THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

tation». Even more important were the decisions made about
the Decimal Classification:
a) The Decimal Classification is confirmed as the property of the
International Office of Bibliography, but the scientific development is
confided to the International Institute of Documentation. This will
carry out its elaboration through the Committee for the Decimal
Classification... Anything that is a matter of translation, adaptation
abbreviation or other rights will be the object of an agreement whose
purpose will be to safeguard the integrity of the work as well as the
moral rights and material benefits which derive from it. The financial
benefits of the Edition of the CD as well as other publications will be
put to the development of the Office and the Institute.
b) Some general rules will be laid down for the development of the
classification and for successive editions . . .
The International Office of Bibliography and of Documentation
was to be developed as an autonomous international organisation.
Its relations with the Institute would be controlled by a
formal agreement, though a common headquarters would be
maintained. The Office would also have its own series of publications.
Other publications bearing the name, IID, would
have to be approved by Council. 90
In December Alingh Prins prepared an official reply to
the two documents received from the Institute for Intellectual
Co-operation in Paris. He dealt with each of these in some detail.
He pointed out that Gerard's report, particularly,
contained a brilliant exposition of the problem of documentation and
of the different forms under which documentation presents itself.
Similar expositions on these principles have been made previously by M.
Otlet and have acted as the bases for action of the International
Institute for Bibliography now the International Institute for Documentation.
He indicated that all existing national unions and federations
of documentation were at present already members of the IID.
There were two exceptions, Aslib, which had, however, a
joint and very active Committee with the BSIB on the Decimal
Classification, and Gerard's own French Union of Offices
of Documentation. It was clear to him that the IID actually
already filled the requirements for an international organisation
for documentation set out in different ways in the two
reports, or could do so with some support from the Institute
for Intellectual Co-operation. 91 Otlet, not satisfied with this,
prepared a «personal» reply to the proposals set forth in the
two documents. He re-iterated what had become his standard
concepts expressed in a standard form, concluding his recommendations,
«Documentation, Science, Human Thought wish
it». 92 Here was what Alingh Prins had come to distrust in
content and manner of expression in Otlet's writing. His own
«cold account* is a model of directness, relevance and clarity
by comparison.
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