THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

tions made. They were sent to Brussels in 1931, 37 but it is possible
that Dewey took a copy of them with him as he had hoped 1
to do. In any case, whether he had Miss Fellows' report or not,,
he and Otlet arrived at an arrangement for pursuing concordance,
and Dewey returned to America hopeful of improved,
relations between the two classifications. 38
At the end of the 1930 conference of the IIB which was
held as scheduled in Zurich, Otlet was in despair. The Institute
with its new shape, with its younger men slowly but
surely taking over from him and La Fontaine, had not heeded
him or his plans for concordance. «You know», he wrote to-
Dewey afterwards,
how I am forced to find solutions for conciliation; you know in what
general and future terms I have envisaged here in Brussels the problem
posed by conciliation and the future. iBut I am not followed. In
London, it seems to me that the question of concordance has not
been considered in the same spirit. In truth, I am overwhelmed, for,
materially, I don't have time to battle with our friends for the cause
of concordance, and to intervene in particular cases as necessary. You.
know what resources we lack to make a serious attempt at organisation
of the Tables of the Decimal Classification at Brussels . .. Deprived
of ... resources and wanting to save the work, cost what itmight,
it was necessary to have recourse to a great voluntary work
of three parties. From there a radical transformation which has operated
in the structure of the IIB and the organisation of the [Classification]
Committee acting more and more without having before it
the whole of the problem past, present and future. What to do? What
to do?
Here are the resolutions adopted at Zurich. The question of CD—DC
has been examined by the Committee. I intervened to explain and
defend the project elaborated with you to show the consequences of
the facts of the movement ... The English and the Dutch have
declared it to be impossible to link themselves with what this project
would mean. I have preached in the desert, and not having the
means, I repeat the material means, of realising it myself, the whole
position has been weakened. Mr. Donker Duyvis should have written to
you about what the situation is now. The English had proposed to
call him «Dictator» of the classification. This was a little sharp,
whatever his collaboration on the tables had been. 39
It seems clear that in Europe there had grown up as.
strong a feeling against shackling the CD to the DC as Dorcas
Fellows had expressed against shackling the DC to the
CD. This mutual reluctance was expressed in attitudes towards
translation. «Great z DC!», Dorcas Fellows exclaimed
to Godfrey Dewey. «Man in Germany wants to translate it (DC
mind you, not CD) into German — we to pay for translating
and publishing.* 40 But opposed to this was the English desire
expressed in 1931 to translate the CD into English. 41
Otlet with his universalist philosophy, his belief in a great
centralised bibliographic repertory, still looked for concordance,
for the reconciliation of differences to achieve his goal of
318