THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

emarks directed to parents, Otlet enlarged upon the usefulness
to the Palais Mondial of this group of young people, and
the personal value they would themselves discover in their
association with it. Generalising, typically, from the particular
instance of this group, Otlet proposed that a Union of Youth
1or the Mundaneum should be created. This would be worldwide
and would stand to social and intellectual matters much
as the Boy Scouts stood to «physical» matters. 6 The activities
of the Jeunes Amis du Palais Mondial, in reality Bruxellois
all, one supposes, took the form of meetings, debates, dramatic
presentations and special tasks in the Palais Mondial.
The situation of the Palais Mondial was extremely serious
at this time. Belgium's centennial celebrations were held in
1930, but it was a year for the Mundaneum, Otlet said, not
of «rejoicing» but of «mourning» 7 for, six years after the
events of 1924, it was still incompletely restored. Early in 1930,
as Director of the Mundaneum, Otlet apologised for its continuing
deteriorated physical condition. It was, he admitted,
-«in a bad state of repair and the upkeep leaves a great deal
to be desired. The Management offers its apologies». The best
that could be done in this year of celebration for Belgian institutions,
he believed, was the mounting of a public opinion
•campaign to shame the authorities into offering adequate future
support for the Mundaneum and some reparation for the
damages inflicted on it. Now was a time, he suggested, when
«complaints, protests, demands, resolutions, grievances, regrets,
and statements of consequences in any form whatever
should be sent either individually or collectively to those who
can help». 8
The problems faced by the Mundaneum were reflected in
its various collections which continued to be tended and some
of which grew slowly in the decade 1924 to 1934. Early in
1931, the RBU contained nearly fourteen million cards. Since
1927 only about half a million cards had been added to it.
Some additions of national and special sections were also
made to the Museum. In 1931 the Documentary Encyclopedia
•comprising 10,000 files and containing about one million items,
stood unchanged from 1927. The Atlas of Universal Civilisation,
however, the first studies for which Otlet and Anne Oderfeld
had presented in 1928 and 1929, contained about three
thousand charts in 1931 and the microfilm collection, the Encyclopedia
Microphotica Mundaneum, grew quite rapidly. 9
The RBU, which in Otlet's view culminated the work of
the IID and was at the root of international intellectual cooperation,
illustrates the problems and inefficiencies of the International
Headquarters of the IID. Though the RBU was for
Otlet the central IID collection and had been recognised as
providing a basis for an international finding list by the In-
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