THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

was briefly rescued by support from the American National
Research Council, the Rockerfeller Foundation and the Swiss
Society for the Natural Sciences, but the Rockerfeller Foundation
withdrew its support in 1926. Though the Concilium
Bibliographicum lingered on until the beginning of the Second
World War, its eventual demise was assured and, with the
publication of these parts of the Classification, it ceased to
play any real part in the affairs of the IIB. 58
Ernest Cushing Richardson was chairman of the ALA's-
Committee on Bibliography at this time and travelled to<
Europe practically each year after 1921 for a number of years.
He was optimistic about the IIB's future. He had already
frequently expressed his conviction of the value of the IIB
and of the usefulness of the RBU as an international finding;
list. He saw no reason why the IIB could not be supported
«by the familiar co-operative method» if Godfrey Dewey's.
efforts to secure large scale funds failed. 59 As he saw it, the
most serious problem was the real intentions towards the
IIB of the League Committee on Intellectual Co-operation
whose energies were absorbed during 1924, 1925 and 1926
by the setting up of the Paris Institute as its executive organ.
Should the League take hold of the IIB «practically», Richardson
believed that it would then be feasible for the ALA alsa
to come to its support. 60 But even after the order of tasks had
been agreed on in Brussels by the IIB and the League Committee,
a specific program had to be decided upon and funds
allocated to support it. Eventually, Richardson was able to get
the ALA Committee on Bibliography to agree that it would
support the IIB whenever it and the League «came to an
agreement as to operations so that the League Committee is
prepared to recommend through the American Committee of
the League, definite solicitation of funds for definite activities...»
61
Late in 1925 in a memorandum to Professor Alfred
Zimmern, Director of the Section for General Affairs, Richardson
made a number of general proposals concerning bibliographical
work in the Institute for Intellectual Co-operation
in Paris. He criticised both the League Committee, whose
secretariat was in Geneva, and the new Institute for Intellectual
Co-operation for not having sufficiently definite ideas
for encouraging international co-operation in bibliography, and
«in the matter of the Brussels Institute*, he was careful to
insist, they in America «were looking with interest to your
actions now that you have a secretariat*. 62 His memorandum
was submitted for comment both to Marcel Godet, who had
acted as rapporteur for the Sub-Committee for Bibliography
in 1924 when the agreement between the League and the
IIB had been drawn up, and Barrau Dihigo, Librarian of the
290