THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

terms. «My experience*, the Secretary of the Committee for
Intellectual Co-operation wrote,
in dealing with this affair during the last few years is rather more
pessimistic [than Bradford's]. I am not sure that MM. Otlet and La
Fontaine will consent to stop their other activities and deal only in
the future with bibliographical work. I was told that their actual position
is rather difficult and perhaps for the moment they will agree to
keep only the International Institute of Bibliography; but I am not
sure that in the near future they will not begin again with Mundaneum.
He pointed out that, despite allegations to the contrary
being circulated by the IIB, the first part of the agreement
between the League and the IIB had been implemented and
a subsidy paid. This was for the Supplement to the Index
Bibliographicus. «The manner in which the Brussels Institute
undertook the work, however, was such that we were obliged
to stop the execution of the programme*. 19
More immediately dramatic than the Dutch suggestions
to decentralise the RBU were Pollard's suggestions at the
IIB's 1928 meeting for improving the organisation and the
governance of the IIB. 20 They were far-reaching. He strongly
recommended that the IIB should establish «daughter societies*
in each of the various countries of the world on the model
of the BSIB in England. These societies would mainly attempt
to secure the membership of national and local scientific,
commercial and other organisations in the country, and induce
them to employ the Decimal Classification. They would act
as national or special bureaux responsible for indexing the
literature of their countries and for sending this indexing to
the IIB in Brussels. Above all, they would receive from their
members suggestions for improvements in the UDC, would
edit them and would communicate them to the IIB, receiving
from the IIB official alterations and additions to the classification
for communication in turn to their members. The IIB
on its part would receive and incorporate into its repertories
the bibliographical information prepared by the «daughter
societies*, and would eventually issue regular bibliographies,
perhaps based, Pollard suggested, on the ten main classes of
the UDC. It Would receive suggestions for improvements in the
UDC, transmit these through the Classification Committee
from one daughter society to another for criticism, and immediately
distribute alterations and additions as they were
adopted by the CC. This closely co-operative and co-ordinated
work on the UDC, Pollard said,
w.ould be vital to the very existence of the Institut International de
Bibliographic and I venture to think that it would be of greater
importance than the -Repertoire itself and the periodical publications
of bibliographies, for the reason that, in England, at least, many institutions
prefer to make their own repertories and if they are to use
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