THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

far beyond their resources. He had the impression that so
strong was their feeling of having been treated «unjustly and
ungratefully on various occasions and by various parties»
that they were no longer capable of being objective about the
Paris Institute and had lost all sight of their own faults. He
was convinced, too, that personal relations between them and
either the Committee or the Institute for Intellectual Co-operation
had deteriorated to such an extent that co-operation
between them had become impossible. The 1924 agreement, in
which League support to the IIB depended upon restriction
of its work, he discovered to have been deeply antipathetic
to the Directors of the IIB. It
had been accepted by them with bad grace and, it seems, on the other
hand the CICI [Commission Internationale de Cooperation Intellectuelle]
had done little to lessen this bad grace ...
He pointed out, as an instance of neglect on its part, that
the League had allowed over a year to elapse before informing
the Directors of the IIB as to the manner in which the
1924 agreement might be carried out.
The Supplement to the Index Bibliographicus had been
undertaken under such poor financial conditions, he decided,
that there was no way in which it could be well done, a point
Marcel Godet had made some months earlier when appealing
for adequate support for the IIB when it was charged by the
League with specific tasks. The situation, however, was more
complicated and unpleasant than this. The League had refused
the Belgians any more time to prepare the work than
originally agreed on, though there had been a considerable
delay in getting it started. As to just what the real state of
affairs was, de Vos Van Steenwijk was unclear because of
lack of sufficient communication between the Secretariat for
International Intellectual Co-operation in Geneva and the
Institute in Paris. What was clear, however, was that Otlet,
highly incensed yet again with the League, proposed to issue
the Supplement at the IIB's own expense with a preface in
which he intended to explain fully the difficulties that had
occurred between the IIB and the League over the matter.
This disturbed de Vos Van Steenwijk because «perhaps wrong
is on both sides». 66
There was rather a flurry in Geneva upon receipt of de
Vos Van Steenwijk's report, for La Fontaine had informed the
Secretary of the International Committee for Intellectual
Co-operation in Geneva that the supplement was finished and
ready for printing. It seemed difficult, as a result, for the
League now to repudiate payment for it as de Vos Van
Steenwijk seemed to think it had been decided to do. 67 De
Vos Van Steenwijk, however, thought La Fontaine was, in
fact, not au courant with the real state of affairs. Otlet
292