THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

world unity for documentation. Donker Duyvis and Pollard,,
on the other hand, were more pragmatic. They wished to have
a classification issued in a reasonably up-to-date form, in use,,
and under study for further extension and revision. For them
use was mainly local, though at this time they were orthodox
and paid lip-service to the RBU. It did not, however, exercise
great power on their imagination. «In England at least», Pollard
had said, «many institutions prefer to make their own repertories».
42 This local use and the method Donker Duyvis
believed best for improving the new edition by «retouched»
translations, emphasised the need for translations. The more
decentralised «retouching» became the more discordance would
appear not only between the European edition and the American
edition, but also between various European translations as
well. Donker Duyvis had struck at the foundation of unity
with the American classification and at the wider concept of a
single international standard, though his power as «dictator»
of the classification and controller of translations was a little
confined by the Zurich conference's decision that the Executive
Council of the IIB and not the CC would have ultimate
authority for approving all publications made in the name of
the IIB.
Although the main tables were finished in 1929 and work
began at once upon their revision, extension and translation, the
index to the new edition did not appear in the six months Donker
Duyvis had estimated as necessary for its preparation. Nor
did the sub-committee for the tables of the common subdivisions
quickly produce a revised version of these. As a result
the edition languished uncompleted until 1932. A letter from
Leon Wouters to La Fontaine in March 1930 describes some
of the difficulties resulting from the delay in completing the
new edition.
This evening as on numerous other evenings I am devoting myself
to the correspondence of the subscribers to the Decimal Classification-
Imagine a thousand correspondents scattered in 45 different countries
... Their letters are generally very polite and express a patience
which does honour to the brotherhood of the decimaLists.
However, there are some letters which ask if we are swindlers;
others saying that they are going to address themselves to important
people in Brussels to find out what this International Institute of
Bibliography is to which they have sent money without receiving its
value in return. Another, a German bookseller, has informed us that
he has at last received the volume subscribed to three years ago, but
that he has been obliged to return it to us because his client had
died in the meantime.
Lastly, a great number tell us that they do not have the alphabetical'
index, that they have the most urgent need of it, and beg us to let
them know unequivocably when we intend to send it to them .. .
The printer receives letters and the IIB also. They send them to me;
I read them; I reply to them best I can, calming impatience and'
319-