THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

Otlet addressed the meeting on a favourite subject of his
«the microphotographic book». He had been very much interested
in the notion as early as 1906 and had collaborated on
a paper about it then with the inventor, Robert Goldschmidt. 50
In 1925 they collaborated on another paper on the subject.
Otlet recognised the enormous potential of microphotography
for bibliography and cataloging. He believed that it would
hasten progress towards the realisation of the world network
of documentation centers he had begun to speculate about
because it permitted «an economy of effort in the conservation
and distribution of documents in a way impossible at the moment
with present means». 51
During 1925 work progressed on the European version of
the Decimal Classification (CD). Donker Duyvis reported to
the Classification Committee meeting that year that 141 notes
about changes and extensions had been exchanged. He observed
that little tangible progress had been made on the unification
of the American and the European versions of the Classification
(DC—CD), giving as the major reason the serious
illness of Dorcas Fellows. 52 During the period 1924—1925, Miss
Fellows had worked hard but unwillingly on the problems of
unification. Her time was limited, however, not only
because of illness, but because of the work of preparation
of the twelfth edition of the American version of the Classification
(published in 1927) . 53 It was just at this time, and only
momentarily, that unification of the two codes had become
distinctly possible with the prospect of new editions of both
and an expressed desire for reconciliation of differences. Donker
Duyvis sent Miss Fellows proposals for expansion and modification
of the CD, but because of pressure of preparing the
1927 edition of the DC, and a gradually mounting distrust that
became almost pathological detestation of the Europeans, 54 she
had agreed to them without much if any study. In Europe,
where second-hand copies of the twenty year old first edition
of the CD were fetching as much as $200, 55 Donker Duyvis
and Otlet were being pressed urgently for a new edition and
they hastened with developments and revisions as fast as they
could, accepting Miss Fellows' uncritical approval of their
drafts. Indeed, Donker Duyvis decided to issue «provisional
tables* in a few hundred copies of the sections most in demand
as they were completed to reduce some of the pressure of demand
on him. 56 The result was, of course, more divergence
slowly solidifying though the 1927 American edition did incorporate
some of the IIB expansions.
Two major parts of the European Classification were
formally published in 1925, both by the Concilium Bibliographicum.
57 Herbert Haviland Field had died in 1921, and
the Concilium Bibliographicum had fallen into a decline. It
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