THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

had actually read from a letter from the Secretary of the
Committee refusing to grant the delay requested and proposing
to pay cost incurred only until the 1st January,.
1926—250 Swiss francs. It was this letter that had determined
Otlet to conclude the work at the expense of the IIB and
«expose» the League in a preface of which de Vos Van Steenwijk
had seen the proofs. When the work was issued, hurriedly
and imperfectly, Marcel Godet, editor of the first Edition,
refused to have his name associated with it. 68
The preface indicated that information had been incorporated
into the Supplement as received without verification,
amplification, or consistent transliteration of titles in
non-roman alphabets.
These insurmountable difficulties have resulted from the fact that the
Accounting Services of the League of Nations considered that the sum
voted by the Assembly of 1925 for bibliographical work, was intended
to cover only the costs of printing the Index Bibliographicas and its
Supplement, without any provision whatever for an indemnity for the
work of preparation, selection or verification which is imposed on and
exacted by any serious bibliographical work. 69
The version in English of de Vos Van Steenwijk's report
of his visit to Brussels, which went to Richardson and which
incorporated suggestions from Godet and the opinions of
Barrau Dihigo, was rather different from the confidential
document submitted to the Director of the Paris Institute.
In the English report, de Vos Van Steenwijk took pains to
stress the completely unbiased nature of his study of the
Brussels situation, his conclusions being based on consultations
with a great many people as well as with Otlet, and
drawn, indeed, partly from Richardson's own reports. The
first point to be made, in his view, was that it was urgently
necessary «to restore confidence in the IIB because it has
been badly shattered*. The mere raising of funds would not
have this effect because of the lack of co-operation between
the IIB and the Directors of the world's great libraries. Nor
would adding members to the IIB's Executive Committee, a
move Richardson was himself understood to have recommended,'
be enough. The necessary confidence
can only be regained by putting the entire responsibility for the IIB,
or at least for such parts as are to be patronised by the League of
Nations, on the shoulders of a new man of recognised authority
among librarians ...
At present direct co-operation between the IIB and the CICI is impossible,
if only for personal motives. Too much ill feeling has been
stored up. 70
Richardson did not at once rise to the bait, never did to the
idea that he might become what he called the «Dictator of
the Dictators*. He repeated that they in America were waiting
for the League to act before they would attempt to do so.
293