THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

stance should be. The Institute, at this stage, he was informed,
need not choose between the two schemes being advanced.
He was merely to present them at the Conference and
seek general opinions about them before the Institute took any
action on either. He was also carefully briefed on the history
of the relations of the Institute for Intellectual Co-operation
with the IIB and was informed that any improvement in the
rather tenuous relations with the IIB since 1927 has stemmed
from the fact that «M. Otlet, though still Secretary-General,
had been abandoned by the Directors of this institution.» 79
The result of his visit to Frankfurt was embodied in the
official letter sent out by the Director of the Paris Institute,
Henri Bonnet, on 18th November 1932. In this letter Bonnet indicated
that the Institute had been charged by its Committee in
Geneva to conduct a preliminary enquiry on the best way of
ultimately co-ordinating documentation internationally and the
various individuals and bodies to whom the letter was addressed
were asked to give their views as to whether international
action in their field was possible and desirable and what kind
of plan the Institute might draw up to improve the situation
now existing. In documents, which included Gerard's plan,
annexed to the letter, the work of the IIB was described and it
was observed that «the 11th International Congress of Documentation
has been officially informed of the decision of International
Committee and that the Office of the Institute of
Documentation has declared that it was very happy with this
decision and quite ready to collaborate in the Institute of Intellectual
Co-operation's Enquiry*. 80
In September, Alingh Prins drew up a report on the IID
for submission to the Institute for Intellectual Co-operation. In
it he made clear his attitude to the RBU, first expressed at
Cologne in 1928 and again at Frankfurt in the previous month.
As to the Universal Bibliographical Repertory, it seems desirable to
conceive of this in a larger sense than previously... Given the
existence already of a great number of specialised services of documentation
provided with competent personnel in different countries,
it seems desirable to profit from what exists and to co-ordinate the
documentary work already done by considering that existing repertories
together represent the universal repertory in a decentralised but
co-ordinated form. 81
Alingh Prins's report was a great shock to Otlet to whom it
was sent for comments. He criticised it in great detail. Alingh
Prins and Donker Duyvis took each of Otlet's points in turn
and revealed, as they discussed and refuted them, more clearly
than ever before the differences of attitude and belief separating
them. They pointed out that their opinion of the RBU
was not merely «personal» as Otlet had alleged, but corresponded
«to the opinion of the majority of our members*. It
may be, they observed, that the idea of a «repertory localised
333