THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

cal, structured entity designed for public service and assured
of public support. This distinguished the OIB at the outset
from other kinds of international organisations of a non-governmental,
scientific kind. Other, but private international organisations
of the time, by no means lacked structure. There
was usually the permanent commission of a scientific congress,
and a bureau and a secretary-general. Sometimes there was a
library, and a regularly published journal. But the organisations
existed for the congresses and the journals. The secretary-generalship
often rotated at regular intervals from country to
country, either for reasons of equal distribution among members
of the power and responsibility considered to lie in the hands
of the secretary-general, or because of legal difficulties in setting
up the organisation permanently in any particular country.
Where these problems did not arise, the secretary-general,
usually unpaid and busy with other matters, arranged conferences,
maintained a store of congress and review publications,
often in his own office or library, and generally existed in an
administrative vacuum. Compared with these organisations,
the OIB was given an unusually secure foundation by the Belgian
government.
Two days before the Royal Decree of 14 September 1895
brought the Office under the Belgian government's wing, a letter
was sent out from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Belgium's
representatives in forty-three countries instructing them
to bring the creation of the OIB formally to the notice of these
governments, to acquaint them with its adoption by the Belgian
government, and to request bibliographical publications
from them for its use. 38 Many encouraging replies were received
together with a great many documents of one kind and
another. 39 There were also some rebuffs, notably from France. 40
Nevertheless, a way had been paved for the official contact
between the OIB and foreign governments. This was made yet
easier by the signing of an agreement between the OIB and
the Belgian Service for International Exchanges, which undertook
to send OIB documents abroad and to act as a central
receiver for foreign documents destined for the Office.
Within Belgium, the government proceeded as it had done
abroad. In July 1896 a dispatch was sent to the various Belgian
ministries requesting that the Office be placed on the deposit
lists for their publications. Another request in August 1896 led
to the Office receiving the publications of Belgian provincial
and city administrations. 41 The Library of the Office was in
this manner placed in the position of receiving much useful
material free or by exchange, and its collections began to grow
rapidly. But above all, the existence of OIB as a semi-governmental
agency was widely acknowledged both within and
without Belgium, and a number of automatic steps had been
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