THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

in the Bolletino delle Pubblicazione Italiane by Desiderio Chilovi,
the Librarian of the National Central Library of Florence.
In this article, Chilovi had undertaken to examine the
question: «Would it be useful for the libraries and tor the
book trade of Italy to adhere to the resolutions of the International
Conference of Bibliography in Brussels, and more
particularly, to co-operate in the elaboration of a universal
bibliographic repertory by accepting the Decimal Classification
of Melvil Dewey as a unique international system of bibliographical
classification?* 52 Chilovi was very much in favour.
Otlet, accompanied by an Austrian colleague, Carl Junker,
expounded the IIB's program at the Conference. Giuseppe
Fumagalli, an early critic, was suspicious and satirical. Eventually,
however, «the hostile resolutions of Fumagalli were
repulsed», and the conference declared that it applauded «the
intelligent initiative taken by the Bibliographical Institute of
Brussels, to which it conveyed cordial greeting*. M The Conference
recommended that the Associazione Tipografico—Libraria
Italiana appoint a commission to study the matters involved
in any active collaboration with the IIB. An Italian
Bibliographical Association, with Fumagalli elected one of its
officers, was formed at the end of the Conference. 54 Problems
of organising support in Italy for the IIB continued to play
some though an increasingly minor part in the discussions of
subsequent meetings of the new association. 55 That Otlet and
La Fontaine had turned fertile soil in Italy, however, cannot
be doubted. Many Italian journals began to assign decimal
classification numbers to articles appearing in them and
various Italian translations of the Decimal Classification and
commentaries on it began to appear. 56
Other occasions were seized to promote the Institute. A
number of Otlet and La Fontaine's most enthusiastic supporters
lectured and wrote on it. In France there were the French
scientists. 57 Carl Junker in Austria, as well as lecturing on
the Institute and the Classification and publishing articles
about them, undertook to set up an Austrian Secretariat for
it. 58 Also during 1896, Zech du Biez, Vice-President
of the Belgian Booksellers' Association, urged the first
International Congress of Publishers to attend closely to the
IIB' program. The Congress as a result, voted that it
would be desirable «to see the more generalised use of methodical
classification in booksellers' catalogs*. It also recorded
a resolution that publishing houses of all countries should
«attempt to form national bibliographies which would serve
some day as the basis for the compilation of a Universal Bibliographical
Repertory.* 59 On yet another occasion, the Institute's
supporters, headed by La Fontaine, turned out in force
at Liege for the Congress of the International Union of Pho-
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