THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

He was disappointed that the Institute had not understood
that he had suggested, in fact, a complete re-organisation of
the IIB's Executive Committee «so as to have a majority of
effective men representing the League, the American Library
Association and other potentially aggressive factors who
might kindly but firmly control and direct the energies of the
minority.» Indeed, de Vos Van Steenwijk's report suggested
to him that it might be best to have the IIB declared bankrupt
and placed in the hands of a Receiver. In this way its tangible
assets might be seized and effective re-organisation achieved.
As this was not likely, the only solutions were those already
proposed: «contingent grants, direct co-operation and moral
support*. 71 Not long after this, he stressed that he saw the
constructive working out of the «Brussels problem» as one of
the Institute's major problems, if not its central one, because
all international intellectual co-operation ultimately rested, he
believed, on the cornerstone of bibliographic co-operation. «To
many of us over here», he wrote, «it seems a sort of acid test
of your committee and the new Institute. The task is in your
hands by virtue of your commitments and especially the recorded
agreement*. 72
However, stalemate, despite what appeared to be good
intentions within the Paris Institute, was inevitable at this
time because of the personalities involved, especially that of
Otlet, hostile, persecution prone, convinced of having been let
down once again, of having been betrayed. In July 1926,
Destree asked to be relieved of his position as the League
representative on the IIB Executive Committee. His resignation
was accepted and the Committee on Intellectual Co-operation
decided not to appoint a replacement but to review its
agreement with the IIB with the hope of finding some alternative
modality for co-operation. 73
THE SYNTHETICAL MOVEMENT
The work of reconstituting the Palais Mondial, now the
Mundaneum, proceeded slowly. Otlet seems to have spent a
good deal of his time on study and writing and in participating
in a number of conferences such as the first Psychosociological
Congress in Paris, 74 and an International Congress
of Accounting. 75 Above all, however, Otlet worked for what
he called the «synthetical movement* in which lay his
long-standing, steady bond with Patrick Geddes. He began to
explore its implications for education. In 1926, he proposed to
set up an International Museum-Center for Education within
the Mundaneum, and prepared a rationalisation of it and
what he thought modern education should be like in terms
of his notions of «universalist synthesis*. 76 His underlying
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