THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

to set up independently of IIB an international organisation
for the preparation of an International Catalogue of Scientific
Literature for which a special classification was to be
devised.
During 1898, the IIB's French adherents set about organising
a national office through which the French Section of
the Institute «could co-ordinate the efforts of those occupied
with the compilation of bibliographies*, and facilitate «the
realisation of their projects*. 71 Such an office was formally
established in 1899, called the Bibliographical Bureau of Paris.
It was to stand in a similar relation to the French Section
of the Institute as the OIB stood to the Institute itself/ 2 Because
the Bibliographical Bureau was to edit for printing
bibliographical notices sent to it from a variety of participating
learned societies, it was evident that the development of rules
for compiling and editing such notices was extremely important.
Such rules would help limit editorial functions as well
as promote their efficient performance. The Bureau, therefore,
undertook to fulfil the charge of the second bibliographical
conference of Brussels in 1897 and set about drawing up
what was in effect, a code of rules for descriptive cataloging,
as one of its first tasks. This was immediately revised at the
OIB, and became standard. 73 Another major task assigned to
the Bibliographical Bureau of Paris upon its formation was
the organisation of the Institute's third conference in Pans
on the occasion of the Universal Exposition to be held there
in 1900. 74
By 1900 the IIB had achieved a not inconsiderable status
as an international organisation. The theoretical basis of its
work was firmly established by a number of important publications.
Its repertories, the physical basis of its work, had
grown in four years from less than half a million to more
than three million entries. The classification used to order the
entries in the repertories had been considerably developed and
published in various of its official publications. It had more
than 300 members. Scholars and institutions from all over the
world, from Germany, Bohemia, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Russia,
Austria, Poland, Holland, Sweden, Switzerland, Roumania,
Hungary, Mexico, Argentina, the United States, England and
France as well as Belgium had paid their ten francs to join
it. 75 As far away as Mexico it had influenced the creation in
connection with the Mexican National Library of a Bibliographical
Institute which adopted the Decimal Classification
and was guided in its use by a Spanish translation of articles
on the classification by members of the IIB. 76 The Austrian
Secretariat and the Bibliographical Bureau of Paris represented
direct, if ultimately ineffectual responses, to its program.
The Concilium Bibliographicum in Zurich had become affiliated
73