THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

wondered if the Office would be disposed to classify the
20,000 cards of the catalog of the Library of the Ministry
and of the Statistical Commission. Sury answered yes.
Above all, during these first few months of the OIB's
official existence the word went out into the learned world
about the conference, the Classification and the Universal
Bibliographic repertory. They were described, discussed, criticised,
scorned and praised in a way that could only augur
well for the work of the two Belgian bibliographers.
FOOTNOTES
1. The actual state of Edouard Otlet's financial affairs at any one time
is rather difficult to determine. A number of documents throw some
light on the not very substantive comments in Otlet's diary. Part II
of a deed: Liquidation et partage de la communaute des biens \deM.Ed.
Otlet] et sa defunte epouse et de la succession de cette derniere, 1877
is a property inventory and shows Edouard Otlet to be worth about
l\ million francs. Chapter 14 of Part II of this deed sets up the Patrimony
of Paul and Maurice Otlet for | million francs. The main account
of the fluctuation of the family's fortune is a largely illegible
manuscript note in the Otletaneum in Otlet's hand dated Brussels,
7 July, 1893. The latter part of this note reads: «1874 crisis. Father gets
the bullet of the Lebon liquidation (?). Hard times. We leave for Paris;
1882 return to Brussels; the splendour of [Rio; the decadence of the
Spanish affairs. The future? The mines of Soria, the Proces Normand:
demand for 2 millions*.
2. Edouard Otlet, as well as having Paul and Maurice by his first wife,
had four sons and a daughter by his second. They and the tangle of
their financial affairs were to be thorns in Otlet's flesh for nearly twenty
years after their father's death.
3. In the Otletaneum in Brussels are various MS letters and notes of the
negotiations for the sale of the Villa Valere to a Mr. Wilson. Edouard
Otlet kept interfering, though the Villa officially belonged half to Paul
and Maurice, and half to their stepmother. The notaries dealing with
the matter -reached an absolute frenzy of exasperation, and the notary.
Max Ectors, an old friend of Otlet and his father, intervened to ensure
that Otlet's share in the villa would not be overlooked through- a disagreement
between Maurice and his father. (Max Ectors a Edouard Ottet
(copte a Paul) 27 avril, 1903, Otletaneum.
4. W. H. Simon, European Positivism in the Nineteenth Century, 151.
5. Edmond Picard, La Nouvelle Universite de Bruxelles, Extrait de la
Societe Nouvelle; 1894, p. 2. De Qreef, 1842—1924, was interested in
achieving social, political and financial reform as well as being an
influential academic of the period.
6. Edmond Picard, La Nouvelle Universite de Bruxelles (Bruxelles, 1895),
4—5. (The University still survives in the form of the Institut des
Hautes Etudes).
7. Another son was born to Otlet and his wife in 1894. He was named
Jean Jacques Valere Otlet.
8. See the Bibliography at the end of this work for a list of the studies
written at this time.
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