recommend for to be retained».
35 The Belgians in their turn agreed to extend their
numbers before the decimal point to three figures, even if this
required the addition of one or two zeros. A committee of three
members of the IIB and three experts appointed by Dewey
would review all developments.
Representatives from about seventy international associations,
none of them except the Red Cross, the great humanitarian
or learned associations, took part in the UlA Conference.
36 The Conference resolutions simply recapitulated the desiderata
of international organisation set out in Otlet's report.
A number of annexes attached to the Commpte-rendu of the Conference
are interesting in indicating that an unsuccessful attempt
was made to give the UIA a sounder foundation than
it had. There was a list of the principal tasks to be undertaken
by the UIA (modelled, no doubt, on the procedure adopted by
the League in dealing with the IIB), a list of regulations
which were to govern UIA World Congresses, and a statement
of the functions of the various organs of the UIA (members,
commission, secretariat, special committees). The constitution
of a governing Council of twenty members which was provided
for at this time in the regulations, was postponed. It was
decided to conduct a postal ballot for this at a later date. The
ballot appears never to have been held.
Nitobe represented the League of Nations at the Conference,
and immediately the Conference began, moves were made
to attempt to get the League of Nations to make some recognition
of the collaboration in its work of the international associations
and their work.» The day after the Conference
closed, twelve representatives of the UIA waited formally on the
League Secretariat to present the League with the UIA's demands.
These were for the representation of the UIA on the
•Committee for Intellectual Co-operation, for an international
statute,, and for the right to petition the League.
Now, however, a new threat to Otlet's hopes for League
support for his international center had appeared. In July
1924, the French government responded to the call for external
help made by Bergson in late 1923 on behalf of the Committee
on Intellectual Co-operation. It offered to provide the
Committee with an institutional headquarters, an «executive
instrument*, located in Paris, supported by a budget from the
government and called the Institute for Intellectual Co-operation.
A week before the Conference of the UIA opened, Otlet
and La Fontaine addressed a letter to the League designed to
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