THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

the Conference was making a ruling in favour of or against
any individual scheme would be avoided.
The 1900 Conference of the IIB in Paris, represents a
high point in the early development of the Institute. It was the
first of its Conferences at which official governmental representatives
participated. This was, no doubt, due almost entirely
to its being held under the auspices of the Exposition. Otficial
delegates attended from Belgium, Canada, Cuba, Denmark,
the United States, France, Hungary, Mexico, Roumania
and Sweden. It is curious that there was no representative
from England (which regarded the Exposition with some suspicion)
nor one from Germany (which was one of the most generally
successful exhibitors at the Exposition). Melvil Dewey
represented the United States. Ninety-one individuals and institutions
signed up as participants in the Conference, fifty-one
from France, forty from outside France. 86 Its meetings were
therefore larger and more representatively international than
those of either of the Institutes' earlier Conferences.
Debate seems on the whole to have been vigorous and
constructively critical in most instances, as bibliographers
described particular works for which they were responsible and
submitted examples of them to the Conference for examination..
The old controversy about the respective value of selective and
critical as opposed to complete enumerative bibliography, a
controversy which had pitted the traditional bibliographers, the
Arsenal Librarian, Funck-Brentano, Paul Bergmans, the Deputy
Librarian at the University of Ghent, and others against Richet,
Baudoin and their bibliographically-minded scientist-colleagues,
was aired once again. This time, however, Otlet introduced
a resolution to the Conference in which he tried to
conceptualise and present in a systematic way the various
kinds of national, special, selective, analytical, critical and
comprehensive bibliographies in relation to one another so
that each could be seen to have its own particular merits
which were, in the final analysis, complementary to those of
that ultimate bibliography, the RBU. He reported on the IIB
itself, on the development of the RBU, and on the Decimal
Classification.
The concluding resolutions of the Conference, as one
might expect from its very general program, were themselves
general. It was resolved that governments should improve and
standardise copyright deposit laws so that augmented national
bibliographies could be more effectively used in the formation
of bibliographical repertories. Reflecting a paper presented by
Otlet, for whom the subject had become increasingly important,
the Conference resolved that it was desirable to see established
by country, language, period, subject and category of
printed work, general statistics of printing since its inception.
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