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International 

Organisation and 

Dissemination of 

Knowledge 



Selected Essays 
of Paul Otlet 

Translated and Edited 
with an Introduction 

by W. Boyd Rayward 




ELSEVIER 



International 

Organisation and 

Dissemination of 

Knowledge 



International 

Organisation and 

Dissemination of 

Knowledge 



Selected Essays of Paul Otlet 

Translated and Edited 
with an Introduction 

by W. BOYD RAYWARD 

School of Librarians hip 

University of New South Wales 

Kensington, N.S.W., Australia 



~m 



FID 684 




1990 

ELSEVIER 
Amsterdam New York Oxford Tokyo 



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ISBN: 444 88678 8 

FID (Federation Internationale d' Information et de Documentation), 1990 

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I dedicate this book to my mother and father 
Ellie and Warden Ray ward 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Preface v 

Abbreviations xiii 

Introduction 1 

1. Something About Bibliography 11 

2. Creation of a Universal Bibliographic Repertory: A Preliminary Note 25 

3. On the Structure Classification of Numbers 51 

4. Rules for developing the Decimal Classification 63 

5. The Science of Bibliography and Documentation 71 

6. On a New Form of the Book: The Microphotographic Book 87 

7. The Reform of National Bibliographies and Their Use in Universal 
Bibliography 96 

8 The Systematic Organisation of Documentation and the Development 

of the International Institute of Bibliography 105 

9. The Union of International Associations: A World Centre 112 

10. Note for M.Durand, Prefect of Police 130 

11. The Organisation of the Society of Nations 136 

12. Transformations in the Bibliographic Apparatus of the Sciences 148 

13. On the Organisation of Intellectual Work by the League of Nations: 
Report and Resolution Presented by the Union of 

International Associations 157 

14. The International Organisation of Bibliography and Documentation 173 

15. The Preservation and International Diffusion of Thought; 

the Microphotic Book 204 

16. 28th Universal Peace Congress: The Belgian Appeal to the World 211 

17. Henri La Fontaine 214 
Bibliography of the Works of Paul Otlet 22 1 
Selected Bibliography of Sources used in Editor's Notes 248 
Index 



PREFACE 



These translations of a selection of Paul Otlet's writings have been a long time in 
preparation. Now put down, now taken up again over a period of ten years or so in Chicago, 
London and Sydney, they are dispatched at last to Amsterdam with relief. They follow an 
earlier biographical and institutional study of Otlet and the International Institute of 
Bibliography (now FID, the International Federation for Information and Documentation). 1 
The publication of that work left me with a troubled sense of more that needed to be done, of 
an obligation incurred but not yet discharged. 2 It has always seemed to me that, though not 
entirely neglected, Otlet's contributions to our understanding of bibliography, documentation 
and what is now called information storage and retrieval, sometimes information science, and 
the technical and institutional arrangements needed to maximise their social utility, have not 
had the attention in the English-speaking world that is their due. It is my hope that the 
availability of this selection of papers in English, both in themselves and because of the 
attention that the act of publication can engender, will encourage a renewal of interest in 
Otlet's thinking about and work for the international organisation and dissemination of 
knowledge. 

There are 17 papers in this volume. Most are short; all are complete in themselves 
but one, which is excerpted from a much larger work. Though I have arranged them in 
chronological order, they are essentially of three kinds. The first group comprises papers 
directly related to theoretical and practical matters of bibliography and documentation. They 
rai.ge from Otlet's first published thoughts on these subjects, "Something About 
Bibliography" in 1893, to "The International Organisation of Bibliography and 
Documentation" some 27 years later. Included here are two visionary papers on the 
documentary uses of microfilm written in collaboration with a remarkable inventor and 
engineer, Robert Goldschmidt; the first appeared in 1906, the second in 1925. I have not 
attempted to excerpt Otlet's magisterial and, in its detail and density, rather overwhelming 
Traiti de Documentation of 1934. A reprint of the original French edition was issued in 1989 
so that it is currently available in this form. It should be translated into English but that is a 
task for another. 

A second group of papers deals with matters of international organisation in general 
(which also includes the organisation of bibliography and documentation) and in the context 
of what was to become the League of Nations and its Organisation for International 
Intellectual Cooperation. No appreciation of Otlet's life and work is possible without an 



W. Boyd Rayward, The Universe of Information: The Work of Paul Otlet for Documentation and International 
Organisation. FID Publication 520; Moscow: VTNTTI, 1975. 

W. Boyd Rayward, "The Times of Their Lives: A Personal Reflection on Biography and history," Proceedings 
of the 4th Forum on Library History. Clayton, Vic: Monash University, 1990 (in press). 



x Paul Otlet 

awareness of his passionate, Utopian internationalism and his tireless organisational activity 
in this domain especially in the decade before, and the period during, the First World War. 

The third group of papers is included because their more personal tone allows us to 
glimpse something of the shadow of the man himself. Here he is, having sent two sons off to 
the War, one lost in the Battle of the Yser, the other captured by the enemy and later interned 
in Switzerland, having to explain his presence in Paris in 1915 to the Prefect of Police. His 
internationalism in wartime was widely misinterpreted. Denounced in the French press and 
the subject of rumour among certain Belgians in exile as a pacifist and possibly traitorous, he 
faced conflict with the authorities (Paper 10, "Note for M. Durand, Prefect of Police"). 

In July 1931 the 28th Universal Peace Congress met at the Palais Mondial, that 
phantasmic, grandiose international centre that Otlet and La Fontaine had somehow conjured 
into a semblance of being as early as 1910 in the Palais du Cinquantenaire in Brussels. Otlet 
used the occasion to issue a "Belgian Appeal to the World" (Paper 16) in which he expressed 
his anguish at the direction of the events of the time, invoking in grandiloquent style the 
institutional solutions he believed would save mankind from itself. The congress was 
meeting as it were on the eve of the International Disarmament Conference which was to end 
two years later in irredeemable failure. 

Finally, I have included Otlet's tribute to Henri La Fontaine on the occasion of the 
latter's 80th birthday (Paper 17). The two men had begun to work together in 1892 or 1893 
and, companions and colleagues, they continued to develop ideas, and the organisations in 
which these ideas were embodied, from then on. Such a community of intellectual interests, 
political and social conviction, and action must surely be rare. In the history of the 
enterprises they initiated and so assiduously developed together for some fifty years, it is 
hard to disentangle their different responsibilities and contributions. Otlet's tribute 
encapsulates that lifetime of collaboration and mutual regard which ended only with La 
Fontaine's death in 1943. 

In this connection, it is necessary to be aware that Otlet was an active and for some 
time influential man of affairs. He was also a scholar whose intellectual and organisational 
commitments were international and pan- disciplinary. In the Editor's footnotes to the papers 
in this volume, I have tried to provide as necessary a context, explanation, point of reference, 
clarification for what is mentioned, sometimes quite casually, in the text The reader will 
come across references to obscure bibliographers ancient and modern, and publications of 
various kinds ancient and modern, as Otlet elaborated an historical context for his 
speculative, innovative ideas. He travelled widely in neutral Europe as the War dragged out 
its terrible course. He was in Paris while the Treaty of Versailles was negotiated (La Fontaine 
was an official representative of Belgium at the Conference of Peace). I have tried to identify 
events and issues that he mentions in passing as he might have understood them at the time. 
Sometimes I have a footnote on a footnote of his so that the reader will have some idea of 
what he is referring to. Sometimes there seems to be an error or obscurity in a reference or 
comment that he makes and I have discussed this in a footnote. I have particularly kept in 
mind what might help the understanding of the student who, in the course of his or her 
professional studies, might come upon this book from any one of a number of different 
backgrounds. Hence I have boldly included a note, for example, on the Summa of St. Thomas 
Aquinas and on Aristotle as well as notes on Zech du Biez, Henri Morel, the Bulletin des 
Sommaires and the regime of the Scheldt River. I confess I enjoyed the sleuthing that a 
number of the notes involved. I hope they will be useful. Tucked away at the end of each 
paper, they can, of course, be ignored. 



Preface xi 

"The Bibliography of the Works of Paul Otlet" at the end of the book is as complete 
as I have been able to make it. I have included one or two items I have found in "near- 
published" form in various libraries. It is a much fuller and more accurate bibliography than 
that in my earlier book. This contains a number of errors and omissions that are, in part my 
own fault and, in part, the result of the process of publishing in a country that was then 
effectively closed so that communication with the publisher was well nigh impossible save 
for an occasional telegram. I have a particular debt of gratitude in relation to the completion 
of the present version of the bibliography to M. Bruynseels of the Bibliotheque Albert I er in 
Brussels, who, when I was on a rushed trip, arranged for me to have access to that library's 
stacks to search through runs of various periodicals, conference proceedings and so on for 
Otlet publications. The search for items in the last year or so has taken on a life of its own 
and has been great fun. M. Andr6 Canonne of the Centre de Lecture publique de la 
Communaute" fran^aise in Liege contributed and so did Mr. Ben Goedegebuure of FID 
Headquarters in the Hague. I offer special thanks to M. Pieter Uyttenhove, now in Paris, who 
is studying urban reconstruction and development in Brussels after the two wars. He has sent 
references, found and copied articles for me and in general has helped strengthen my faith in 
the international community of scholars. 

I have not tried to compile a complete bibliography of secondary source materials. 
There is a voluminous literature on the Universal Decimal Classification which I have for the 
most part ignored. What is included in the secondary list has been of particular interest to me 
either in or of itself or as representing a special kind of contribution. I have also included a 
selected list of sources I used in compiling the Editor's notes. In some places in the notes 
themselves I have included full references and they are not reproduced in mis list. 

At the University of Chicago, I had two splendid research assistants who have 
probably forgotten that they were involved in the inception of this project: Joyce Saricks and 
Kathleen Prendergast. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to Gerry Byrne for help with 
organising the typing of preliminary drafts of much of this material. That this book exists at 
all is owing to the enthusiasm and conviction of Stella Keenan, former Secretary-General of 
FID and to the continuing interest and support of Ben Goedegebuure, Executive Director of 
FID. Professor K.V. Sinclair of James Cook University in Queensland, with a generosity and 
cheerfulness I have long appreciated, has offered advice on particular issues of translation 
that I brought to him and has checked the bibliography for me. Nadia Kemfe of the 
University of New South Wales has also helped with problems of translation. Lesley Payne 
of the State Library of New South Wales has helped with proof-reading the text. Ann-Maree 
Walsh of the School of Librarianship at the University of New South Wales has been 
wonderfully patient and skilful at the word- processor as various revisions have been 
presented to her. Above all I salute Ray Locke of the School of Librarianship for help with 
the physical preparation of the text, help, as with all he does, that far exceeded the bounds of 
duty. A small Special Research Grant from the Faculty of Professional Studies at the 
University of New South Wales provided the funds needed to complete this project and for 
such mercies I am most grateful. 

While acknowledging the various kinds of help I have received from the wonderful 
friends and colleagues mentioned above, I hasten to add that any errors that remain in this 
work are my responsibility alone. 

W. Boyd Rayward, 
February, 1990 



ABBREVIATIONS 



FID Federation International d'lnformation et de 

Documentation/International Federation for Information and 
Documentation 

1 1 B Institut International de Bibliographic/International Institute for 

Bibliography 

OIB Office International de Bibliographic/International Office of 
Bibliography 

RBU Repertoire Bibliographique Universel/Universal Bibliographic 
Repertory 

UDC Universal Decimal Classification 

UIA Union of International Associations 



FOOTNOTES In Otlet's papers his footnotes are indicated by numbers in 
square brackets, [ ], in the text and appear at the bottom of the 
page. They are in the form in which they appear in the original 
papers. 

The Editor's Notes are indicated by a superscript number and 
are placed at the end of each paper. 



INTRODUCTION 



We must bring together a collection of machines which simultaneously or 
sequentially can perform the following operations: (1) The transformation of sound into 
writing; (2) The reproduction of this writing in as many copies as are useful; (3) The creation 
of documents in such a way that each item of information has its own identity and, in its 
relationships with those items comprising any collection, can be retrieved as necessary; (4) A 
Classification number assigned to each item of information; the perforation of documents 
correlated with these numbers; (5) Automatic classification and filing of documents; (6) 
Automatic retrieval of documents for consultation and presented either direct to the enquirer 
or via machine enabling written additions to be made to them; (7) Mechanical manipulation 
at will of all the listed items of information in order to obtain new combinations of facts, new 
relationships of ideas, and new operations carried out with the help of numbers. The 
technology fulfilling these seven requirements would indeed be a mechanical, collective 
brain} 

A... radical assumption would consider that all knowledge, all information could be so 
condensed that it could be contained in a limited number of works placed on a desk, therefore 
within hand's reach, and indexed in such a way as to ensure maximum consultabihty. In this 
case the world described in the entirety of books would really be within everyone's grasp. 
The Universal Book created from all books would become very approximately an annex to 
the brain, a substratum even of memory, an external mechanism and instrument of the mind 
but so close to it, so apt to its use that it would truly be a sort of appended organ, an 
exodermic appendage. 2 

Man would no longer need documentation if he were to become an omniscient being like 
God himself. A less ultimate degree would create an instrumentation acting across distance 
which would combine at the same time radio, x-rays, cinema and microscopic photography. 
All the things of the universe and all those of man would be registered from afar as they were 
produced. Thus the moving image of the world would be established - its memory, its true 
duplicate. From afar anyone would be able to read the passage, expanded or limited to the 
desired subject, that could be projected on his individual screen. Thus, in his armchair, 
anyone would be able to contemplate the whole of creation or particular parts of it 3 

Who is Paul Otlet? Why should we be interested in what he did or tried to do and in what he 
wrote? He was a Belgian. His original profession was the law, though he soon turned to 
matters of bibliographic organisation and the organisation of non-governmental international 
relations. He lived from 1868 to 1944. A long life, its heyday, however, was the turn of the 
century and the period before the First World War. In the few photographs we have, most of 
them taken towards the end of his life, he is a slightly stooped old man. He peers out at us 
squint-eyed, heavy-lidded, through small, thick, round spectacles. His face, framed by a 
bushy but neatly-trimmed, snow-white beard and moustache is grave, unsmiling, its 



1. Paul Otlet, Traiti de Documentation... 1989 (see "Bibliography of the Work of Paul Otlet" in this volume for 

bibliographic details) p. 391 

2. Ibid, p.428. 

3. Paul Odet, Monde, 1935, pp. 390-391. 



2 Paul Otlet 

expression more bitter than impassive. The photographs project an old-fashioned image, for 
those of us in middle age perhaps that of a long dead grandfather. What can he have to say to 
a society caught up in an information processing revolution so rapid in its development, so 
far reaching in its consequences, so complex and sweeping in the changes it is creating that it 
seems a hurricane of modernity? For the electronic youth of today, members of the microchip 
generation, he must appear incredibly ancient 

Yet, as the quotation at the head of the Introduction suggests, he proved to be 
prescient to a remarkable degree in anticipating the need for revolutionary kinds of 
technological development for accessing and manipulating information. He also realised that 
such developments would stimulate the setting up of new, and the expansion of old, forms of 
information services and that new kinds of organisational structures would be required to 
support them. He saw that radical re-thinking was needed if science, and learning more 
generally, were to continue to move forward freely and swiftly without becoming bogged 
down in the huge physical bulk of existing publications. He was vitally aware that, because 
of its escalating rate of production, its international character, its substantive and formal 
complexity, this ever-growing body of literature constituted, as it still constitutes, an 
increasingly impenetrable barrier to understanding and use. Derek de Sola Price was to 
designate it one of the diseases of modern science. 4 

For Otlet, then, key questions were: how best was order to be introduced into this 
proliferating, disorderly mass in such a way that progress in the world of learning could 
continue efficiently and effectively? How could rapid developments in all areas of 
knowledge, so characteristic of the modern period, be mobilised for the benefit of society? 
How could the international flow of information, then obstructed (as it still is) by political, 
social and linguistic barriers on the one hand, and by cumbersome, unresponsive systems of 
publication, distribution and bibliographic processing on the other, become more open and 
more effective? How could accurate, up-to-date, "integrated" information tailored 
specifically and exactly to particular needs be derived from this mass, re-worked to a form 
ensuring immediate and optimal usefulness, and made available without hindrance or delay, 
whatever such potentially infinite, unpredictable needs might be. 

In his very first paper on bibliography (No. 1 in this volume), Otlet struggled to 
formulate questions of this kind and to examine possible answers to them. Literature both 
embodied what was known and hid it. The ultimate objective of bibliography was to identify 
what a work contributed to knowledge, to help disentangle what was true from what was 
false, what was objective from what was subjective, what was useful as theory and 
interpretation from what was idiosyncratic conjecture and misguided, and to record this 
contribution "atomistically" on cards so that the record could be manipulated in whatever 
ways were necessary to ensure immediate availability for use. He uses an image of 
"winnowing the best grain." How could the intellectual domains be adequately, continuously 
"mapped," a metaphor he was to use frequently. Such a mapping was necessary to promote 
international cooperation and to avoid duplication in research. To understand what 
contributions bibliography could make, an historical examination of the development of 
bibliography and a study of its current status were necessary. For Otlet a complete catalogue 
of sources, "the materials" of a field, was a first desideratum. If a catalogue were to be 
developed on cards and arranged in classified order, then achieving the important objectives 



4. Derek J. de Sola Price, Science Since Babylon, new ed; New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1961 . 



Introduction 3 

of collective work, currency, immediate access both to what had been done and what was 
being done, became possible along with sensible planning for future developments. But 
beyond this, other bibliographic processes had to be introduced. He concluded that what was 
needed at the outset as a basis for subsequent bibliographical development was "a very 
systematic and a very detailed synoptic outline of knowledge. "Jj 

Otlet and his colleagues studied literature proliferation and its social and 
institutional consequences in considerable depth. They hoped to create a system of 
intellectual statistics that would allow these phenomena to be monitored and mechanisms of 
bibliographic control to be introduced in a planned way. 5 While it was not until the advent of 
UNESCO's Statistical Yearbook that some of these figures began to be assembled 
internationally on a regular basis, it did not take Otlet long to become clear in his own mind 
as to where potential solutions to problems of organising access to and facilitating the use of 
knowledge were to be found. For him these solutions lay in technology, bibliographic or 
"documentary" standards and the creation of a hierarchy of organisational arrangements of 
ever-increasing generality. These arrangements embraced methods of printing and 
publication, the work of international associations, bibliographic procedures, the re- 
structuring of libraries and library systems to constitute part of an international 
communications network, and the coordination of libraries, archives and museums as 
information resources within this network. 

Otlet' s ideas on these matters provided him with the basis for an attempt to 
conceptualise and develop a new field of study and research, which as early as 1903 he took 
to calling "documentation." He suggested that documentation should be concerned not only 
with written and graphic records but objects as well because they had a "documentary" value. 
Of interest was anything that could convey potentially useful information no matter what 
form it took. He was led to envisage a form of documentary organisation whose levels and 
processes would ensure the provision of information through revolutionary information 
services or "offices of documentation". These would draw as needed on text, image, or object 
as sources of information and, linked together by common methods, shared tasks and formal 
agreements, their existence would transform libraries into stations in an information network 
reaching around the world. Their essential business, closely co-ordinated with archives and 
museums, would be information derived from all the immense variety of printed and other 
sources that were available. New documentary techniques and new kinds of documentary 
tools would be brought together in these offices in order to provide rapid, effective 
"consultation", which Otlet identified as a new information function for which new kinds of 
provision were needed. In effect these offices of documentation would become a new form of 
encyclopedia in which movement from bibliography to document to re-structured, re- 
codified knowledge would be made possible. 

These ideas grew out of and, in a process of reciprocal interaction, were embodied 
in and tested against a series of actual institutional developments in Brussels. First was the 
creation of what might be described as a vast, cooperatively elaborated database. Initially this 
was bibliographical, the Universal Bibliographic Repertory. It grew from about 400,000 
entries in 1895 to 3,000,000 entries in 1903 to 11,000,000 by the outbreak of War in 1914. 



See Paul Otlet' s own studies in 1899 and 1901, for example. Most important, however, is B. Irwinski, La 
Statistique intemationale des imprimis: IIB Publication No. 109; Bruxelles, OIB, 1911 (also published in I IB 
Bulletin 16(1911): 1-39 



4 Paul Otlet 

Very quickly it was given a full-text and "image" or iconographic dimension in the form of a 
parallel Universal Iconographic Repertory and the prototype of a new kind of 
"encyclopedia", an Encyclopedic Repertory of Dossiers (or files). The physical ordering of 
these databases and the provision of access to their contents were handled by what was in 
effect a highly sophisticated software package. This has gone through many revisions and up- 
grades in most of the major languages, at least of the Western world, since its original release 
in 1896, and is still in use. It is the Universal Decimal Classification. The first edition of 
UDC in its new form, as developed from Melvil Dewey's Decimal Classification by Otlet and 
his colleagues, was issued in the period 1904-1907 in a volume over 2,000 pages in length. It 
was the first of what are now called faceted classifications and a complex apparatus for 
number compounding and subject specification (see papers 3 and 4 in this volume) was 
devised for it 

An international organisation was created in 1895 among other things to sponsor the 
database, coordinate the development of the software and provide a commercial search 
service based on them (See Paper 2 in this volume). The International Institute of 
Bibliography (IIB) became the International Institute of Documentation in 1931, the 
International Federation for Documentation in 1937 and is today known as the International 
Federation for Information and Documentation, FID. The Headquarters of the IIB, an 
International Office of Bibliography (OIB), was supported from its foundation as a quasi 
official agency by the Belgian government, a link that was not fully severed until 1980. 

As new services and publishing initiatives were begun at the International Office of 
Bibliography in the period after 1905, a more general organisation was created around them. 
The Union of International Associations or UIA was formally created in 1910 after a great 
World Congress of International Associations. At the enlarged centre supported by the UIA, 
an International Library, an International Museum, an International University and a Central 
Service for International Associations were set up beside the documentary services of the IIB 
(See paper No. 9). After the War, all of these services, institutes and offices comprising what 
Otlet dubbed the Palais Mondial, later the Mundaneum, were transferred by the Belgian 
Government at considerable expense (500,000 francs) to the Palais du Cinquantenaire. 6 
Eventually these locations became the subject of considerable dispute between the UIA and 
the Government which resumed parts of them temporarily in 1922, most of them temporarily 
in 1924 and eventually closed the Palais Mondial entirely in 1934. This was by no means 
final and in 1939 the government agreed to make the locations available once again, but the 
outbreak of War prevented the resumption of occupancy. The collections were transferred to 
an old anatomy building of the University Libre de Bruxelles on the edge of the Pare 
Leopold. Here, in the Rue Maelbeek, the Mundaneum was set up again and functioned, in an 
extremely circumscribed way, beyond Otlet's death in 1944. 7 

The UIA, effectively moribund after 1924, was revived after World War II and 
continues to perform important work especially as publisher of the Yearbook of International 
Organizations, a huge and now indispensable reference work continuing the Annuaire de la 



6. All of these developments are dealt with in some detail in W. Boyd Rayward, The Universe of Information... 
Moscow: VINrn, 1975. 

7. It was here that the Editor was able to consult the archives and other records of the IIB for his biographical 
study of Otlet He has described the richness of the sources and the picturesque but heart breaking disorder and 
decay in the locations in his "The Times of Their Lives: A Personal Reflection on Biography and History" 
Proceedings of the Fourth Library History Seminar...Clayton, Vic: Monash University, 1990 (in press). 



Introduction 5 

Vie Internationale that had been published in 1909 and 1911 under the auspices of the 
international centre in Brussels. The IIB, on the other hand, was re-constituted in 1924 and 
gradually took on a separate life under its English President, A.F.C. Pollard in 1928-1929. It 
was revitalised also in part by the energy and commitment of a third Secretary-General after 
1928, the Dutchman, Frits Donker Duyvis, who brought it successfully through the Second 
World War. Under these influences it became independent of the Palais Mondial and what 
had become the somewhat stifling influence of Otlet and was to function actively and 
effectively until the interruption of the Second World War. 

Otlet's legacy to his posterity is complex. He bequeathed us international 
associations that have successfully adapted to changing times and needs, and continue to 
exist - the FID and the UIA, responsible respectively for major bibliographical products 
developed by Otlet and his colleagues, the UDC and the Yearbook of International 
Organizations. The contemporary failure of other organisations, presumably to some extent 
at the time misconceived and maladaptive, is of great interest to the historian, as are the 
adumbrations of the functions of a number of modern organisations that show no obvious 
influence but conceptually are related to initiatives Otlet and his colleagues took in the first 
part of the century. The work of the International Institute of Bibliography in aiming to 
develop and coordinate indexing and abstracting services internationally, essentially through 
what was at the time called the Bibliographia Universalis, is paralleled today by the input 
plan and other work of the International Council for Scientific and Technical Information 
(ICSTI), previously known as the International Council of Scientific Unions Abstracting 
Board. There may well be an irony here in that, when the International Council of Scientific 
Unions was established in 1919, Otlet secured approval for the creation as part of it of an 
International Union for Documentation whose Statutes were actually drawn up. For reasons 
that are obscure, nothing further came of this initiative. Otlet's aspirations for a world 
network of cooperative bibliographic and information services are echoed in the General 
Information Programme of UNESCO. Insofar as he also dealt with the need for compiling 
official national bibliographies according to internationally adopted standards in a way that 
would facilitate the international exchange of bibliographic data (see paper No. 7), he was 
anticipating aspects of the programme for Universal Bibliographic Control (UBC) of the 
International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA). IFLA's headquarters in another of 
those ironies of history is now located in the Dutch national library just down the hall from 
the FID Office but the modern programmes of the two organisations are essentially 
uncoordinated and unrelated. 

The work of the UIA in attempting to provide an international framework for 
intellectual relations was an important influence on the League of Nations in setting up its 
own general organisation for that purpose. This was the direct forerunner of UNESCO. Both 
FID and UIA are now affiliated with UNESCO in ways that Otlet, though he failed miserably 
at the time, had attempted to achieve for them with the League of Nations. 

Another legacy is what remains of the much disturbed collections that were so 
painstakingly developed in the OIB and the Palais Mondial. The OIB, a semi-governmental 
instrumentality, continued to exist legally until 1980 when its collections as they were then 
understood to be, essentially what remained of the Universal Bibliographic Repertory, were 
transferred to the Belgian national library, the Bibliotheque Royale Albert I er . The other 
collections were considered to be vested in Les Amis du Palais Mondial, a group of disciples 
and volunteers that had been incorporated in 1930 to protect the interests of the Palais 



6 Paul Otlet 

Mondial and to work among its collections. The remainder of these collections were 
transferred by Royal decree in 1985 to the Centre de la Lecture publique de la Communaute* 
rrangaise (CLPCF) in Liege. Essentially here were what remained of the International 
Library, the collections of the Mus6e de la Presse, the files of the Encyclopedic Repertory of 
Dossiers and the Iconographic Repertory, and above all the archives of the Institute and the 
personal papers of Otlet and La Fontaine. Thus did the door finally close on the enterprises 
that the two friends had begun so hopefully in 1895 and which had lingered on for over forty 
years after their deaths! 8 

The final aspect of Otlet's legacy, however, is a body of writing for which a 
bibliography is provided in this volume. For his posterity the ideas represented in his writing 
have a particular interest both in themselves as statements of aspiration and of interesting and 
important insights, but also as statements in some sense embodied in and tested against 
organisational realities in a way that is perhaps unique, though little remains physically of 
these "experiments". 

His ideas need to be understood in their "organisational" and historical context His 
mind was very strongly shaped by the traditions of late 19th Century evolutionary positivist 
thought He saw unceasing generalising processes of organisation at work. In the political 
and social world these processes were precipitating new kinds of institutions and 
relationships. In the intellectual world of ideas, they were shaping the growth of knowledge. 
He brought this frame of mind to his thinking about problems of documentation and 
international organisation. It led him to formulate the arguments of his papers and books in a 
particular way. A preliminary statement would be examined against historical developments. 
These would seem to suggest evolutionary goals that he would express in very general terms, 
often as prescriptively formulated desiderata or requirements. That these were plausible and 
not unrealistically grandiose or theoretical would then be suggested by an examination of 
recent developments. 

His "philosophical" background also determined his somewhat mechanistic view of 
knowledge and of the document; he seemed to consider the latter capable of being shelled of 
its bits of information rather like a bag of peas. But this approach is not unrelated to that 
required for information processing by computer. 

Indeed, this view of knowledge led Otlet to formulate what he called the 
"Monographic Principle" according to which separate items of information were to be 
recorded separately or "analytically" to use his term. The use of cards, generalised later to 
include the loose sheet or leaf as well, permitted continuous intercalation and international 
cooperation in creating the various databases that he and his colleagues attempted to set up in 
the International Office of Bibliography. The use of the minute subject divisions of the UDC 
helped to define and relate subject headings where entries either for bibliographic references 
or for actual information would be placed. Moreover the indexing of materials to be included 
in the bibliographic database on the one hand or the "partitioning" of documents to be 



It is very much to be hoped that the plans of the CLPCF for the creation of an Espace Mundaneum in Brussels - 
or in any other centre - will come to fruition. The archives, papers and other "documents" that have been 
rescued but, after decades of neglect, are continuing to deteriorate further in inadequate storage, are of 
enormous historical and cultural value for scholars of the international movement, Belgian social history, and 
an enormous range and variety of other subjects, organisations and persons that the UIA and II B and their 
personnel were associated with around the world but particularly in Europe over a fifty year period. That these 
resources of research are currently unavailable is a serious hindrance to scholarship and one hopes that the 
Belgian authorities will be able to find a way to make them effectively available again. 



Introduction 7 

included in the encyclopedic repertories according to the "monographic principle" on the 
other, could be at any level of detail: the whole document, chapters, sections and so on, down 
to "facts" which the indexing procedure would "detach" from the text of a document The 
subsequent manipulation of cards and sheets, their organisation and re-organisation led him 
to envisage the reconstitution of knowledge contained in documents in a flexible 
encyclopedic way - what he called "codification". Hence Otlet's recurrent images of 
"mapping" knowledge, of dissecting or disintegrating documents and re-constituting them, of 
creating a minutely detailed table of contents and index of the "Universal Book of 
Knowledge", as well as an institutional expression of that "book" as a new form of 
"Encyclopedia." 

This highlights two aspects of Otlet's work that are of particular relevance today: his 
anticipation of computer processing of text and his imaginative extrapolation from the hints 
provided by the technology of his own day, to a vision of the revolutionary changes a more 
sophisticated technology could make in improving access to and use of knowledge. Indeed, it 
is possible to claim that what he had himself discovered in 1895 was a new technology based 
on the standard card and loose-leaf or sheet, permitting mass storage of information, and a 
procedure for sorting and retrieving all that was stored: basic functions of computer 
processing. He had found a way to transcend the limitations that inevitably arose from the 
existing technology for communicating knowledge - using the printing press to produce 
separate, physically unrelated units such as books or issues of journals or periodicals. Cards 
and loose-leaves or sheets of a standard format led him to conceive of a new kind of book 
and file and catalogue that was infinitely and continuously expansible. The UDC with its 
complex system of encoding subjects ordered this file for searching. Ostensibly it also 
allowed for precise, flexibly formulated search statements. Search parameters could be set for 
point of view, date or language, and the other common sub-divisions, for example. The use of 
the + and : signs for establishing conjunctive relationships between separate subjects could 
be construed as functioning like the Boolean operator "and." The database, the file of cards or 
loose-leaves and later microfilm strips or microfiche, indexed by the same system, could be 
sorted against these statements and matches retrieved - either bibliographical entries or actual 
text. 

While on-demand searches were made in the Universal Bibliographic Repertory 
from its beginnings until it became unavailable in the early 1970s, the theory and the practice 
were from the start at odds. The RBU was in fact subject to the same limitations as manual 
searching of any card catalogue or indexed "paper-based" file. First there was the problem 
that the sorting/matching process was limited by the need for pre-coordination in indexing. 
The classificatory machinery by which highly sophisticated subject specification became 
possible was not available for searching - the number elements of the UDC were not in fact 
entirely reversible, nor were multiple entries automatically made in the Repertory to take 
advantage of those that were. In addition the contents of the "documents", the facts and so on 
that were identified as needing to be made separately available on the basis of the 
"monographic principle," had to be physically extracted from the document itself either by 
laborious manuscript transcription or by cutting and pasting. This destroyed the integrity of 
the original and the possibility of other kinds of analysis, manipulation and reconstitution of 
the text that had not initially been anticipated. In machine-readable form, however, the 
integrity of the original record or document can be maintained or restored while its content 



8 Paul Otlet 

can be manipulated at any time in any way that the available software and the ingenuity of 
the operator allow. 

Otlet's imagination was fired by the possibility of having text available in a form in 
which it could be searched, analysed, abstracted and re-formatted at will. His "monographic 
principle" and the "deep" indexing it implied by freeing the content of a work from the work 
itself, were thought to allow individuals to identify what I have referred to as atoms of 
information that could be re-configured in any way corresponding to their own particular 
interests and needs. But here arose a problem of communication and of storage. How to gain 
access to these elements, how to retrieve and copy them and how to store the copy locally for 
personal use become important questions. In thinking about these matters, Otlet effectively 
described what is now called the Scholar's Work-Station in which these and related functions 
are - or will be - carried out electronically, though Otlet's description of them was of course 
in terms of the technology of his time. 

In a striking passage not two full pages in length in his Traiti de Documentation he 
discusses machines not yet invented but which he believes were necessary if certain 
requirements for access to and use of information were to be met 9 He speculates about new 
forms of printing and about creating new kinds of machines for photocopying, even pocket- 
sized personal copiers. He wonders about creating illustrations from previously established 
basic units of design (a process similar to modern computer-aided design). Aware of the 
Hollerith "statistical" machines in use in the Bureau of the Census in Washington (see paper 
12 in this volume), he considered the applicability of punched card machines and techniques 
to the sorting and retrieval of documents. He believed that a machine was needed to translate 
voice to writing and vice versa. A "telereading" machine would allow text to be read at a 
distance, while a "telescription" machine would allow the transmission of writing for 
addition to remotely held texts without having physically to disturb the originals. He believed 
that somehow it should be possible for scholars on their screens at home to read documents 
held at a distance in the great depositories (of course reorganised along the lines that he saw 
as necessary!), to which they would be linked by wire, like a telephone, or not by wire, like 
the radio and newly introduced television. Later in the Traiti de Documentation he also 
speculated, in what he described as a way that would appeal to H.G. Wells (p.428), that 
perhaps the work-desk of the future might consist only of a screen or multiple screens and a 
telephone to call up documents automatically on the screen for consultation, along with some 
kind of "loud - speaker" for the transmission of sound when this was needed to augment the 
visual display. 

These machines as a whole constituted a kind of auxiliary intellectual apparatus of 
contemporary scholarship. He believed that a new work environment would become 
necessary in which these machines could be brought together physically, their functions 
coordinated, their size reduced; ultimately they would be fused into a single machine. Within 
this new workroom there would be new kinds of desks or work tables both to accommodate 
the new technology but also new approaches to scholarly work that would now be possible. 
Desks would have different writing surfaces for different projects (perhaps like electronic 
windows) from which relevant documentation could be kept accessible and undisturbed. For 
storage and retrieval of documents in general, Otlet suggested that there should be a great 
mobile filing cabinet mounted on a straight or circular rail next to or around the desk and 



9. Otlet, Traiti de Documentation... pp. 389-391 . 



Introduction 9 

controlled electrically: a physical surrogate if ever there was one for electronically stored 
files and a database management system. 

In this connection one should also stress Otlet's concern for the storage possibilities 
of microfilm (See papers 6 and 15 in this volume). Otlet believed that microfilm could be 
used to bring within reach of every scholar vast quantities of information either in the form of 
copies of existing catalogues and libraries of books, music, images etc or in the form of 
reconstituted information comprising a new approach to the Encyclopedia - what he was to 
call the Encyclopedia Microphotica Mundaneum. 

While Otlet's casual reference to Wells is merely to highlight his sense of the 
science fiction-like character of his own speculations, it should be noted that Otlet's ideas for 
a new kind of encyclopedia and for a world documentary network preceded by several 
decades Wells's own statements about a "World Encyclopaedia" as discussed in The Work, 
Wealth and Happiness of Mankind in 1931 and in the papers published as World Brain in 
1938. 10 The two men were star "performers" at the Paris World Congress of Universal 
Documentation sponsored in 1937 in part by the League of Nations Organisation for 
International Intellectual Cooperation. It was as a result of this Congress that the name, 
International Federation for Documentation, was adopted for what had become the 
International Institute for Documentation. It is not clear if Wells and Otlet actually met on 
this occasion or ever became aware of the close kinship of their ideas for organising access to 
knowledge internationally. 11 

It also seems clear that Otlet anticipated the kinds of organisation and technology 
that were to inspire Vannevar Bush's "Memex". 12 In the "monographic principle" and the 
idea of the reconstitution of documents, moreover, is a hint - but only very remotely a hint - 
of the associative and relational trails that each scholar would establish amongst the sources 
of interest to him. Thus, Otlet's notion of a mechanical brain, a substratum of memory, an 
external mechanism and instrument of the mind are anticipations of the functions foreseen by 
Bush for his Memex. Other work, such as that of Douglas C. Engelbart 13 and the 
development of the currently fashionable hypertext systems, may also be considered in broad 
outline and functionality as having been anticipated by Otlet. In this connection it is not 
irrelevant to note that, in following his notions of "documentation" to their ultimate 
conclusion, Otlet was to speak of "Hyper Documentation" in terms only slightly more 
extravagant that those used by hypertext enthusiasts. 

One can make too much of these anticipations. They are the speculative culmination 
of his extensive (and repetitive) analysis of the nature of documents and of organisational 
requirements needed to facilitate access to the knowledge that was their freight In the long 
run what is perhaps most important in Otlet's thought is his comprehensiveness of approach, 
his extraordinary vue d'ensemble. He conceptualised a field of a study and research that is 
concerned not with separate institutions but with the related functions that a number of 
different kinds of institutions perform. Thus he sees bibliography, libraries, archives, 
museums and a new kind of institutionalised "encyclopedia" all as expressing functions that 



10. H.G. Wells, World Brain. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1938. 

11. W. Boyd Ray ward, "The International Exposition and the World Documentation Congress, Paris, 1937" The 
Library Quarterly 53 (July 1983): 254-268. 

12. Vannevar Bush, "As We May Think" Atlantic Monthly 176(1945): 101-108. 

13. Douglas C. Englebart "A Conceptual Framework for the Augmentation of Man's Intellect," in Vistas in 
Information Handling edited by Paul Howerton. 1 (1963) 11-29. 



10 Paul Otlet 

have devolved upon "the document." But the document Otlet also conceives of in a new way 
as being anything conveying information, principally written documents of all kinds but also 
"things" as well, depending upon the uses to which conceptually they were put This notion 
helps produce a coherence and amplitude to what in the English-speaking world are still 
fairly circumscribed areas of study, research and professional education, though broadened in 
recent years as information science or information management Thus for Otlet the document 
is at the centre of a complex process of communication, of the cumulation and transmission 
of knowledge, of the creation and evolution of institutions. It is in this breadth, this sense of a 
whole, this catholicity of approach that Otlet has most to offer us. 14 It is this that it is hoped 
the papers presented below will bring before a new generation of readers. 



14. In this respect see W. Boyd Rayward, "Library and Information Sciences: Disciplinary Differentiation, 
Competition and Convergence" in The Study of Information: Interdisciplinary Messages. Edited by Fritz 
Machlup and Una Mansfield. New York: John Wiley and sons, 1983. pp 343 - 363, and also Rayward, "Library 
and Information Science: An Historical Perspective," Journal of Library History 20(1985): 120-136. 



1. SOMETHING ABOUT BIBLIOGRAPHY 1 



The debasement of all kinds of publication resulting from the modern 
cultivation of the so-called moral, social and political sciences is alarming to those who 
are concerned about quality rather than quantity. What is original in all of these books, 
brochures, and journal articles, the publication of which is announced each week in 
publishers' catalogues and in reviews in specialist periodicals? What allowances must be 
made for style and repetition and what is really new? 

A delicate but necessary question. 

If one spends a very little time reading these works, it seems that everything has 
been said, that everything to be said is known and that further reading is pointless. This 
belief has a companion state of scepticism, the consequences of which are deplorable. 
Seeing that so much is based only on opinion, one is constrained to believe that the pros 
and cons of any question can be sustained equally well and that the facts are too complex 
to be captured by any kind of conceptual formula, for these are always too exclusive and 
too tyrannical. 

It follows that the social sciences are seen to those interested in them not as one 
discipline in terms of their materials and conclusions, but as a gathering of personal 
opinions based on documents collected more or less without order and method. 

Close to us, however, rises the great monument of the natural sciences. The 
views of natural scientists on the constitution of man and the world, on the laws of their 
organisation and development, are no less extensive or less imaginative than those of 
economists and sociologists on society. But the difference between them is that in the 
natural sciences speculation and interpretation are secondary and are hardly ever made d 
priori. Natural scientists are not content simply to declare themselves positivist as a turn 
of phrase, as most of our popularisers do, and then to act as if positivist methods did not 
exist and ought not be applied everywhere and always. 

The results of the natural sciences are grounded in millions of carefully 
observed, analysed, and catalogued facts. These facts have subsequently been integrated 
into sequences and the combination of these sequences has naturally led to the 
enunciation of laws, partial at first, general later, from which the most powerful and 
indestructible synthesis that has ever been made now seems possible. 

There is no doubt that the methods of natural scientists are admirable. These 
scholars have made the rigorous application of such methods, invented or improved upon 
as need arose, the very condition of their work. Ingenious brains have always been found 
at the right time to invent the new research instruments and demonstration methods 
needed for the progress of science. 

But all of this equipment would have been worth little in terms of its final result 
if all the natural scientists in all parts of the civilized world, no matter what their 



11 



12 Paul Otlet 

numbers, had not worked toward the completion of the same task, the construction of the 
same edifice the broad outline of whose design has been impressed upon each one of 
them. Never has their activity been better co-ordinated. Never has there been less 
duplication. It seems that at any moment they are always aware of the present status of 
their science, that they never have to work in vain, discovering without realizing it what 
was already known. Moreover, each of their discoveries, each new contribution to the 
advancement of their science, seems to be recorded immediately and to become for 
everyone the point of departure for future research. Thus does an admirable coherence of 
work exist among chemists, physicists, and biologists. The latest arrival among this 
army of investigators can immediately find a useful job to do without having to tarry 
long with already completed work. 



Is our own science, sociology - it is very much ours since Law is its highest 
expression and implies the whole of it - similar in any of its aspects? 

It is rich in facts, even richer in perceptions and observations. The number of 
those cultivating it is enormous. It is the dominant preoccupation of many people. What 
does it need, therefore, to achieve the solid, gradual development of the natural sciences? 
Truly, very little, but that little is essential: more precision and rigour in the observation 
of facts and more conciseness in the formulation of problems; that is to say, reliable 
investigation and monitoring procedures and an appropriate method of classifying its 
materials. 

Everything has been said about its methodology. The best minds have in 
particular shown clearly what the social sciences can expect from modern statistical 
methods. The reduction of all phenomena to rigorous numerical laws will give them that 
precision we have pointed out as a first requirement Now, social facts are, par 
excellence, facts that can be enumerated, since their peculiar character, which 
differentiates them from facts related to individuals, lies precisely in their frequency and 
their number. But our intention here is not to attempt yet another exploration of the role 
of statistics and other sociological methods. Once facts are observed and recorded in 
publications, thus becoming an integral part of knowledge, we would simply like to find 
out if with a special classification it is possible eventually and naturally to group them 
into scientific laws. How can we attain for the social sciences the positive and 
documentary character of the natural sciences. How can all the efforts of individuals be 
made to contribute to the development of a definitive synthesis which is built up slowly 
from facts and is the result not of the speculations of a particular thinker but of the 
research of all? 

What do the sociological sciences deal with, and, from our point of view, how 
does their object differ from that of the natural sciences? The sociological sciences deal 
with infinitely numerous and complex social phenomena which are observable in the 
most distant places on earth, and which require, in order to be understood, a knowledge 
of anterior facts from the domain of history that are not amenable to direct examination. 

The chemist's whole universe is contained in the test tubes of his laboratory. 
The physicist experiments with natural forces which are the same in Europe, in India, 



Something About Bibliography 13 

and in Australia. The dogs, pigeons, and rabbits needed for vivisection by physiologists 
are found in every latitude. 

But social facts? They constitute groupings of which both the whole and its 
parts escape the wisest observer. Where else can one find more connections between 
phenomena, more reciprocal influences and effects? An appraisal of a social issue is 
valuable only in proportion to the number of elements which it takes into account. 
Judgments here are as complex as the matters judged. Any error in the statement of any 
one of them has immediate consequences for everything that has been deduced from it, 
thus multiplying the error almost to infinity. 

In summary, on the one hand is the absolute necessity if we are to reach an 
exact statement of the least social law, of taking into account all of the social facts and of 
being aware of all of their relationships. On the other hand is the impossibility, no less 
absolute, of any one scholar by himself observing these facts, the greatest number of 
which have occurred in other times or in the theatre of other places. If this is so, one can 
appreciate the importance that the best minds are beginning to give to the joint 
organisation of work, to the division of research in order subsequently to bring together 
its best results. 

Individual monographs, research on matters of detail, contributions to more 
general studies are multiplying, it is true, out of all proportion. But it is necessary that all 
of these individual works be registered and classified, so that anyone can retrieve them 
immediately in order to use them and to push ahead, to know at every moment what has 
been done and what remains to be done. 

How little has been accomplished along these lines! 

What could be easier for an explorer than to know precisely and instantly the 
areas towards which he must direct his investigations if he is to add some new territory to 
the known and explored world. To determine what the latest discoveries are, all he has 
to do is to open one of the great maps published by our geographical societies. What 
remains to be discovered is revealed to him by the latest evidence. Trusting in this guide, 
he can set out certain of not wasting his energies and resources in expeditions that have 
already been made and that are, therefore, pointless for the advancement of the science of 
geography. 

Is it not rather similar with industrial discoveries? Each country has a patent 
office which registers every new invention and publishes a journal, which, day by day, 
keeps the industrial world abreast of progress. Would it be so difficult to achieve a 
similar registration of sociological data and concepts? 

Our colleague, Charles Dejongh, in the last issue of Palais 2 has attempted to set 
down the outline of a common programme for the study of social questions. He has 
directed himself to the Conferences du Jeune Barreau throughout Belgium and to similar 
groups of foreign lawyers. He has asked each of them to select a specific topic in a great 
synoptic chart he has prepared, and to make an exhaustive study of this topic. All the 
materials for this would have to be gathered together and conclusions formulated by each 
section in as many reports as there were subdivisions in the chart. 

A superb project, all the more admirable for being at the moment unrealizable! 
It is not necessary to stress the difficulty of obtaining national and international 
agreement between associations which are only incidentally concerned with the scientific 
study of social questions. Moreover, the arrangements for our colleague's project too 



14 Paul Otlet 

strongly imply that it is a programme that could be completed once and for all in one or 
two years of work. It seems to us that this is not correct. 

Social questions are not of one time, but of all times. At any given period they 
are no more than the whole of the social requirements of the time . There will always be 
social questions, as there always have been. Hence, any collective work for their study 
must have something continuous about it, a flexible, simple, permanent organisation. 

For the moment what is important in Charles Dejongh's project is his idea of 
collective work. More than ever this is the essence of contemporary research. It is 
important to direct individual efforts towards a single goal and to be careful not to waste 
anyone's time and energy. Not that it should be necessary to re-create for intellectual 
undertakings the vast factories industry has required for the production of goods. Here 
each person, without any regard for his tastes and aptitudes, is given a specific task to do. 
He patiently works away at one of a thousand nuts and bolts which will be used for an 
infinitely complex machine that perhaps he never sees complete. Modern scientific 
research requires too much initiative for such procedures to be appropriate to it. 
Everyone's freedom must be maintained. But this principle is in no way incompatible 
with a degree of co-ordination of effort. 

Is it possible to achieve this co-ordination, not by imposing rules of work on 
anyone, but by creating collective works which, while above and beyond individual 
projects, use them, complete them, make their development easier? This is the question 
in a nutshell. 

Let us examine the services which, in this context, bibliography could provide if 
it were more comprehensive. 



With some quite rare exceptions, bibliography until now has been restricted to 
the modest function of indicating sources. In the beginning it was the preoccupation of 
the bibliophile and the speculative ventures of the book trade. Subsequently, with the 
publication of the catalogues of our great public libraries, it became more scientific. It 
was easy to arrange books alphabetically by the names of authors. A few large subject 
divisions were also created but these were no more than literature, law, history, etc. 
Gradually, for their own use, librarians constructed catalogues intended to respond to 
readers' requests for information. The principle of arrangement of such catalogues was 
naturally classification by subject. It was necessary to know how to indicate 
immediately what works their library had on alcoholism, taxes, the history of the French 
Revolution, etc. Then authors began to adopt the habit of referring whenever they could 
to the sources they had used. Scholars also imitated the example of librarians. They 
created their own small bibliographical listings in which were recorded not only the 
resources of their own libraries but, culled from their reading, any bibliographical or 
other information which might be useful to them some day. They alsoT>egan to refer to 
the collectors of detailed index cards, those who, because of their carefully arranged 
systems of drawers and pigeon-holes, in two hours could furnish material for a scholarly 
lecture on any subject with which they were familiar. Anyone with research to do went 
and knocked on their door, certain of coming away with hands full of references. 
Enormous trouble was thus avoided. Referral to the latest study to have appeared on a 



Something About Bibliography 15 

subject did away with the need for ploughing through mountains of books and journals as 
a means of being brought up to date on it. 

One came so far. One hardly went further. Indeed, sociology has not drawn 
from Bibliography all the advantages that the latter can offer. Here is a marvellous 
instrument of progress which is still very primitive but whose first results augur well for 
its future. 

A first step towards collective work would be to approach systematically the 
classification of sources. What has already been written and thought provides, par 
excellence, the basic materials of the social sciences. It is, therefore, quite natural at the 
outset to make a systematic inventory of these sources - both historical and 
contemporary, a catalogue of books, brochures, and articles in journals and 
encyclopedias, arranged alphabetically by authors' names and systematically by subjects. 
This would be a catalogue whose publication could begin at once. It would fall into two 
series, the one retrospective, the other by means of periodical issues listing, month by 
month, all new publications. At the moment such a work has not yet been specifically 
undertaken for the benefit of the social sciences, though one can cite examples for the 
other disciplines. The Index Medicus [l] published in the United States, is a true 
catalogue of medical literature. Caspars Directory of the American Book, news and 
stationery Trade, wholesale and retail [2] has achieved on a large scale for all of the 
branches of American learning what the Bulletin des sommaires 4 has undertaken on a 
more modest scale for France. Finally, in Germany, the Allegmeine Bibliographie [3] of 
Putkammer and Muhlbrecht and the Sommaire piriodique des revues de droit[4] are 
periodical listings of legal books and periodicals. 

Such catalogues of sources, however, would not be adequate for sociology. In 
fact, of what value are all these sources? What does the title of a book and the name of 
its author conceal? It is just as important to be familiar with a work as to know of its 
existence. Nowadays, every new work is sent for review to the editors of newspapers 
and journals. Special publication exist, such as Polybiblion [5], devoted exclusively to 
book reviewing. The discipline of law alone has Themis 5 in Holland, the Centralblattfur 
Rechtswissenschaft [6] and the Vierteljahresschrift fur Gesetzegebung und 
Rechtswissenschaft [7] in Germany, and the Rivista internazionale per le scienze 
giuridiche in Italy. This is enough to indicate the position, greater every day, that 
bibliography now assumes. There is in general, however, not much system to producing 
book reviews, and this is a hindrance. Fine phrases, uncritical praise and some scraps of 
ideas copied from chance openings of the book are often all that can be found in them. 



[1] Index Medicus, a monthly classified record of the Current Medical Literature of the World. Compiled 

under the supervision of Dr. John S. Billings and Dr. Robert Fletcher, Boston, George S. Davis, Publisher. 
[2] Caspars directory of the American Book, news and stationery Trade, wholesale and retail, by C.N. Caspar, 

Milwaukee, Wis., bookseller. New York, office of "the publishers' weekly". * 
[3] Allgemeine Bibliographie der Stoats und Rechtswissenschaften, Uebersicht der auf diesen Gebieten im 

deutschen und auslandischen Buchhandelnen erschienen Literatur. Jahrlich 6 Doppelnummerr. 
[4] Sommaire piriodique des revues de droit. Table mensuelle de tous les articles et etudes juridiques publics 

dans les periodiques beiges et etrangers. Bruxelles, Vve Larcier. 
[5] Polybiblion. revue bibliographique universelle. L Partie liueraire. II. Partie technique. Paris, 5, rue St. 

Simon. 
[6] Centralblattfur Rechtswissenschaft herausgegeben von Dr von Kirchenheim. Berlin, Guttentag. 
[7] Kritische Vierteljaresschrift fur Gesetzegebung und Rechtswissenschaft Herausg. von Bechman und 

Seydel. Miinchen, von Oldenburg. 



16 Paul Otlet 

Breaking with tradition, the editor of the interesting Rivista per la scienze 
giuridiche [8], Mr. E. Serafini, has resolved to have authors describe their books 
themselves. In a very few pages, two or three at most, they briefly present their findings 
and what it is in their work that merits attention. An essential point - the reviews are 
signed. It is to be hoped that empty phrases and flattery will henceforth appear grotesque 
and misplaced and will become rare. 

Pushing on further with these ideas, cannot one imagine a book review which 
has been developed "scientifically" according to standardised procedures? It has been 
observed that the excellent idea adopted for legal digests of making a very short resume 
of the contents of judicial decisions, at one time gave rise to grave abuses. Under the 
pretext of summarising a judgement in a few sentences, the annotators used the abstract 
to express their own opinions. Certain lawyers recognized this evil, denounced it and 
established systematic rules for the preparation of the abstracts. Since then, for most 
cases, one can dispense with reading all of a decision. Everyone's research has thus been 
reduced. 

Nothing prevents the application of the rules for the preparation of an abstract to 
that of a review. While in the legal decision it is the principle that has been established 
which must be set forth, for the book it is the point of view or objective of the author 
along with his general conclusions, and these are nearly always indicated in the preface 
or the last chapter. The need for objectivity is the same in both cases. If textual extracts 
are important in the composition of abstracts, they will be even more so for reviews. All 
that is necessary is that, in the course of a careful reading, appropriate passages be 
intelligently underlined. These can be extracted later, so that, after a fashion, the authors 
are allowed to speak for themselves. 

The Societi des sciences societies et politiqu.es of Brussels, whose 
bibliographical section, directed by our colleague La Fontaine, is becoming ever more 
important, believed that it was possible to ask its members to collaborate in the 
preparation of bibliographical cards. Each person who asked to be associated with this 
work was given cards of the same format. The title of the book or of the periodical 
article, the name of the author, that of the publisher, the price, the year, the number of 
pages and a short summary were then to be added to the card. It soon became necessary 
to put a stop to this. Some limited themselves to transcribing the title using different 
words. Others prepared what were really critical articles and extended themselves 
immoderately. Good extracts, prepared according to the procedure outlined here - a 
procedure which would permit a copyist to undertake the greatest part of the task - would 
avoid these difficulties. 

Indexes for books, brochures and articles, and objective reviews of everything 
that is published, are just one part of the programme that should be undertaken for the 
bibliography of the social sciences. As a matter of fact from the purely formal point of 
view one can break it down into the following elements: facts, interpretation of facts, 
statistics, sources. All of its materials are reducible to these four terms. The materials 
can then be brought together and re-arranged in particular categories which are no more 
than the various questions the discipline poses, answers to which are sought from the 



[8] Rivista Internationale per le scienze giuridiche. Directeur, M.E. Serafini, professor at the University of 
Mace rata. 



Something About Bibliography 17 

materials. All of these questions taken together, with their subdivisions and the answers 
provided for them, constitute the discipline. 

The various parts of any book, periodical article, or lecture can be easily 
reduced to the different elements we have mentioned above. For written works a re- 
arrangement of their contents not along the lines of the special plan of a particular book, 
but according to the genus and species appropriate to each element does not make for any 
loss of substance. 

This systematic recording of facts, statistical data and interpretations of them in 
the final analysis will be work undertaken by only a few individuals: the creation of a 
kind of artificial brain by means of cards containing actual information or simply notes 
of references. 

Such an undertaking is indubitably useful, for Knowledge merely comprises all 
observed facts and of all the likely hypotheses that have been formulated to explain these 
facts and reduce them to laws. The external make-up of a book, its format and the 
personality of its author are unimportant provided that its substance, its sources of 
information and its conclusions are preserved and can be made an integral part of the 
organisation of knowledge, an impersonal work created by the efforts of all. The ideal, 
from this point of view, would be to strip each article or each chapter in a book of 
whatever is a matter of fine language or repetition or padding and to collect separately on 
cards whatever is new and adds to knowledge. These cards, minutely subdivided, each 
one annotated as to the genus and species of the information they contain, because they 
are separate could then be accurately placed in a general alphabetical catalogue updated 
each day. One such winnowing to conserve the best grain is clearly only an ideal. What 
is possible in practice? 

Much more than is generally believed. Let us instance, for example, the great 
encyclopedias whose publication is continued by quinquennial supplements or even bi- 
monthly supplements, as in the interesting case of the Revue encycloptdique 6 which is 
the continuation of the great Encyclopidie Larousse. 1 

Let us note also as support for what collective undertakings can do to help 
individual research through good subject classification, the great law collections and the 
excellent system of monthly, annual and quinquennial supplements which legal digests 
publish in order to bring some order to accumulating material. 

Finally, closer to our topic, both because of the actual nature of the subjects and 
the periodical nature of the publication of the material, are the great journals which have 
occasionally in themselves founded a whole discipline. Who can say, for example, what 
is the role of the Journal du droit international prive % in the development of this aspect 
of law? The Archives de I'anthropologie criminelle of Lacassagne contains the elements 
of a complete encyclopedia on this subject 9 ; and there is no important philosophical 
matter of the last twenty years, which has not been mentioned in Ribot's review. 10 The 
tables of contents of such periodicals provide the best catalogues of sources which are 
available today. 

The programme we are proposing for sociology is, therefore, not unrealisable d 
priori. Without going into too many details, let us indicate some ways of helping to 
carry it out 

Unlike dictionaries, for which an alphabetical arrangement is still adopted, the 
general catalogue of the social sciences of which we are speaking will be prepared on 



18 Paul Otlet 

separate cards, thus allowing for all the manipulations of classification and continuous 
interfiling. This system is the only one which can be reconciled with the necessities of 
collective bibliographic work as we conceive it, because it alone permits the formation of 
the catalogue from contributions coming in from everywhere. 

Indeed, we think that the cards of the catalogue should not derive from a single 
publication, but on the contrary, from all publications, each one according to what it has 
offer in its speciality. One would not subscribe to the repertory, but in every library or 
study it would be created from elements supplied ad hoc by just about everybody. 

Because of the existence of this repertory, the typographical layout of the text of 
bibliographical journals would be arranged in such a way that they could be easily cut up 
for filing with cards on the same subjects. The format of the paper would be standard 
and only the recto would be printed on. 

The tables of contents of scientific books are becoming more and more 
systematic and complete. When a work is large and when it has a general title, its table 
of contents is the best indicator of what it contains. In order to make up the great 
catalogues of sources of which we are speaking, it will be necessary to record these 
tables of contents on as many cards as there are chapters. This new use will in its turn 
bring about important typographical changes. Publishers will have the tables of contents 
printed separately for use in catalogues and editors of journals will follow their example. 
To follow up the resolutions taken at the last Congress of the Book 11 , new national and 
international meetings will have to formulate general rules. Agreement will be reached 
on the essential elements for all tables of contents, the basis of Bibliography, just as other 
congresses have regulated the units of measurement and nomenclature of other sciences. 

The great public libraries are the primary group interested in the catalogue of 
sources. Their cataloguing departments should assume a special task, which will differ 
according to country, and undertake to publish a certain number of cards, as M. Nizet has 
proposed in a recent brochure. 12 Finally, individuals and scientific societies must 
become more active as collaborators in this collective work. 

The goal is to create in each country an association, or a section of an existing 
association, whose programme is the collection, verification and publication on cards of 
information today remaining unused in the bottom of boxes. These cards would rapidly 
enlarge the size of the catalogue. 

In the April 27 issue of Flandre judiciaire Me. H. de Baets, our eminent 
colleague at Gand, has presented a model of an easy-to-prepare "reading note" which 
could be used to give a preliminary idea of the arrangements which we are proposing. 13 



What remains to be discussed is the status of a subject or how easily to ascertain 
the point of development reached by any branch of knowledge. The famous Swnma of 
Saint Thomas 14 should be mentioned here as an example. It sets^ forth a complete 
exposition of all the questions which the philosophers of the Middle Ages posed and 
formulates an answer for each question according to the state of knowledge then. 
Summae are no longer possible. The a priori is too far in the past and the empirical 
method has not yet produced enough facts for us to attempt today a new and definitive 
synthesis. 



Something About Bibliography 19 

Should we limit ourselves to the subject reports proposed by our colleague 
Dejongh? Really, we would have to begin again every six months. Moreover, it is not 
possible to make them an integral and daily part of the repertory that we have described. 
After all, the reasonable goal proposed here is that any one person should be able rapidly 
to find out, not all about a subject, but all about the branches into which it has been 
divided and about the work already done relative to these branches. What must be 
avoided are repetition and duplication because of ignorance of previous work. 

We believe that a very systematic and very detailed synoptic outline of 
knowledge would have enormous advantages. It would briefly mention all the aspects of 
a science, either in the form of a set of questions or according to a careful arrangement of 
its nomenclature. The latter form would be better because of its conciseness and the 
influence that it would have on the creation of a scientific language ne varietur of which 
the Social Sciences are particularly in need. This nomenclature, which usage would soon 
shape and stabilise, could also be used for the classification of cards in the catalogue. It 
would thus permit the creation of very practical links between the catalogue and the 
Synoptic outline. 

We will borrow a model from law, whose centuries-old language has nearly 
achieved the precision of the language of chemistry. A word in law not only evokes the 
object named in its concrete form, but also, by logical association, all the characteristics 
and attributes of the object in the same way that the formula for a compound expresses 
its relationships and quickly makes its elements evident. The classification of legal 
subjects has also achieved an extraordinary precision. We would like to offer as proof, 
along with the indexes of certain catalogues, the preparation of the arguments which 
precede the entries for decrees and judgments in legal digests. A gradation of five or six 
words can move from the more general, to the less general, to a particular fact. Each 
card of the catalogue that we are proposing also would have its own argument, the basis 
of its classification, and the terms of the argument would be the same as those of the 
synoptic outline. 

The ideas which we have developed in the preceding pages in support of an 
organisation for a general bibliography of the social sciences have found a practical 
application in what has been recently attempted for mathematics. In 1889, the French 
Mathematical Society took the initiative in calling a congress to establish the basis for an 
international bibliography of mathematics. 15 

M. Maurice d'Ocagne [9], explained what it was hoped would be achieved, in 
these terms: 

"The number of workers, and, as a necessary consequence, the number of publications 
needed to make known the fruits of their research, have grown considerably. 
Mathematical writings are increasing everywhere. Clearly, they are not all of the same 
degree of interest for the progress ofthe discipline; however, it is possible to find in the 
most modest of them the germ of some fruitful idea which ought not to be overlooked. 
Now, it is physically impossible, even for the largest and most gifted intelligence, to 
embrace such a quantity of matter. Hence, the necessity for an appropriate guide which 
will allow a searcher to find out rapidly what has been achieved here and now on a 



[9] Revue generate des sciences, 20 mars 1 89 1 , p. 170. M 



20 Paul Otlet 

particular point, and which will provide him with complete bibliographical references to 
this effect 

The congress was held in Paris on the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th of July 1889, 
was presided over by M. Poincare, 17 and took, among others, the following resolutions: 

1. A bibliographical catalogue of mathematics whose purpose is to spare workers long 
and difficult searches should be published. This catalogue should contain the titles of 
papers on pure and applied mathematics published since 1800 up to 1889 inclusively, as 
well as works relative to the history of mathematics since loOO up to 1889. Entries 
should be arranged not by author's names, but according to a logical subject order. 

2. Every ten years a ten-year supplement will be published. 

5. The Congress adopts the following classification for the Catalogue: The various 
headings will be arranged in a certain number of classes, subdivided into sub-classes, 
divisions, sections, ana sub-sections. The classes will be designated by a capital letter 
assigned an exponent. The classes or sub-classes will be sub-divided into divisions 
designated by an Arabic numeral, the divisions into sections designated by a lower-case 
Roman letter and these can also be sub-divided into sub-sections indicated by a lower- 
case Greek letter. Thus, the sub-section of section b, which is part of the division 3 of 
sub-class L' would be written in this way in a rectangular frame: 



L*3 b a. 



8. The Congress resolves that the various periodicals devoted to mathematics should 
publish for their volumes a general table of contents that follows the classification 
adopted above. The Congress will be very grateful to the editors of these journals if they 
would assist the permanent commission as much as possible in the matter of this 
classification. 

9. In order to facilitate the establishment of supplements devoted to works after 1889, 
the Congress resolves that each author should include after the title of his paper the 
notation defined in the 5th resolution; and that, if the author has neglected to do this, the 
editors of the various periodicals, or in their default, the editors of indexing services 
which analyze these works, should assume responsibility for it 

Following these resolutions, the Congress appointed a permanent international 
commission to carry out its decisions. This commission is connected with the 
Committee on Historical and Scientific Work of the Ministry for Public Instruction 
which has provided the financial support needed to produce the much hoped-for 
bibliography. Today, it is in the process of being carried out 18 

Let us add that the Royal Society of London intends to bring together for each 
individual science and according to a systematic subject arrangement the references 
listed in alphabetical order by author's name in the eight volumes of its Catalogue of 
Scienttfic Papers (1800 to 1863 and 1863 to 1874). J 9 

Such are a few of the ideas that come to mind when, after some investigation, 
we ponder what Bibliography and collective endeavour could achieved advancing the 
social sciences. 



Something About Bibliography 21 

Editor's Notes 

1. "Un peu de bibliographic" appeared in Palais, organe des Conferences du Jeune 
Barreau de Belgique, in the volume for 1891-1892, pp. 254-271. Otlet is describes 
as "Avocat a la Cour d'appel de Bruxelles (Councillor or Barrister in the Appellate 
Court of Brussels). The setting out of the text of this article has been slightly 
condensed by the editor. Les Conferences du Jeune Barreau de Belgique was a 
forum in which junior barristers practiced pleading and discussed legal and other 
questions of interest. There were sections in the major Belgian cities. 

2. Charles de Jongh (1854-1932), an acquaintance of Otlet's, a brilliant barrister, later 
President of the Belgium Bar, was active in the foundation in 1894 of the Nouvelle 
University de Bruxelles. In 1919 he became president of the Belgian legislative 
Council. The paper Otlet refers to was, "Le Jeune Barreau et les questions sociales" 
Palais, 1891-1892, pp. 125-130. The article was followed by a "Tableau pour servir 
a l'etude methodique des questions sociales (Outline for use in the systematic study 
of sociological subjects)," pp. 131-137. 

3. Caspars Directory is a most curious work. Its subtitle describes it as "comprising 
the Publishing, Subscription, Retail Book, Antiquarian, News, Map, Art, Music, 
Manufacturing, Jobbing and Retail Stationery, Blank Book and Paper Manufacturing 
Business, and General Jobbers in above lines; in the United States and Canada." To 
the name, name changes, partial address and so on of each firm listed is added an 
indication of "appropriate financial standing ... based on the latest commercial 
reports." Caspar notes which publishers issue trade lists or catalogues and whether 
these are reproduced in The Publishers Trade List Annual. Part VI, "Theory and 
Practice of the Book Trade and Kindred Branches" has a section of 20 pages of 
bibliographical publications subdivided by countries: America, British Empire 
(excluding Canada), German Empire, France, other Countries (Austria-Hungary, 
Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Italy, Norway, Russia and Poland, Scandinavia, 
Sweden, Spain and Portugal). There is a vocabulary of English, German, French, 
Italian, Polish, Latin (and some other language) terms, phrases, and abbreviations 
used in the trade (including musical terms). It is not clear why Otlet should cite this 
work or compare it with Limousin's indexing journal. The 1885 edition of Caspar's 
Directory contained less than 300 pages; the edition of 1889, no doubt that to which 
Otlet refers, contained more than 1300 pages. 

4. Bulletin des sommaires. Revue ... de la presse scientifique, politique, littiraire, 
artistique et financiire. This, which appeared with various changes of title and 
frequency from 1888 to 1903, was edited by CM. Limousin. It indexed for "the 
curious intellectual" a large number of newspapers and about 140 journals. Each 
issue of the index was prefaced by a "causerie" or "chat" that gave a very personal 
tone to the whole enterprise. Entries were arranged under broad general headings 
with a multitude of specific sub-headings. In 1896 Limousin, having been an 
interested participant in the 1895 International Conference on Bibliography in 
Brussels, introduced the use of the Decimal Classification to organise and index 
entries. In one of his "chats" he explains his joy in the system, then the difficulties 



22 Paul Otlet 

of applying it and what needed to be done in a case like his ("Causerie - Preface: la 
Classification Scientifique," Bulletin des sommaires 8 (10 January 1896): 1). 

5. Themis; verzameling van bijdragen tot de kennis van net publiek en privaatrecht 
The Hague, vols. 1-99, 1839-1938. This amalgamated in 1939 with Rechtsgeleerd 
magazijn to form Rechtsgeleerd Magazin Themis. 

6. Revue encyclopidique: recueil documentaire universel et illustre" public sous la 
Direction de M. Georges Moreau (Paris: Librairie Larousse). This was published 
from 1891 to 1900. The preface describes the Revue as founded on the basis of the 
Grand Dictionnaire universel de P. Larousse and was intended "To follow the 
contemporary scene step by step, to record, as it proceeds, all the facts worthy of 
being pointed out, and to collect, analyze and classify all the literature which could 
at any moment become the subject of research. " It was illustrated and divided into 
three sections dealing with literature and fine arts, the moral and political sciences, 
and the pure and applied sciences. It had a separate Index-Journal, a combined 
index to the Revue and "dictionary" of current events with short articles on dates, 
events and happenings sufficient for brief reference for readers not needing to turn to 
the main work itself. It also contained a section of information related to the news 
of the day drawn from and referring to other sources so that it could serve as a kind 
of "newspapers'" newspaper. It became Revue universelle: recueil documentaire 
universel et illustre, 1901-1905. 

7. Grand dictionnaire universel du XIX e siicle, francais, historique, geographique, 
mythologique, bibliographique, litteraire, artistique, scientifique, etc., par M. Pierre 
Larousse. (Paris; Larousse et Boyer, 1866-1890). 17 vols. 

8. Journal du droit international privi was published in Paris, in 41 volumes from 
1874 to 1914. It became the Journal du droit international which is still issued. 

9. Archives d'anthropologie criminelle, de medecine legale et de psychologie normal et 
pathologique was published in 29 volumes from 1886 to 1914. From 1886 to 1892 
it was known as Archives de Vanthropologie criminelle et des sciences pennies . 
Alexandre Lacassagne (1843-1924), a French physician, was from 1880 Professor of 
Legal Medicine in the University of Lyon. He wrote several textbooks which went 
through a number of editions, other monographs, and numerous articles for the 
Archives de Vanthropologie criminelle and for the Dictionnaire encyclopidique des 
sciences midicales. 

10. Revue philosophique de la France et de I'itranger paraissant tous les mois (Paris, 
Alcan). This was begun in 1876 and is still published, nowadays by Les Presses 
Universitaires de France. Theodule-Armand Ribot (1838-1916) was a psychologist 
who, attempting to introduce positivist ideas into psychology, stressed the need for 
observation and experimentation and the removal of the speculations of philosophy 
from the subject. Several of his works went through a number of editions and were 
translated into numerous languages. 

11. Otlet probably refers here to the Conference internationale du Livre held at Antwerp 
in August 1890 to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the death of Plantin. Nearly 



Something About Bibliography 23 

200 person attended and questions such as format of books, their composition and 
conservation, the creation of national bibliographies, together with technical matters 
concerning booksellers, publishers and authors were discussed. 

12. F. NizeL Notice sur les catalogues de bibliothequ.es publiques (Bruxelles: 
Imprimerie Vanbuggenhouht, 1887). This work went through three editions during 
1887-1888. Francois-Joseph Nizet (1829-1899), Doctor of Law, Political and Social 
Sciences, and Philosophy and Letters, became a keeper in the Belgian Royal Library 
where he was in charge of the preparation of the library's alphabetic subject 
catalogue, problems of compilation and organisation of which his pamphlet 
described. It contains an interesting discussion of subject headings. 

13. "Notes de lecture" Flandre judiciare 40 (27 April 1892); 350-351. This article, 
which is unsigned (H. de Baets was co-editor of the journal), sets out an approach to 
recording systematically on a "reading card" notes drawn from works about legal 
cases. "By indicating classification terms and legislative dispositions, one prepares 
for the work of future editors of alphabetic catalogues or annotated codes. If this 
practice became more general, the collaboration of all in forming digests would be 
achieved....". The article gives the "fiche" with these details for a work she has just 
read and "begs our readers to send us similar cards which it is quite easy to make in 
studying any subject". 

14. St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica is a compendium of brief, systematic 
statements of the main beliefs of Christian doctrine. It was the greatest of a number 
of medieval summae (syntheses or summations of knowledge) and was written 
between 1267-1273. It was organised in three parts (theology, God etc; human race, 
morality, mysticism and miracles etc; the Incarnate World, Christ, etc), all three 
being divided into "questions" and then "articles" in answer. 

15. The congress was called Congres international de bibliographic des sciences 
mathSmatiques. 

16. Otlet refers here to Philibert-Maurice d'Ocagne (1862-1938), a distinguished 
mathematician and graduate of the famous Ecole Polytechnique. One of the 
originators of the scheme, he was secretary of the Commission for the Bibliography 
of Mathematics for a number of years. 

17. Jules-Henri Poincare' (1854-1912) was also a graduate of the Ecole Polytechnique. 
He was attached to the Ministry of Public Works. His most distinguished 
professional work was as a teacher in the Ecole Polytechnique and as a professor in 
the Faculty of Sciences in Paris. He was elected to the Academie des Sciences in 
1887 and his important contribution won several prizes in the Academie and 
internationally. 

18. The organisational details, the conference resolutions and the classification are given 
in Index du Ripertoire bibliographique des sciences mathimatiques publi6 par la 
Commission permanente du Repertoire (Paris: Gauthier-Villars et fils, 1893). The 
article by d'Ocagne in the Revue ginirale des sciences pures et appliquies 
mentioned in Otlet's footnote is by way of being a progress report on overcoming 



24 Paul Otlet 

organisational and financial difficulties. The Repertoire bibliographique des 
sciences mathimatiques appeared between 1894 and 1912 in the form of twenty 
series or batches of cards. Each batch contained 100 cards. Each card was slightly 
larger than the now standard 3" x 5" card and each was headed by a classification 
number in a black box as described in the conference resolution quoted by Otlet 
The cards were arranged so that the longer side was vertical and each contained up 
to, though usually less than, 10 entries. The entries are models of the use of 
different type weights and faces to indicate the bibliographic structure of entries. 
Presumably the cards were interfiled as each batch arrived or each batch or series 
was bound as a small volume as was the case for the copy at the Center for Research 
Libraries in Chicago. The edition of the Index du Repertoire bibliographique des 
sciences mathimatiques published in 1898 contained a list of the full titles of the 
journals indexed. The abbreviations used for these in the entries on the cards are 
uninterpretable by and large without reference to the Index. The first edition (also 
translated into Dutch) contained only introductory matter and the schedules of 
classification. A new edition of the Index appeared in 1908. 

19. The first series of the Catalogue of Scientific Papers covered the period 1800 to 
1863 in six volumes; a second series in two volumes covered the period 1864 to 
1873; and a third series covering the period 1874 to 1883 was issued between 1891 
and 1896. The catalogue for the whole of the nineteenth century was not completed 
until 1925. The problem of providing appropriate subject access to it was discussed 
continually from the beginning but was never satisfactorily solved. Certainly 
nothing came of the initiatives Otlet refers to though an incomplete subject index (3 
volumes in 4), classified by the schedules adopted for the International Catalogue of 
Scientific Literature was eventually issued in 1908-1914 (See W. Boyd Rayward, 
"The Search for Subject Access to The Catalogue of Scientific Papers, 1800-1900") 



2. CREATION OF A UNIVERSAL BIBLIOGRAPHIC REPERTORY: 
A PRELIMINARY NOTE 1 



Qui scil ubi scieniia 
habenti est proximo 

The subject of bibliography is on the agenda of a great many scientific 
congresses. This year it has been included in the programmes of the International 
Geographic Congress of London 2 , the French Association for the Advancement of 
Science 3 , and the International Artistic and Literary Association 4 . The Royal Society of 
London was concerned with it last year 5 . Quite recently, it was discussed at the Royal 
Academy of Belgium. 6 

There is unanimous agreement on the usefulness and necessity of a universal 
bibliographic repertory. But as far as ways and means go, its practical organisation, few 
details have been provided up till now. Six years ago an examination of these questions 
was begun in Brussels by a group on whose initiative the International Office of 
Bibliography was founded. Their studies were experimental. The International Office of 
Bibliography, placed under the patronage of the Belgium government, has thus far 
classified 400,000 bibliographic notices dealing with the major areas of scholarship, 
most particularly law, statistics, political economy, philology and literature. It possesses 
techniques of demonstrated excellence. 

The purpose of this note is to make known how this office is organised and 
functions and to show how the extension and generalization of its services would provide 
the best solution to the problem of a Universal Bibliographic Repertory. 

In order to respond to all the requirements that have been identified, a Universal 
Bibliographic Repertory should meet the following conditions: 

1. It should be complete. It should contain both the bibliography of the past 
and the present. It should also be able to keep up with future production. Its object should 
be the whole of human knowledge. Moreover, periodical articles, and the studies 
contained in the proceedings of academies, societies and congresses should be 
represented in it in the same way as books and brochures. 

2. The Repertory should be both by name and subject, that is to say, it should 
be able to provide information rapidly and easily about the works of an author whose 
name is known, and about works which are on a particular subject by authors who are as 
yet unknown. The repertory should, therefore, be both alphabetic by authors' names and 
classified by subjects. It is necessary that related matters should be grouped so that the 
searchers can avoid the too numerous searches which result from the scattering of 
subjects. 



25 



26 Paul Otlet 

3. The Bibliographic Repertory should exist in multiple copies. It is an 
instrument of study and research of which no intellectual centre should be deprived. 
Therefore it should not be too costly or its upkeep too complicated. It should also be 
possible to divide it up because various of its parts will have no interest for a great many 
people. 

4. The Repertory should be both correct and concise, both in the information 
which it provides and in the way it classifies this information. Errors and omissions are 
inherent in all human works. They are inevitable in a work as considerable as a Universal 
Bibliographic Repertory. Any system that is adopted should permit the easy correction of 
errors and omissions without the general repertory being affected. 

5. The Repertory should be made available promptly to researchers who have 
been calling for it for a number of years. This immediate realisation is only possible if 
the repertory is able to use most of the bibliographic works that presently exist, and if it 
can be made available in parts before being entirely completed. 

6. The Repertory should also include a listing of locations. A great many 
books no longer exist other than in rare copies in a few fortunate libraries. It is important 
that a general compilation of the catalogues of individual libraries should be able 
promptly to inform any one who is doing special research where to go. 

7. The Repertory should also become the basis for Intellectual Statistics. 
These statistics, begun no more than a few years ago, are of limited scope because of the 
lack of a precise and complete census. They bear on the number of books, the nationality 
of their authors, and their subjects. 

8. Finally, the Repertory should eventually be able to be used to ensure that 
authors get better legal protection for their intellectual works. 



The experiments of the International Office of Bibliography have led to some 
rules that have enabled it to begin a Repertory which will meet satisfactorily all of these 
requirements. 

This Repertory is indeed universal. Its entries deal with the whole of human 
knowledge and include articles from periodicals, contributions to the great compendia, 
and books and brochures. Entries are prepared in duplicate on separate cards. The first 
card is placed in an alphabetical repertory of authors' names, the second in a classified 
repertory. The cards in the classified repertory are arranged according to the Decimal 
Classification, adopted by the American Association of Librarians. This classification 
has three advantages. First, it provides for human knowledge a nomenclature which is 
stable and universal and can be expressed in an international language - that of numbers. 
It allows a standardised methodology to be used in classifying all bibliographies and 
preserves an exact agreement between classification in libraries and that of the 
bibliographic repertory. Finally, it provides an indefinite system of subject division and 
sub-division so that everything that is related is grouped together. 

The Office of Bibliography is divided into sections which correspond to each of 
the branches of Knowledge and which are the responsibility of specialists. A central 



A Universal Bibliographic Repertory 27 

section has the special duty of collecting and making a first check of materials to be 
indexed. Each of the sections annotates and then classifies the cards which concern it. 
The Repertory comprises old and new sources. Because of its system of cards and 
continuous intercalation a complete listing of intellectual production can be achieved. 
Current material is published periodically in special Bibliographical Indexes whose 
arrangement is identical to that of the repertory. Finally, in order to make the whole 
repertory - of past publications and current publications - available to researchers of all 
countries, the International Office foresees its continuous publication on separate cards 
which will be sent, completely annotated and classified, to local offices annexed to major 
libraries or universities. 

Such is, in broad outline, the organisation of the repertory begun by the Office 
of Bibliography. We must now describe each of its elements in detail. 



The services to be expected from Bibliography are many. It should provide 
information for scholars, practical men, librarians, book-sellers, and the great reading 
public. 

From the essentially scholarly point of view, a complete bibliography should 
constitute, at each moment, an encyclopedic table of contents of the subject matter of 
knowledge. What scholars quite reasonably wish to do is to pass from the known to the 
unknown, to make use of the work of all who have preceded them as they push scientific 
investigation further forward, avoiding unwitting repetition and loss of precious time. 
Especially today, scientific work has become specialized and international. Science 
progresses through the efforts of scholars from every country, with every kind of skill. 
Each brings to the common edifice the stone he himself has quarried. It is important, 
however, that this stone be trimmed to the dimensions of the place in which it must fit 
beside the others, and consequently that the state of development of the whole of the 
work should always be exactly and easily known. 

Practical men have a similar need. For them it is a matter of easily finding out 
about a fact, a law, an invention of which they wish to make use. Technical dictionaries 
are inadequate for they are too soon outdated. As for the periodicals which are tending to 
replace them, they have become so many that it is no longer possible to use old 
procedures in consulting them. A universal bibliographic organisation will allow us to 
regard all that has been published regardless of place, time or form of printing as 
elements in an immense, theoretical, historical and practical encyclopedia for which the 
Repertory will become the table of contents. 

Librarians, in their turn, clamour for the organisation of bibliography. Only the 
great libraries are able to afford the luxury of a complete cataloguing service. However, 
without a catalogue the library is a closed coffer, full of precious things that are invisible 
and inaccessible for want of a key. A Universal Bibliographic Repertory will do away 
with the need for individual catalogues which are of necessity incomplete. It will replace 
them by a single, always current catalogue, which will give readers information not only 
about the contents of the library they are working in, but about everything that is 
available beyond it in other libraries or commercially through the booktrade. Today, in 
thousands of libraries, men are working laboriously to list and classify the same books. 



28 Paul Otlet 

Each time a new collection is formed this work must be done again. Moreover, there are 
as many methods as individuals. Classification differs from country to country, from 
town to town, from library to library, requiring a new approach by the searcher to each 
new catalogue he consults. The Bibliographic Repertory, reproduced in many copies, 
will bring about standardisation of classification which is so much desired. 

By means of division of work, a new body which is distinct from all the others 
will henceforth be especially entrusted with the classification of written documents. The 
classification must be developed by specialists and not, any more, by those of whom 
universal knowledge is demanded and to whom it is gratuitously attributed. Libraries will 
have a double benefit from this. They will be almost totally absolved from providing an 
extremely costly service. Henceforward they ought to be able to offer help directly in the 
research of the public who come to them, for they will be able to reply immediately to 
the question which is invariably put to them: "what works exist on such and such a 
subject?" The catalogues that each library prints at great expense, and which new 
accessions soon make out of date, can be replaced by the Repertory. Each library will 
note in the margin of the cards of the Repertory the works which it possesses and their 
shelf mark. The cards on which no such note appears will suggest the books which could 
be acquired for each subject 

Publishers, booksellers and authors themselves have everything to gain from the 
effective organisation of bibliography. The book trade needs above all accurate and 
rapidly and easily obtained information. The anarchic state of libraries today has its 
parallel in the book trade. Publishers' catalogues, apart form some happy exceptions, are 
prepared without order or method. Their compilation is guided by no shared 
understanding. Thus, they barely succeed in being useful to the readers for whom they 
are made, and the enormous sums spent in publicity each year for new works are less 
effective than need be. Supply and demand exist, of course, but independently of each 
other; they do not connect; publisher's announcements do not reach those who seek them. 
A Universal Bibliographic Repertory would assure publishers of prompt, serious, 
permanent and really effective advertising. To authors who, after all, write to be read, it 
will give assurance of reaching those whom they really wish to reach. 

Librarians, scientists and practical men, authors and publishers, the great mass 
of ordinary readers, all have the greatest interest in the development of the Universal 
Bibliographic Repertory. Governments, themselves, cannot remain indifferent to it. 
Cannot they who, at great cost, manage museums and collections of every kind, 
encourage this collection which is more valuable than any: the inventory of what men 
have thought and written since they learned how to write? 



Happily - and too often one forgets it - not everything remains to be done in 
bibliography. Already there lies behind it a long history which simply consists of 
successive attempts to achieve a better organisation of the world of books. 

The humanists of the 15th Century who carefully collected the remains of 
classical antiquity, were bibliographers in their way. Their glosses and annotations were 
used as indexes by the men of their time. In 1686, Teissier was already able to compile a 
catalogue of catalogues. 7 Francesco Marucelli (1625-1703), in the 15 (sic) manuscript 



A Universal Bibliographic Repertory 29 

volumes of his Mare magnum, strove to make an inventory of the extant writings of his 
day. 8 He had numerous imitators: Fabiano Giustiniani, 9 Georg Draud of Frankfurt, 10 
Savonarola, 11 the author of the Or bis literarius, a universal index in 40 manuscript 
volumes of all the existing printed works up to the end of the year 1700. Special 
bibliographies also made their appearance at that time. Martin Lipenius's Bibliotheca 
realis juridica (1679) was followed in the same year by Bibliotneca realis medica, then 
came his Bibliotneca realis philosophica in 1682, and the Bibliotneca realis theologica 
in 1685. 12 

With the 18th Century began the era of the great encyclopedias in which a 
bibliography of the subject was placed at the end of each article. This is also the period in 
which the first attempts at periodical indexing were made. In 1790, B cutler published in 
Germany the Allgemeines Sachregister uber die Wichtigsten deutschen Zeit-und 
Wochenschriften.M In England at about the same time, Ayscough published his General 
Index to the Monthly Review, the second volume of which appeared in 1786. It contained 
An Alphabetical Index to all the memorable Passages, many of which relate to 
Discoveries and Improvements in the Sciences and Arts for near forty years past; With 
Literary Anecdotes, Critical Remarks, etc., etc., contained in the Monthly Review during 
that period. The part of this gigantic work which appeared in 1796 comprised: A General 
Index to the Remarkable Passages, and to the Papers contained in the Transactions or 
Memoirs of Societies, Foreign and Domestic, occurring in the Review during that 
Period. 14 

With the 19th Century, bibliography became to some extent official. Some of 
the great States considered that it was their duty to register the literary production of their 
nations. The development of the great public libraries and the proclamation of the 
exclusive right of authors to the exploitation of their works, contributed almost 
everywhere to the publication of periodical bibliographies of which the Bibliographie de 
la France was one of the earliest models. 15 These official bibliographies quickly 
duplicated the catalogues published from time to time by booksellers' associations. The 
general nature and poor arrangement of these publications soon gave birth to attempts at 
special quarterly or annual periodical bibliographies which indexed all the information 
related to a particular branch of knowledge, such as the Bibliotheca philologica, the 
Bibliographia orientalis, the Zeitschrift fur die Gesamte Medicin, etc. 16 

The greatest bibliographical effort of the 19th Century, however, has been made 
by the Americans. Voluntary co-operation of librarians on the one hand and of 
booksellers on the other, has given birth to a series of admirable works to which are 
attached the names of Poole, Fletcher, Cutter, Dewey, Windsor, and many others. In 
1850 in the United States, a new country without a history, there were about 100 libraries 
containing 5,000 volumes or more. The whole of their collections were judged to be 1 
million volumes. In 1890, forty years later, four thousand libraries contained 27 million 
books. The question of catalogues, as we know, has gained attention in a quite special 
way. In 1848, Frederick Poole began to issue an Index to Subjects Treated in Reviews 
and other Periodicals which contained about 28,000 bibliographical entries. The 
American Library Association (ALA) was founded at Philadelphia in 1876 and in the 
following year reached an agreement with the Library Association of the United 
Kingdom in England to develop the Co-operative Index to Periodical Literature, to index 
and classify articles in English language periodicals from 1802. The first volume, in 8 



30 Paul Ot let 

with XXVII - 1442 pages, a listing of 200,000 articles in the 6,205 volumes of 232 
periodicals, appeared in 1882. Fifty collaborators associated with libraries in the United 
States, England, Scotland, and Australia, had cooperated. The Americans did not stop at 
this point Successive supplements to the Co-operative Index have been prepared. 17 In 
1886 a special section of the Association of Librarians was created for printing 
bibliographies. 18 A journal, the Library Journal, has been specially devoted to the study 
of all matters of library economy. 19 A special school, "Library School," organised at 
Albany under the sponsorship of the University of the State of New York, has offered 
young librarians the technical instruction they needed. 20 Finally, an office, the Library 
Bureau, has undertaken the practical and commercial arrangements for all the 
improvements to which the organisation of libraries is susceptible. 21 Other large 
bibliographical works were also successfully completed by the Americans such as the 
medical bibliography in 16 large volumes compiled by Billings which has been 
continued by the monthly Index Medicus. 22 There was also the Alphabetical Index of 
Articles in the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge by William J. Rhees. 23 

We do not wish to provide a history here, even less a listing of bibliographical 
writings. Thus, we have limited ourselves to mentioning some of the different forms 
bibliography has taken today. Along these lines, we would also mention the great 
Bibliographies of Bibliographies of Petzhold and Leon Vallee (the latter has collected the 
titles of about 11,000 fragmentary bibliographies). 24 Attempts have also been made to 
list the publications of learned societies. J. Muller has done this in a very complete way 
for Germany. 25 General lists, such as those of Brunet 26 and Lorenz for France 27 , and 
Heinzius for Germany, 28 cover all of a country's book production during a given period. 
The Royal Society of London has published a Catalogue of Scientific Papers in eight 
large volumes, an important international work but of limited usefulness because of its 
purely alphabetic arrangement. 29 The Astronomical Bibliography of Houzeau and 
Lancaster 30 smaller in size and scope, is superior to it in method. Let us also mention 
here the printing of the great catalogues undertaken by the Bibliotheque Nationale of 
Paris, 31 which today contains about two and a half million books, and by the British 
Museum which has a million and a half. 22 These catalogues, still incomplete, are truly 
great monuments to human thought. 



Bibliography has a glorious past behind it It can be proud of the works to which 
it has given birth, and certainly, as we have said above, everything does not remain to be 
done. But the importance of its mission becomes increasingly clear as the grandeur of the 
results already achieved permits us to conceive of increasingly far-reaching plans. 
Bibliography has arrived at that stage in its development where, from now on, it is more 
important to organise its riches than to create more. Various partial attempts have been 
made in this sense. 

Some great libraries, such as the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, the Konigliche 
Bibliotek in Berlin, the British Museum in London have created true bibliographical 
sections by placing volumes related to bibliography together and putting them at the 
disposal of readers without the need for any preliminary request Also by preparing up- 



A Universal Bibliographic Repertory 31 

to-date card catalogues, these libraries partially satisfy the requirements of their public - 
but how incompletely still! 

Some private, commercially organised agencies have undertaken to obtain for a 
fee particular information for those who request it from them. These agencies exist in 
several large cities and perform important services, but they must themselves undertake 
extensive, long, costly and necessarily incomplete searches. Bibliography, like the library 
which it complements, must become a free service. 

International centres of scientific information related to special subjects have 
been proposed time and time again. Belgium is home for two such institutions - The 
International Colonial Institute and the Geologic Bureau. 33 

In 1889, an International Congress of Mathematicians met in Paris in order to 
adopt an enormous scheme of mathematical bibliography. 34 The Congress agreed on an 
international classification whose elements are a combination of letters and numbers. It 
decided to publish a catalogue on separate cards which would permit successive 
intercalations. Since last November the Executive Committee of the Congress has 
regularly sent mathematicians of all countries packets of index cards, the filing of which 
is made extremely easy because the notation has been standardized. 

The mathematical catalogue thus constituted has progressed considerably. The 
single regret that one might express here is that the editors have not been concerned 
enough with universal bibliography and that they have not regarded their work as a part 
of a greater whole. This consideration has been a dominant one for the Americans. Some 
years ago, the classification of their libraries was considerably standardized by the 
general adoption of the Decimal Classification invented by Melvil Dewey. More than 
1,000 libraries in the United States have adopted this system. At the beginning of 1893 
the government in Washington at its own cost printed a catalogue of 5,000 volumes 
selected from the best of those that could serve as a basic collection for public libraries. 
The catalogue, arranged according to the Decimal Classification, is a first and interesting 
attempt at bibliographic centralisation where the work is done by a few for the benefit of 
all. To certainty of technique, it adds all the advantages of economy. 35 Finally, quite 
recently we have learned that the American Library Association has just undertaken the 
publication on cards of the titles of all new publications in the English language. These 
cards, having very full entries and bearing the number of the Decimal Classification, are 
sent by subscription to libraries, to booksellers and to individuals. They are useful for 
setting up both catalogues and bibliographic repertories. To us they constitute the 
greatest advance that has so far been made. 36 



Now studied in all countries and in all branches of knowledge, Bibliography has 
made considerable progress in this century. For want of sufficiently extensive agreement 
and co-operation, however, its development has been hindered. Unlike most of the 
sciences, it does not yet have either a common language or common units of 
classification which have been generally recognized and adopted. Nor has it succeeded in 
creating between individual works that coordination, advantageous in every way, that 
will be a result of the existence of the Universal Bibliographic Repertory. 



32 Paul Ot let 

Only an International Office of Bibliography can realize this double goal: the 
standardisation of classification and the co-ordination of individual efforts. 

How to achieve standardisation in classification? 

Because the enormous accumulation of printed materials has made classification 
necessary, different systems of classification have been suggested. They are of three 
main kinds. First, the titles of books are classified alphabetically by the author's name. 
This classification is inadequate from the bibliographical point of view because it 
supposes that the work one wants to consult on a subject is known in advance. It can only 
be used as a complement to classification by subject. This can be either a dictionary of 
principal headings (Stichworter) under which are placed relevant items, or a classified 
arrangement under whose logical divisions these same items are grouped. 

So far both forms have had their partisans. Alleged in favour of the dictionary 
form is ease of searching resulting from the numerous and precise references that can be 
introduced into such a catalogue by means of multiple entry. The very real inconvenience 
of the system, however, lies in the infinite scattering of subjects. To take only one 
example, whatever deals with "work" will be distributed under the widely separated 
headings: legislation about work, hours of work, accidents of work, contracts for work, 
hygiene of workshops, Workers' Associations. Another inconvenience appears in relation 
to international bibliography: alphabetical order is not the same in all languages and it is 
necessary to know a language well in order to be able to use the dictionary catalogue 
successfully. For these reasons logical classification of materials has been preferred by a 
great many authors. 

But this does not avoid all difficulties. While logical classification has 
advantages because it groups similar and related matters, and while to a certain extent it 
is more international because it uses logic which is more international than language, it 
has been criticised by a great many bibliographers. It is too arbitrary and supposes a 
considerable knowledge of the ideas that went into its construction on the part of those 
who wish to use it Moreover, the divisions and sub-divisions of a classification are 
generally expressed in headings very much more complex than those used in the 
dictionary form. From this arises difficulty and length of notation on the bibliographic 
cards and on the books themselves and the absence of any international language. 

A recent form of classification combined the advantages of the two systems and 
avoided most of their disadvantages. The subjects were arranged according to a 
systematic order in which all the divisions and sub-divisions received a symbol that was 
equivalent and of the greatest possible conciseness - letters, numbers or combinations of 
letters and numbers. An alphabetical index completed this ingenious arrangement and 
listed all the words used in the system with their classification number opposite. If the 
third logical division of a subject (for example, "working hours" in a bibliography of 
economics) received the letter C, in the alphabetical index at "working hours" one would 
find, "See C." 

The existence of this relatively practical system did not end^the troubles of 
bibliographers. From the moment bibliographies began to be sub-divided a little (and this 
is unavoidable if they are to be of real service), the indices became indecipherable 
hieroglyphs which no larynx could successfully pronounce, such as, for example, - 
Djkm, -Zwr, or even worse, -Sy3cd. The confusion became even greater because each 
author invented a particular system of standard signs without regard to those employed 



A Universal Bibliographic Repertory 33 

by his predecessors and without any attention to those in use in the other branches of 
science. Authors who sought clarity more than anything else used numbers. To each 
division they gave a number drawn from a separate series. Though this was less 
complicated, once established the order was unchangeable. As soon as an error or an 
omission was noted, the harmony of the system was broken. 

The Americans appear to us to have found a more nearly definitive solution to 
the problem. Indeed, it is to them that we owe the Decimal Classification, invented, as 
we have said, by Mr. Melvil Dewey, but adopted and popularised by the Association of 
Librarians of the United States and the Bureau of Education (Ministry of Public 
Instruction) in Washington. The principles of this classification have an inspired 
simplicity. All of human knowledge is divided into ten classes, to which corresponds one 
of the ten numerals, 0, 1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Each class is subdivided into ten groups, 
each also represented by a numeral. Each group is, in its turn, divided into ten divisions 
expressed in the same way and so on. The ten classes are represented thus, 

0. General works 

1. Philosophy 

2. Religion 

3. Sociology 

4. Philology 

5. Sciences 

6. Applied Sciences 

7. Fine Arts 

8. Literature 

9. History 

For the fifth class, for example, we have 

5. Sciences 

50. Sciences in general 

51. Mathematics 

52. Astronomy 

53. Physics 

530. Physics in general 

531. Mechanics 

532. Hydraulics 

533. Gas 

534. Acoustics 

535. Optics 

536. Heat 

537. Electricity 

538. Magnetism 

539. Molecular Physics 

54. Chemistry 

55. Geology 

56. Paleontology 

57. Biology 

58. Botany 

59. Zoology 



34 Paul Otlet 



All the works concerning electricity are numbered 537. The first numeral, 5, 
indicates that the subject is related to the fifth class of human knowledge, that is to say, 
to science. The second numeral determines what division of science is in question. Here 
it is the third division to which, conventionally, the numeral 3 is given. All works in 
physics are, therefore, marked 53. But physics itself is broken into different sections, of 
which the seventh is electricity, according to a uniform, previously established 
classification. When the numeral 7 is added to the number 53 it individualises it and 537 
indicates works which deal only with electricity. It becomes in this way a classification 
number (Class number). By limiting the number of parts in each division to a maximum 
of ten and by giving a standard number to each, Dewey has succeeded in pin-pointing the 
location of each subject, no matter how specific it may be, in the whole corpus of 
knowledge. 

Indeed, the numerals which represent the classes and divisions of each subject 
come together in an extremely simple numerical expression: 537 in fact signifies nothing 
else but the fifth class, third section, seventh division. The links, the genealogy even, of 
ideas and objects, their relationships of dependence and subordination, of similarity and 
difference find suitable representation in the bibliographical expression formed in this 
way. This representation more or less excludes what is conventional and arbitrary. Not 
only does each numeral express in its particular way an essential idea, but the 
combination of numerals, that is to say their sequential ranking and their place in the 
whole number, follows the laws of scientific logic. In this sense they constitute a 
veritable new language whose phrases, here numbers, are formed according to constant 
syntactic rules from words, here numerals. It is a kind of agglutinative language: its 
numerals are its roots, predicative and attributive roots, purely verbal roots in the sense 
that they are not nouns, adjectives, or verbs. They are placed above and outside any 
grammatical category in that they express abstractions, pure scientific categories. Thus 
they translate ideas absolutely common to the entire scientific world and express them in 
universally understood signs - numbers. In this two-fold way, the Decimal Classification 
actually constitutes an international scientific language, a complete system for 
representing science which one day perhaps may bring help to intellectual workers 
analogous to that which they received from Latin in the Middle Ages and during the 
modern period. 



While this philological aspect of the Decimal Classification is not without 
importance, from our bibliographical point of view, we must emphasize the 
classification's other advantages. 

In the first place, as we have already said, all related subjects are grouped 
together. An alphabetical index in one or more languages, containing all the headings 
that can be searched and all synonymous and related headings, completes the systematic 
tables. The simplicity with which the classification numbers are formed gives the system 
considerable mnemonic value. 

Because the numerals, no matter how many of them there are, are simple to read 
and concise to write, they can be easily transcribed on each card of a catalogue, each 



A Universal Bibliographic Repertory 35 

book in a library, and these can thus receive a permanent location. All the cards, all the 
books having the same classification numbers, will be located next to each other without 
the person responsible for arranging them having to be initiated into the special 
knowledge needed to classify the documents. Only indexers need to know this. Even 
their task is very much facilitated because they need only to open the alphabetic index at 
one of the key words in the title of the book to be indexed to find a classification number 
for it immediately. 

The classification is called Decimal in that each number indicates a more or less 
strict division of a whole which is assumed to be "one." Of course, the various branches 
and sub-branches of the sciences can be divided into more or fewer divisions. When it is 
necessary to increase the number of categories, one can use numbers containing four, 
five or seven digits, even more. When, however, the subject cannot be broken up in this 
way, numbers with two or three divisions will be used. Because the numbers are 
arranged solely on the basis of their decimal importance, the number of digits making 
them up does not matter, and related subjects, however sub-divided they may be, remain 
grouped together. 

Works about electricity, for example, are given the class number 537. Those 
dealing with chemistry the class number 54. If a classifier does not wish to establish 
categories among works of chemistry and if he numbers them uniformly 54, then in the 
arrangement either of cards in a repertory or of books in a library, 537 will come before 
54 since in the numerical series five hundred and thirty seven thousandths comes before 
fifty four thousandths. Thus, to express it in a general way, all the numbers beginning 
with 5 come before the numbers beginning with 6; all the numbers beginning with 53 
come before all of the numbers beginning 54; all the numbers beginning with 537 come 
before those beginning with 538, just as in a dictionary all the words beginning Ab 
precede those beginning with Ac and all the words beginning with Aca precede those 
beginning with Acb. 

The Decimal Classification, therefore, permits an exact localization of subjects. 
It is not without analogy to the system of anthropometric identification conceived by M. 
Bertillon which is used in the great European capitals with general satisfaction. 37 It 
conforms to the essential principle of bibliographical order, as of all other kinds of order: 
a place for everything and everything in its place. It provides, moreover, a rational 
method of localization; this idea is the very essence of the system. 

It is necessary, of course, to distinguish carefully scientific classification from 
bibliographic classification. The requirements of the two are not the same. All scientific 
classification is based on the definition of the objects to be classified, and this definition 
itself is finalised only when science itself has been fully developed. In the present state of 
the advancement of knowledge, a definitive classification ne varietur must be considered 
premature. If the finest minds are not even agreed on the most important points of a 
classification, how can one anticipate agreement on its details? Happily, this scholarly 
agreement is not necessary for a bibliographic classification. All that is necessary is a 
complete survey of the various subjects that are dealt with by the various branches of 
knowledge, a grouping of these subjects in the most generally accepted order, and 
finally, the determination of a fixed place for each of them. "To bibliography" is 
therefore, above all to label and provide a location for scientific materials. 



36 Paul Otlet 

A very complete, much studied, admirably simple classification in harmony 
with these views exists and has been applied for 17 years in America for the 
classification of books in libraries. The outline of this classification is complete and 
embraces the universe of knowledge. More than a hundred specialists have collaborated 
in developing and improving it so that by now it has about 10,000 main headings in the 
systematic tables and 22,000 words in the alphabetical index. This classification, 
moreover, can be developed indefinitely. It has, therefore, won the vote of the Office of 
Bibliography which proposes to use it as the basis for the Universal Bibliographical 
Repertory. Since what is important is a complete and universally understood system of 
location, it is necessary to adopt the Decimal Classification as a whole and to ask 
everyone to sacrifice his personal preferences in favour of the higher need for unity. The 
great and well deserved success which it has had in the United States and the lack of any 
bibliographical uniformity in Europe should put an end to any remaining hesitation [i ]. 



The International Office of Bibliography, therefore, possesses a system of 
classification whose excellence has been demonstrated by a first trial. To round out this 
system on which it has based its organisation, it has decided that all the bibliographical 
information it collects will be placed on separate cards. The principle of separate cards 
today needs no longer to be defended. They alone permit the maintenance of a permanent 
single order in the Repertory. Indeed, the Universal Bibliography is special in this, that it 
is built up continuously. It must register literary production as it comes to hand, hence 
repeated intercalations. On the other hand, the checking of older books will necessitate 
considerable work over a very long period. If the Repertory were to appear in book form, 
the fear of errors and omissions in such a considerable and definitive work would delay 
its publication indefinitely. The system of cards, on the contrary, allows small quantities 
of bibliographic materials to be issued even as and when they are prepared. Because a 
classification number on each card indicates its exact place in the Repertory, all the 
inconveniences inherent in this form of publication are avoided. 

To the objections that catalogues on cards are difficult to make available to the 
public, who can disturb their arrangement, and that they have the inconvenience for the 
reader of giving only one piece of information at a time, Dr. Rudolph has made a 
triumphant reply by devising an ingenious piece of equipment whose description is as 
follows. 

M. Rudolph inserts the cards, which he makes as small as possible, between two 
metal slides that are placed on the two sides of sheets of strong cardboard or very thin 
wood which thus constitute card-carriers. Each of these card-carriers is held to the others 
by means of easily detachable rods. They form, therefore, a kind of large book which 
resembles pretty closely the little albums in which photographs are pasted on a long band 
of cloth which folds up. \, 



[1] In an appendix we give Specimens of the principal divisions of the Decimal Classification and of the 
detailed divisions for sociology. [not reproduced here] Complete translations in French, German and 
Italian are being prepared. ** 



A Universal Bibliographic Repertory 37 

The card-carriers, each containing its bibliographical entries, are brought 
together end to end in an endless chain, and are placed in a wooden chest, about one 
metre in height, the upper part of which is made from glass. They rest there on two 
hexagonal drums which a crank turns backwards and forwards. The movement of the 
drums draws along the card-carriers which revolve under the glass. The chest is closed 
by a key: the public cannot touch the cards which it contains. The reader who desires 
information stands before the glass and turns the crank until the series of entries that he 
seeks appears. Four card-carriers, each able to contain 45 cards of three lines, appear for 
his inspection at the same time and thus give him all of the ease of reading a book. On 
the other hand, the advantages inherent in a card-system are maintained since the cards 
between the slides of the card-carriers can be moved and the possibility of adding new 
card-carriers whenever needed make the intercalation of future entries easy. 39 



In the Office's Repertory the cards are classed according to the Decimal 
Classification. To make searching easier, the bibliographical cards, which are white, are 
filed behind coloured divisionary cards which are higher than the others. These 
divisionary cards have the classification numbers on them. Their colour and their format 
vary with the degree of division they indicate. The bibliographical cards contain the 
name of the author, the title of the book, its size in number of pages, its format, the name 
of the publisher, the year of publication and the price of the volume, or the title of the 
periodical, the year, and the page. Each card also contains more or less complete 
bibliographic notes about the work being catalogued. 

First, for all cards there is the classification number - that is to say, the 
classification number from the Decimal Classification - and an identification or order 
number. The Bibliographical Repertory is the Registry-General for works of the mind. It 
is important, therefore, that concurrently with the family name, here the classification 
number, each written work should receive its own individual name which is the 
identification number. In the Office's system this is a serial number which is never 
repeated twice. Each year a new series is begun which is distinguished from the others by 
the year itself which becomes a denominator. Thus, all the books and articles which 
appeared in 1895 belong to the same series, and numbers are given to books in the order 
in which they become known to the Office. This series has 1895 for its denominator, e.g. 
12,525/1895 while the denominator of the series of books for 1848 is 1848, e.g. 
12,525/1848 and so on. 

It is possible, therefore, to identify each book while avoiding the inconvenience 
of numbers which are too large. On the other hand, these distinct sequences provide a 
basis for statistics for intellectual works - all the more readily because they are combined 
with classification numbers. It is possible to know for each year the total number of 
works published and the number of each kind of book. The identification number also 
facilitates the correction of errors. When any member of the vast bibliographical 
cooperative which the Office proposes to create, points out a classification error to the 
central administration or when the size of a category or the discovery of new or omitted 
subjects necessitates the creation of new sub-divisions, it will be easy to indicate to 
everyone concerned what corrections and changes should be made. The Office, for 



38 Paul Otlet 

example, by means of a periodical bulletin intended to maintain consistency of 
classification in all local Repertories, will announce that card 12,525/1895 classified at 
525.3, should be placed at 525.2, or that the basic division 525.3 should henceforth be 
sub-divided into 525.31 and 525.32. As a consequence of this, the cards classified at the 
old division will be classified as follows: 

Under 525.31 12,525/1895 12,537/1848 etc. 

Under 525.32 536/1836 2741/1858 etc. 

Another kind of annotation is possible for the cards of the Repertory: the 
location of each work, as recommended by M. Van der Haegen, the scholarly librarian of 
the University of Gand [Ghent]. 40 However, as important as such information is, it is 
impossible to have it on all the cards. A distinction must be made. When a work is truly 
rare, if it is held in only a few places, it is of international importance to know where 
these places are. But this is as useless as it is impossible for recent works. They have not 
yet had time to reach the great libraries or can be easily procured through the booktrade. 
Nevertheless, union catalogues can be easily organised on a national basis. In every 
capital city a general catalogue listing the contents of all the national depositories should 
be associated with the principal library. The Universal Bibliographic Repertory can serve 
as a basis for such catalogues. 



Having indicated how the decimal classification of subjects and the arrangement 
of bibliographic entries on separate cards provide more or less definitive solutions to the 
most important questions which the creation of a Universal Bibliographical Repertory 
raises, we must now describe the plan of work which we propose. The immense size of 
the task to be undertaken is such that we can only hope to realize it by means of order, 
method and the utilization of all existing work. 

First, it is necessary to avoid all delay while the work is being finished. It is also 
necessary to organise the work without trying to be complete and error-free from the 
beginning. The need for a single bibliographic repertory is so great that its 
implementation should not be further delayed by any pretext that it must be perfect from 
the outset Let us clear the ground first and rapidly accumulate two or three million of the 
most easily procured references. Let us resign ourselves to 25 or 30 per cent error either 
in the text of the notices or in the classification which will be given them. Errors and 
omissions will be corrected later, and very easily, because of the system of separate cards 
that we have described. These corrections will be a task for everyone, for, reproduced in 
a great many copies, the Repertory will be available for anyone to point them out. 

The bibliography of older works should be prepared according to different 
procedures from those used for modern works. Let us examine separately the two kinds 
of work. For the past, a considerable number of special bibliographies exist. Leon Vallee 
has listed about eleven thousand of these in his Bibliographic des bibliographies. 41 
Many of these bibliographies duplicate each other. On the other hand, taken as a whole 
they are far from comprising a complete inventory of intellectual production up to the 



A Universal Bibliographic Repertory 39 

present The first task which must be undertaken, therefore, is the indexing of the 
existing bibliographic sources and the preparation of a complete table of them, a sort of 
integrated bibliographic map showing, beside the regions already explored, those which 
remain to be discovered. 

This vast work of co-ordination can only be completed successfully by a special 
institution, a permanent organisation for bibliographic interests which enjoys the 
popularity and scientific respect needed for it to be able to obtain everywhere the 
information necessary for its work. This institution, which will be the International 
Office of Bibliography, with the agreement of the authors most generally concerned with 
these matters will therefore first publish a huge bibliography of bibliographies on cards 
classified according to the Decimal Classification. 

This first part of the repertory, containing the most general sources of 
knowledge and being immediately made available to all, will also be the first to benefit 
from the co-operation of all. Immediately afterwards will come the publication of the 
contents of the works thus listed. Here again it is a question of re-using existing work, 
but in the form peculiar to a catalogue. Through the efforts of the Office and of its 
collaborators, all duplication will be eliminated, and standardisation will be obtained 
because of the existence of a standard classification. While this undertaking is 
proceeding, and several years will be necessary for it alone, independent bibliographers 
will of course continue their work as in the past, and will, therefore, fill in gaps. The 
efforts of the Office towards unification, however, will help to draw the attention of 
researchers especially to areas which have so far been too much neglected, and thus, 
gradually, the blanks in the great bibliographical map will disappear. 

One can foresee, also, that bibliographers will slowly modify the form of their 
work and will seek to benefit from the advantages which the Office will be able to offer 
them. They will bring their manuscripts to it as to a great publisher. The Office will 
acquire their work and incorporate it in the Repertory, perhaps even under the signature 
of each author. Bibliographers will be certain of finding - a rare thing today - a fair 
remuneration for their work and a special public to appreciate it. As for the Office of 
Bibliography, it will find numerous and valuable collaborators in these independent 
bibliographers. 

Inventorying current production necessitates initiating other procedures. Here, 
also, however, the role of the Office is nearly exclusively that of organiser and co- 
ordinator. Numerous periodical national bibliographies and periodical special 
bibliographies exist They correspond to two distinct phases of work: national 
bibliographies for the most part limit themselves simply to the registration of published 
works. Listing and not classification is their principle task. Special bibliographies, on the 
other hand, give classification a major place and can undertake this work with all the 
more care in that they are less concerned with listing. Moreover, the best of them add 
indexing of periodicals to the indexing of books and this increases their usefulness 
considerably. 

The appearance of the Universal Repertory will place no pressure on national 
bibliographies or special bibliographies to discontinue, but it is important that their role 
be better defined and that each takes its place in a better-organised whole. National 
bibliographies should be more complete in the future than they are now. Their 
publication is slow. Omissions are frequent and entries often very incorrect It is at this 



40 Paul Ot let 

point that the International Union of Berne must intervene. 42 By everywhere 
recommending legal deposit, by bringing together all information about authors' 
copyright, and by undertaking, either alone or with the help of the governments which 
are members of the Union, to draw up a complete listing of current publishing, it could 
make a considerable contribution to the formation of a universal subject repertory, to 
which it would thus contribute actual materials. 

As for special bibliographies, an agreement would have to be reached between 
them and the Office. They would maintain all the independence that they have now, but, 
in return for certain advantages to be stipulated by contract, they would undertake 
henceforth to adopt the Decimal Classification of the Office of Bibliography. The latter 
would thus be surrounded by absolutely competent groups which have long been 
equipped to carry out successfully the work they will be asked to do. 

Having eliminated all of the inevitable duplication, the Office would re-issue 
the contents of these special publications in the form of a catalogue. Special 
bibliographical publications today cover almost the whole field of intellectual 
production. The Office will undertake to create such bibliographies for those branches of 
knowledge which hitherto have so far not had them. Already, on its initiative, three 
bibliographical periodicals have begun to take the steps we have been advocating. These 
are the Classified Indexes of Law, Sociology, 43 and Philosophy. 44 Classified indexes of 
philology and literature are in preparation. 45 

One can count on the fact, moreover, that publishers and authors themselves 
will become permanent collaborators in the repertory. They will find it a most efficacious 
advertising medium because copies of the repertory will be available in all intellectual 
centres and will be consulted daily by thousands of readers. Henceforth publisher's 
catalogues and announcements of new books will be re-issued with the help of the Office 
whose job it is to publish the repertory. There will be every benefit from this. 
Classification numbers, which will eventually be printed on the books themselves or at 
the top of articles in periodicals as part of their titles, will be expertly assigned. Useful 
notes, such as the principal chapters of a work, or even a succinct analysis of the subjects 
with which it deals, will be added to bare bibliographical entries. Each work dealing with 
several subjects will receive several cards. 



This very general account is sufficient to demonstrate that a Universal 
Bibliographical Repertory is possible. 

The programme recommended by the Office of Bibliography will doubtless 
provoke criticisms and reservations, but it seems difficult to deny its basic importance. 
We present it not as a personal work but as the synthesis of what has been done and 
proposed by a great number of bibliographers of every country. 

The measures by which this programme will be realized practically are the 
following: 

1 . The creation of an International Institute of Bibliography, whose object will 
be the study of all questions related to bibliography in general and more especially the 



A Universal Bibliographic Repertory 41 

elaboration of the Universal Repertory. This Institute will have to decide on 
bibliographical standards and take all necessary measures for their adoption by all who 
are interested: scholars, librarians, publishers, and authors. 

2. A great extension to the work commenced by the International Office of 
Bibliography. The Office will become the executive organ for the decisions of the 
Institute of Bibliography. This Office, whose organisation at the moment is only 
provisional, will be definitively constituted on the basis of a vast co-operative society 
whose members will be all those who are interested in the creation of a Universal 
Repertory: states, government departments, scientific associations, librarians, publishers, 
authors, and scholars. A Universal Repertory will be published by this Office on cards 
classified according to the Decimal Classification. All bibliographical material presently 
existing will be fused in the Repertory. Local Bibliographical Offices, open to all and in 
continuous receipt from the Central Office of bibliographical notices printed on cards, 
will be created in all cities and in all intellectual centres. These local Offices will be 
important components of all the great libraries where they will quickly be identified with 
the Libraries' cataloguing sections, today so costly to maintain and of such incomplete 
usefulness. 

3. An International Bibliographical Union between governments. They will 
guarantee to undertake all necessary measures for the regular registration of books and 
will encourage the elaboration of the Repertory by subscribing to copies on a pro-rated 
basis according to their respective populations and the amount of their annual literary 
production. 



Editor's Notes 

1. H. La Fontaine et P. Otlet, "Creation d'un Repertoire Bibliographique Universel: 
note pr61iminaire," IIB Bulletin 1 (1895-96): 15-38. This was issued separately for 
the International Conference of Bibliography in Brussels in 1895 and was published 
in 1896 as Publication No.l of The Office International de Bibliography. The text is 
followed by specimen tables of the Decimal Classification: a first table (10 major 
classes), a second table (100 major sub-divisions), a third table with 336, Public 
Services, subdivided to as many as 4 places after the decimal point, and a fifth table, 
a specimen of the index to the tables. 

The motto with which Otlet heads his paper, "Who knows where knowledge 
may be had is near to having it" appeared on each edition of Poole's Index (see note 
17 to this paper). W.I. Fletcher reports that the tradition is that Poole had it from the 
then professor of Latin at Yale, James L. Kingsley, and that it has no classical origin 
{Library Journal 20 (1896):316). It was used frequently on IIB publications. It first 
appeared on the 1894[?] prospectus for the L'Office international de bibliographic 
sociologique. 

2. Otlet refers here to the 6th International Geographical Congress to which was 
presented a report by Prof. Dr. Briickner on what had been done to carry out the 
decisions of the 5th Congress about compiling geographical bibliographies for all 
the states. Bruckner indicated what was afoot in various states in the bibliography of 



42 Paul Otlet 

geography, and his resolution, that further study of the questions of geographical 
bibliography be undertaken, was adopted {Report of the Sixth International 
Geographical Congress ...London: John Murray, 1896, pp. 387-389). Bruckner's 
report and some brief remarks on the bibliographical work of the Congress appeared 
in the IIB Bulletin 1(1895-96): 130-133. 

3. Details of the discussions about the scheme of the Association francaise pour 
l'Avancement des Sciences are given by its secretary M. Gariel in a statement on the 
resolutions adopted by the Congress of the Association at its meeting in Bordeaux, 
August 1895. The statement appears in IIB Bulletin 1 (1895-96): 62-66. The 
problems examined by the Society were those of formulating precise titles for 
scientific papers and how to choose title words for subject indexes. 

4. The report of the Dresden meeting of the International Literary and Artistic 
Congress for the Protection of Intellectual Property (which was closely associated 
with the Bureau of the Berne Copyright Union) indicated that the subject of a 
universal catalogue had been discussed at previous conferences but that never before 
had an actual proposal for the creation of such a catalogue been submitted. Jules 
Lermina, 1839-1919, a journalist, prolific author of popular novels, and also the 
permanent secretary of the Association, promoted the scheme. The Dresden Meeting 
agreed that the proposed catalogue was in the international interest but, because of 
some suspicion of and opposition to the project, deferred studying ways of carrying 
it out until a later meeting (Droit d'auteur 4 (1895): 138). It should be noted that 
Otlet and La Fontaine were present at this meeting, which followed by about three 
weeks the first International Conference of Bibliography at which the UB had been 
founded. They spoke out against "pessimistic views" which had been expressed as to 
the feasibility of a universal catalogue and described how they proposed to go about 
it in Brussels. 

5. The setting up in 1894 of a committee of the Royal Society to study the creation of a 
"scientific subject-catalogue which it is proposed to carry out by means of 
international co-operation" and the distribution throughout the learned world of a 
circular letter of enquiry about support for such a venture are described in the 
"President's Address" Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 57 (1895): 44. 
The IIB Bulletin reprinted these and most other documents issued by the Royal 
Society on the International Catalogue of Scientific Literature in the first decade of 
the century. 

6. The subject of a great catalogue had been raised in 1893 before the Class of Letters 
of the Academie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres, et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique by 
Ferdinand Van der Haeghen, the Librarian of the University of Gand. His 
communication, "On a General catalogue of Public Libraries" discussed how an 
international union catalogue could be compiled and printed by an International 
Bureau of Bibliography (Bulletins de VAcadimie royale des sciences et des lettres et 
des beaux-arts de Belgique, 3rd Series, 26 (1893): 690-94). The scheme essentially 
derived from Van der Haeghen's own monumental Bibliotheca belgica which had 
been under preparation for fifteen years and was being issued in the form of separate 
slips for each book described. 



A Universal Bibliographic Repertory 43 

The Academy set up a committee to consider Van der Haegen's proposals and a 
favourable report was received (Bulletins de I'Acadimie royale des sciences des 
lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique, 3rd Series, 27 (1894): 397-402). The report 
included a draft constitution of a Bureau Bibliographique International. Before the 
Academy approached the Belgian government to put the scheme into effect, the 
report suggested that the opinions and agreement of the other sections of the 
Academy should be obtained. Michel Mourlon, director of the Class of Sciences in 
the Academy, later director of the Belgian Geological Commission, described what 
the commission had undertaken for geological bibliography in Belgium. He 
indicated that the Academy had just received the proposals for an International 
Catalogue of Scientific Literature from the Royal Society in London. He proposed 
that the Class of Sciences set up a committee to consider whether a common scheme 
could be worked out with the other Classes of the Academy to support Van der 
Haegen's proposal or whether scientific literature should be dealt with separately. In 
this case, the question then arose as to what kind of response should be made to the 
Royal Society's letter if the Belgium government's support of the scheme could be 
assured (Michel Mourlon, "Sur le creation d'un Bureau International de 
Bibliographic" Bulletins de I'Academie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux- 
arts de Belgique, 3rd Series, 27 (1894):474-4) 

7. Antoine Teissier, 1632-1715, a Protestant forced from France by the revocation of 
the Edict of Nantes, took up residence in the Court of Frederick I of Prussia. A 
renowned scholar, among his many works, most of them translations from Latin and 
Greek, was Catalogus auctorum qui librorum catalogos, indices, bibliothecas, 
virorum litteratorum vitas elogia, aut orationes funebres scriptis consignarunt . . . 
Geneva, 1686 and 1705. This was a revised and enlarged version of the Bibliotneca 
bibliothecarum of Phillippe Labbe" (1607-1667). It was followed by a supplement in 
1705. 

8. Francesco Marucelli, 1623-1703, collected works of art and a great library. His 
Mare magnum omnium materiarum sive index universalis alphabeticus was a 
manuscript index in 112 folio volumes of all that he had read during the course of 
his life. It is preserved in the Biblioteca Marucelliana in Florence, a "public" library 
(opened in 1752) that was set up to receive a bequest of books and pictures from 
him. 

9. Fabianus Justinianus, 1578-1627, was later in life Bishop of Ajaccio. Before his 
elevation he had care of the Biblioteca Vallicelliana for the order of Saint Phillip 
Neri of which he was a member. His Index universalis alphabeticus, materias in 
omni facultate consulte pertractans, eorumque scriptores et locos designans, 
appeared in Rome in 1612. 

10. Georg Draud, 1573-1630 (or 1635), Lutheran pastor of Ortenberg, was responsible 
for a number of "laborious compilations" of various kinds (Michaud). He is chiefly 
remembered for his bibliographical works based on catalogues of the Frankfurt book 
fairs: Bibliotneca classica . . . 1611, Bibliotneca exotica . . . 1610 and Bibliotneca 
librorum germanicorum classica . . . 161 1. The three works were extensively revised 



44 Paul Ot let 

and reprinted in 1625. They were praised highly by Schneider as among the most 
important accomplishments of German bibliography before the Thirty Years' War. 

11. Raffaelo Savonarola, 1646-1730, was a member of the order of the Theatines, a 
Roman Catholic religious order devoted to "the renovation of the priestly and 
apostolic life by means of prayer, the practice of poverty, and study" (Encyclopedia 
of Religion and Ethics, "Religious Orders (Christian)". In 1698 and 1714 Savonarola 
issued the prospectus for his Orbis litterarius universalis which was to be a 
bibliography on the model provided by Draud and Lipenius of works issued in all 
languages up to 1700. The work represented twenty years of labour and the 
manuscript comprised forty folio volumes. Universus terrarum orbis scriptorum 
calamo delineatus . . . which appeared in 1713 is thought to be the only portion of 
the grander work to be published. It was issued under the pseudonym, Alphonsus 
Lasor a Varea. The manuscript of the Orbis Uterarius Universalis, still extant 
towards the end of the eighteenth century in the Library of the Theatines in Padua, 
appears to have been lost at some time in the nineteenth century. 

12. Martin Lipenius, 1630-1692, was a German scholar who occupied various academic 
posts during a lifetime that was shortened, it has been said (Michaud), by exhaustion 
from the excesses of his labours, though a span of sixty-two years does not, for the 
period, seem unduly abbreviated. The bibliographies published in Frankfurt by 
Johannes Fridericus were called "Real" because they were arranged alphabetically 
by subject word, not alphabetically by author. 

13. Johann Heinrich Christoph Beutler, 1759-1833, held a number of teaching and 
ecclesiastical posts. His "Universal Subject Index of the Important German 
Periodicals and Magazines" was followed in 1793 by Moral Philosophy and Worldly 
Wisdom which was in its seventh edition by 1816. 

14. Samuel Ayscough, 1745-1804, eventually obtained employment at the British 
Museum as an assistant librarian, and was later ordained He has been called a 
"Prince of Index-Makers" (Dictionary of National Biography). As well as the index 
to the Monthly Review mentioned by Otlet, he was responsible for an index to the 
Gentleman's Magazine for the years 1731-86 (this was issued in 1789) and, among 
many other indexes, for a concordance to Shakespeare's plays in 1790. Volume I of 
the General Index to the Monthly Review . . . completing the first series of that work 
in two parts, had a first part "Containing a Catalogue, With the Size and Price, of all 
the Publications reviewed"; the second had the title as given by Otlet. (for an 
account of Ayscough see W. Boyd Rayward, "The Perils of Bibliography..."). 

15. A history of the Bibliographic de la France, begun in 181 1, is provided in its special 
September 1961 issue, "Num6ro du cent-cinquantenaire," of T6dition francaise" (CI. 
de Buzareingues, "Historique de la Bibliographie de la France," pp. ix-xxxvi). 

16. Bibliotheca philological oder, Geordnete uebersicht oiler auf dem gebiet der 
classischen Alterthumswissenschaft wie alteren und neuern sprachwissenschaft neu 
erschienenen bucher . . . 1-50 jahrg., 1848-97. This, with variation in sub-title, was a 
semi-annual from 1848-85, and then a quarterly; Bibliotheca orientalis or, a 
Complete List of Books, Papers, Serials and Essays Published in 1876 in England 



A Universal Bibliographic Repertory 45 

the Colonies, Germany and France on the History, Languages, Religions, 
Antiquities, Literature and Geography of the East. Comp. by Charles Friederici. 
London: Trubner and Co., 1877-1884; Zeitschrift fitr die gesamte medicin mit 
besonderer RUcksicht auf Hospitalpraxis und ausldndischen Literatur. Edited by J J 7 . 
Dieffenbach, J.C.G. Fricke and F.W. Oppenheim. This appeared in Hamburg in 45 
volumes between 1836 and 1851. 

17. Poole's An Alphabetical Index to Subjects Treated in the Reviews and Other 
Periodicals which appeared as a slim volume of 154 pages in 1848, comprised 1442 
pages by the third edition of 1882. It was compiled "with the assistance as associate 
editor of William I. Fletcher . . . and the cooperation of the American Library 
Association and the Library Association of the United Kingdom." In fact, Poole's 
attempt to enlist English help on his Index was not particularly successful. Various 
revised editions of Poole and a series of supplements were issued between 1888 and 
1908. Publication of the Cooperative Index to Periodicals, edited by Fletcher, was 
begun in 1884 and it eventually covered the period 1883 through 1891. Intended as 
an attempt to keep Poole's Index current, it was first issued as monthly supplements 
to the Library Journal. Later it became quarterly and in 1890 and 1891 appeared 
only as an annual. The necessity for it was obviated by the appearance in 1901 of 
H.W. Wilson's Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature which is still issued. 

18. This Section of the American Library Association was to be "an organisation for 
cooperative catalog and index work" and among the tasks proposed for it were 
collaboration with publishers in the printing of catalogue cards for new works and 
the preparation of the ALA Index to General Literature. An account of the ALA 
Publishing Section and a brief description of the ALA Index appeared in TLB Bulletin 
1 (1895-96): 135-136. 

19. An unsigned editorial, doubtless by the editor, Melvil Dewey, in what was initially 
called the American Library Journal, September 30, 1876, sums up (p. 13) the 
objectives of the journal: "In a word the American Library Journal hopes to collate 
for the librarian every view or fact which may be of use or interest in his work, to 
the saving of time, money, and effort for him, and, as a final aim, to the 
advancement of his honorable profession." 

20. The story of Melvil Dewey's School of Library Economy, first opened in 1884 at 
Columbia University has been told many times; see for example, Sarah Vann, 
Training for Librarianship Before 1923, Carl White, A Historical Introduction to 
Library Education, and for an interpretative account of the failure to keep the school 
at Columbia, W. Boyd Ray ward, "Melvil Dewey and Education for Librarianship". 
The School opened at Albany in 1889 in the New York State Library under the 
auspices of the State University. The account of the school in IIB Bulletin 1 (1895- 
96): 138-139 does not indicate that the MLS and DLS degrees as well as the BLS 
(described as bachelier-is-sciences bibliologique) could be awarded. 

21. The Library Bureau of Boston was begun by Melvil Dewey responding in part to the 
efforts of and the needs represented by the American Library Association's Supplies 
Committee. Under the management of RE. Davidson, as Fremont Rider says "it 



46 Paul Otlet 

became a pioneer in revolutionizing, not merely library equipment ~ which, as a 
matter of fact, in a few years became only a side line in their sales ~ but office 
equipment and business methods generally (Fremont Rider, Melvil Dewey, p. 65). 
Eventually it became part of the Remington Rand Company. The Library Bureau 
was important to Otlet and La Fontaine. They did business with its London branch, 
managed by Cedric Chivers, and had several meetings with Davidson in an attempt 
to induce him to set up a European branch in Brussels. 

22. John Shaw Billings, 1839-1939, supervised the publication of the Index-Catalogue 
of the Library of the Surgeon-General's Office, United States Army, in 16 volumes 
from 1880 to 1895. This was called an index-catalogue because it indexed articles in 
journals. It was arranged, however, as a dictionary catalogue. Billings became the 
first director of the New York Public Library in 1896. An unsigned review of the 
Index-Catalogue was published in the IIB Bulletin 1 (1895-96): 255-56. Frederick 
Leypoldt began to publish Index Medicus, a Monthly Classified Record of the 
Current Medical Literature of the World, in 1879. It was edited by Billings and 
Robert Fletcher. Always precarious financially, it continued to be published after 
Leypoldt's death in 1884 in the United States until 1899. French associates of Otlet 
and La Fontaine, Charles Richet and Marcel Baudouin, were then to assume 
responsibility for attempting to keep it going in Paris until 1902. (Bibliographers 
tend not to list the French publication in their accounts of the various series of Index 
Medicus). The work has been published under various auspices in the United States 
from 1903 until the present. 

23. Otlet is referring here to: Catalogue of Publications of the Smithsonian Institution 
(1846-1882) with an alphabetical index of Articles in the Smithsonian Contributions 
to Knowledge, Miscellaneous Collections, Annual Reports, Bulletins and 
Proceedings of the U.S. National Museum and Reports of the Bureau of Ethnology, 
by William J. Rhees. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1882. Rhees, 1830-1907, 
had been made Chief Clerk of the Smithsonian in 1852 and, as executive officer 
under the Secretary, had oversight of the affairs of the Institution and responsibility 
for its publications. He was regarded at the time of his death as "the principal human 
repository" of the history of the Institution, for his knowledge extended back to the 
actual founding period (Dictionary of American Biography). 

24. Julius Petzholdt, Bibliotheca bibliographica . . . W. Englemann: Leipzig: 1866. The 
work of Petzholdt, a librarian, has sometimes been regarded as a model for the 
compilation of a comprehensive bibliography of bibliographies. Taylor provides a 
full and critical account of this work. As for size, Taylor accepts Besterman's 
estimate that the work contains references to 5,500 titles. 

Leon Vallee's Bibliographie des bibliographies, (Paris, 1883) had a supplement 
issued in 1887. Vallee's work has been somewhat indiscriminately condemned. 
Taylor evaluates and supports criticisms of it and refers to reviews and other 
accounts. A large work, the number of titles included, however, is nearer 10,000 
than the 11,000 Otlet mentions and, if Langlois is correct, a third of these should 
have been omitted and another third added (Langlois, Manuel de bibliographie 
historique). 



A Universal Bibliographic Repertory 47 

25. Johannes Miiller, Die Wissenschaftlichen vereine und gesellschaften Deutschslands 
im neunzehnten jahrhundert. Berlin, 1883-87. Muller, 1850-1919, was at one time 
Director of the Reichstagbibliothek in Berlin. Langlois describes this work as 
classic, but points out that, though it gives general bibliographic information, it is 
not an index to the contents of these publications (Langlois, Manuel de 
bibliographie historique). 

26. Jacques Charles Brunet, 1780-1867, Manuel du Librairie et de V amateur de livres, 
1810. The first edition of three volumes grew to six in the fifth and final edition 
which appeared between 1860-65. The sixth volume, after a history of classification 
systems, disposes the author entries of the first five volumes according to a system 
of classification that was to be widely imitated in its time. Brunet, born into the 
bookselling trade, devoted himself exclusively to bibliography after the death of his 
father in 1824. It has been said of his work that, "with eclat it brought to a close the 
era of great general bibliographies and continues to be irreplaceable" (Malcles, 
Manuel). 

27. Otto Lorenz, Catalogue g&n&al de la librairie frangaise, 1867-88. This listed all 
French imprints from 1840 to 1865. Lorenz issued supplements covering the period 
to 1885. It was then continued by other hands. By 1945 when it ceased publication, 
the work was in 34 volumes and covered the period 1840 to 1925. Lorenz, 1831- 
1893, was born in Leipzig but set up in the book trade in Paris in 1853 and was 
naturalized as a Frenchman in 1866. 

28. Wilhelm Heinsius, 1768-1817, published his Allgemeines Bucher-Lexicon in 1793. 
Subsequent editions by Heinsius himself and, after his death, by others, provided a 
retrospective bibliography in nineteen volumes of German publishing from 1700 to 
1894. 

29. Otlet refers to the two series of the Catalogue of Scientific Papers published by the 
Royal Society of London that had appeared up to this time. See Editor's note 19 to 
Paper 1, "Something About Bibliography," in this volume. 

30. Jean-Charles Houzeau de Lehaie and Albert-Benoit-Marie Lancaster, Bibliographie 
genirale de V astronomic. The work is bibliographically confusing. Intended to be in 
three volumes, only volumes I (and only two of three parts intended for this volume) 
and II were issued. The work appeared in parts in paper covers between 1880 and 
1889 together with some supplementary material. Volume II was the first to be 
published and the second part of this was published first. Because volume II 
appeared first, the compilers' introduction appeared at the beginning of it. Both 
practicing scientists, Houzeau and Lancaster were colleagues in the Royal 
Observatory of Belgium, where the former was Director and the latter librarian and 
Secretary. Dewhirst believes that after Houzeau's death in 1888, Lancaster lost spirit 
to complete the work. It was intended to provide a complete record of "all that had 
been written about the science of the heavens since the beginning of history, 
including not only printed works, but all the earlier manuscripts that were known" 
(Dewhirst, "Editorial Introduction," General Bibliography of Astronomy to the Year 
1880). 



48 Paul Otlet 

31. Printing of the general alphabetical catalogue of the Bibliotheque national e did not 
begin until 1897. The first volume of a series of subject catalogues, however, 
Section L., Catalogue of the History of France, appeared in 1855 and there were a 
good many of these subject catalogues begun before it was decided in 1874 to 
abandon this procedure, complete those in process and then begin publication of the 
general catalogue. It is to these "catalogues mdthodiques" that Otlet refers. 

32. Printing of the General Catalogue of the British Museum began in 1881. It was 
completed in 1900 in 94 volumes. A supplement of 13 volumes was issued in 1905. 
A lively account of this complex venture is given in Barbara McCrimmon, Power, 
Politics, and Print: The Publication of the British Museum Catalogue 1882-1900. 

33. The Institut Colonial International was founded in January 1894 to facilitate and 
develop the comparative study of administration and law in colonial territories. 

One assumes Otlet refers to the Service Geologique of the Ministere de 
llndustrie and du Travail though it was not formally set up by Royal Decree until 
December 1896. Its mission was to preserve all existing data and to assimilate to 
them the results of all new observations carried out on Belgian territories. It acquired 
national and international literature on all aspects of the geologic strata, terrain and 
sub-soils of these territories. The Director was Michel Mourlon(see also Note 6 
above), who was much interested in problems connected with geological literature 
and classification, and the Secretary, G. Simoens, who made a number of studies of 
the Decimal classification. 

34. For the International Bibliography of Mathematics see Otlet's discussions in and 
Editor's Note No. 18 to the first paper, "Something about Bibliography," in this 
volume. 

35. U.S. Bureau of Education, Catalog of the ALA Library: 5,000 volumes for a Popular 
Library Selected by the American Library Association and Shown at the World's 
Columbian Exposition. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1893. The 
Catalog, sometimes called the ALA Catalog or ALA Model Library Catalog, is in 
three parts: Part I is a classified catalogue according to the Decimal Classification; 
Part II is a classified catalogue according to Charles Ami Cutter's Expansive 
Classification; Part III is a dictionary catalogue. The Introduction to the Catalog is 
explicit: "The question whether a classed or dictionary catalogue is more useful is 
still unsettled though much has been written on the subject" (p. viii). Otlet is thus a 
little too carefully selective in the detail he gives of the work! The account of the 
Catalog in IIB Bulletin 1 (1895-96): 137, though expatiating on its utility, equally 
ignores Parts II and in. 

36. A good description of various attempts, begun almost from the inception of ALA, to 
obtain centralised cataloguing is provided by Edith Scott's "The Evolution of 
Bibliographical Systems in the United States, 1876-1945." Otlet refers to efforts 
begun in the Publishing Section in 1887 and represented by an announcement by the 
Library Bureau: "Printed Catalog Cards for Current Books: A Guaranteed Fact Not a 
Mere Experiment," Library Journal 18 (1893): 528-30. The experiment, for it was in 
fact no more than that, was not successful, had few subscribers, only limited support 



A Universal Bibliographic Repertory 49 

from publishers and was transferred in 1896 to the ALA's Publishing Section, the 
whole business being surrendered "with great satisfaction" by the Publishing Section 
to the Library of Congress when the Library began issuing its cards in 1901 (Library 
Journal 26 (1901): 757). 

37. Alphonse Bertillon, 1853-1914, developed a system of identification of criminals 
which was used by the Parisian police and later in other countries. It consisted of 
making a numerical and verbal "portrait" so precise and systematic that it would 
provide proof of identity. This procedure, according to Bertillon, "consists less in the 
search for new characteristic elements of individuality than in the discovery of a 
method of classification." Bertillon believed he had discovered such a method 
involving anthropometric identification which required, 1) careful measurements of 
specific parts of the body; 2) descriptive identification in words using a controlled 
vocabulary of hair and eye colour, for example; and 3) identification by peculiar 
marks. The identification was then recorded on a special card ("Introduction," to 
Bertillon's Signaletic Instructions). The system was introduced in 1882 and was 
constantly refined. 

38. Two publications seem relevant to Otlet's description of the tables being prepared at 
this time. First is a document of 14 unpaged leaves: Decimal Classification. Tables 
ginirales, General summaries, Hauptatheilungen. Bruxelles: Office International de 
Bibliography, 1895. This contained the first thousand divisions in French. A fuller 
version for Sociology and Law was: Decimal Classification: Sociology, 
Sozialwissenschaft, Sociologie. Tables mithodique et alphabitique; Methodischer 
und Alphabetischer Index; Methodical and Alphabetical Index. Bruxelles: Office 
International de Bibliographique, 1895. This consisted of 78 unnumbered pages of 
the tables for Sociology and Law with notes and with, even at this stage, an 
indication of synthetic developments; for example, under 327 International Politics 
are scope notes, "see also" references and examples such as 327 (45:494) Italian- 
Swiss Conflict. The table for Law, 340 includes numerical developments for 
"Generalities" and auxiliary sciences: for example, 340.005 periodicals and reviews; 
340.09, Law and history; 340.09.2 "legal Biographies, classed alphabetically." The 
index is a simple tri-lingual list. A number of translations of other major sections of 
the classification were issued in 1896. 

39. Rudolph describes a part of this apparatus (the binder, not the drum) in his "The 
Newberry Genealogical Index" in The Library Journal, (1899): 53-55. A recent 
evaluation of Rudolph's binder and the Rudolph Continuous Indexer is given in Rick 
J. Ashton's "Curators, Hobbyists, and Historians: Ninety years of Genealogy at the 
Newberry Library." Rudolph was a fascinating character. He fought in the Russo- 
Austrian War in 1866. He came to New York in 1875 and eventually joined the 
Newberry Library in Chicago in 1894 where he invented the Rudolph Indexer and 
Binder. He left the Newberry in 1909 to speculate on the stock market In 1915 at 
the age of 65 he married his second wife and in 1917 committed suicide because he 
had lost most of his money and was going blind and deaf (information from 
newspaper clippings and the Newberry Librarians' Reports courtesy of Diana 
Haskell, Newberry Library). 



50 Paul Otlet 

40. See Editor's Note 6 in this paper. 

41. See Editor's Note 24 in this paper 

42. The Berne International Copyright Union was set up in 1886. An office or bureau 
created for it by the Swiss government began operations in 1887. The text of the 
convention governing the Union has been revised a number of times and the 100 
years of the Union's operation the number of nations joining it has steadily grown. 
The United States did not become a member until 1988. The purpose of the union 
was, and, is to protect the literary and artistic rights of authors. At the time Otlet was 
writing the following states were members: Belgium, France, Germany, Haiti, Italy, 
Siberia, Spain, Switzerland, Tunis and Great Britain. 

43. Otlet and La Fontaine refer to: Sommaire methodique des traites, monographies et 
revues de droit. This began with a similar name in 1891, and volumes 1-3, 1891- 
1893, were prepared by Otlet, Pierre Blanchemanche and Joseph Cassiers. In 1895 
volume 4 (for 1894) was taken over by Otlet and La Fontaine and was published by 
the Office International de Bibliographic It was part of what was described as the 
Bibliographie Internationale des sciences sociales. The second part of this, also 
published by Otlet and La Fontaine, was Sommaire methodique des traites, 
monographies et revues de sociologie. For the 1895 volume both works were 
combined to become Bibliographia sociologica: Sociologie et droit. 
Sozialwissenschaft und Recht. Sociology and Law. Sommaire methodique des traitis 
et des revues dresse conformement d la Classification Decimale. Only the one 
volume seems to have been issued. 

44. Maurice de Wulf, editor of the Revue nio-scolastique (published by the Soci&e" 
Philosophique headquartered in Louvain at the Institut Superieur de Philosophic), 
undertook to add a bibliographical supplement to the Revue. The first issue appeared 
as Sommaire ideologique des ouvrages et des revues de philosophic, 20 July 1895. It 
had an account of the Decimal Classification and a discussion of certain problems in 
the Classification. This introduction was repeated verbatim in the first issue for 1896 
(supplement to the February 1st 1896 Revue) with further commentary added. 
Following this were the tables of the Decimal Classification for philosophy as 
developed in Louvain at that time. This bibliographic work continued until the First 
World War and, indeed, has continued in some form ever since. In a brief note on 
the OIB and the 1895 Conference of Bibliography, de Wulf describes the Sommaire 
ideologique as "an experimental application of the Dewey system, the first 
application to our knowledge which has been presented to the Belgian public, and 
perhaps to the European public." {Revue neo-scolastique 2(1895): 429). The 
bibliographic supplement was referred to as Bibliographia philosophica. 

45. The periodicals for philological and literary bibliography that Otlet refers to do not 
seem to have been published. In these bibliographies and the rationale provided for 
them lies the beginning of the Bibliographia Universalis. 



3. ON THE STRUCTURE OF CLASSIFICATION NUMBERS 1 

When the Brussels Conference adopted Mr. Dewey's classification as a whole, it 
did not intend to proclaim that the classification was to be considered perfect in every 
respect. The Conference did agree that it was sufficiently developed to be used as the 
preliminary basis for the Universal Bibliographic Repertory and was convinced that its 
principles were such as to assure its future development. The articles published in this 
issue of the Bulletin by Mssrs. Cams, 2 Baudouin, 3 Daruty de Grandpre\ 4 and Simoens 5 as 
well as the documents issued by the Royal Society of London 6 clearly suggest the 
different kinds of research being undertaken in order to improve the Decimal 
Classification and to make it responsive to all the requirements of bibliographic 
registration and analysis. 

Considering this general question of its development in our turn, we would like 
to add some observations to those already published here [l] or set out previously in a 
note published by the International Office of Bibliography [2]. These observations 
synthesize propositions that have been advanced from various viewpoints on the 
structure of classification numbers but upon which no final pronouncement has yet been 
made. 



The basic principle of a bibliographic classification in the first analysis should 
be sought in the best way of subordinating the various general characteristics exhibited 
by the works being classified. It is a vast synoptic outline, divided into classes, divisions 
and sections, of all the subjects on which it is possible to write. The major difficulty, 
apart from completely enumerating the subjects to be classified, is this: classification can 
be made from different points of view and the subordination of the characteristics of each 
subject is susceptible of equally satisfactory but quite different solutions. Let us take the 
example: 

(a) Civil Law, Marriage, English Legislation, which we index: 347.62(42). Why 
should that order be preferred to this: 

(b) England, Civil law, Marriage. 

It could be just as useful to have everything concerning Marriage gathered 
together without distinction of country (a), as to find gathered together everything 
concerning English Law, without distinguishing between different institutions (b). 

This first observation is best expressed by saying that the standard model of any 
classification, whether it is constructed by means of words or these words translated into 
decimal indices, is an array of ideas, each defining and specifying the other. The sense of 
A is defined by B, thus A:B. Moreover, as a general rule, each idea so subordinated can, 
in its turn, become a principal idea to which is subordinated other ideas on which it 



[1] See Bulletin, p. 29 and 86. 

[2] Regies pour les developpements a apporter a la classification decimale publiees par l'Office International 
de Bibliographic, Bruxclles, 1896. 7 

51 



52 Paul Otlet 

depends. Thus, in the example given, English Legislation, which is subordinated to the 
division Marriage in the first instance, becomes the principal heading in the second 
instance. 

To this first observation, which touches upon classification only, another 
concerning bibliographical notation can be added. Classification numbers are formed by 
a kind of derivation by which a more general idea is made more specific by the 
juxtaposition of simple numerals. In fact, this is the most elementary form of the 
structure of classification numbers. To strip bibliographical notation of any meaning so 
that it becomes numerals put together into occasionally quite large numbers which can be 
distinguished only by external differences with little mnemonic value, is to deprive the 
notation of an element of diversity which could help make the terms intelligible to the 
ordinary reader. Now, one quickly observes that there are certain basic ideas which are 
present in all parts of the classification, such as geographical, historical and form 
categories which we have already discussed. In any individual branch of the 
classification there are also divisions which recur regularly; thus, in Zoology, for 
example, each species can be envisaged from the point of view of its anatomy, its 
evolution, its teratology, 8 its form, its economic usefulness. 

The consequence of this observation is that a structure of classification numbers 
is desirable such that to each category of basic ideas which regularly recurs, there should 
correspond a form of notation with a distinct appearance and a permanent meaning. 
Classification numbers will then be complex numerical expressions made up of different 
factors whose respective meanings when juxtaposed will express a complex idea after the 
fashion of compound words in spoken languages. If the geographic category, England, is 
always expressed by the symbol (42), and if this symbol can be directly combined with 
all or part of any classification number, the problem that we have just described is 
completely resolved, at least so far as a special case is concerned. We are effectively able 
to write: 

347.62(42) Legislation concerning Marriage in England 
709(42) History of art in England 
595.77(42) The Diptera of England 

There is no doubt that generalizing such a method of notation would be useful. 
First of all, it is eminently mnemonic. Next it increases the intelligibility of the 
classification numbers since a simple examination of the component factors of their 
external structure at once reveals the various individual ideas that make up the whole 
idea. These factors, once they are clearly distinguished from each other, can form a 
variety of combinations. Thus, it is possible to represent more than a million ideas by the 
combinations derived from a seven-digit number. Several millions of ideas can be 
represented when second-degree combinations, that is to say, those involving factors or 
parts of numbers, are added to these first-degree combinations. 

Indeed, the parenthesis (42) = England, is susceptible theoretically of being 
combined with any classification number and thus of creating thousands of new 
subdivisions. Finally, the last advantage of proceeding in this way is that preserving the 
individuality of each structural component makes possible a different notation for the 
same idea to be classified according to whichever element one wishes to make primary, 
others being subordinated to it. Thus, while the meaning of the following three 
classification numbers is preserved because the factors are reversible, it is possible to 
write: 



Structure of Classification Numbers 53 

(42)347.62 347.62(42) 347(42)62 

In addition, notation by means of factors permits the independent development 
of each in the future. For example, if we were to write: 

59 1 . 1 Physiological Zoology 

59 1 . 14 Physiological Zoology of molluscs 

when, later, it is thought opportune to divide Physiological Zoology not by species but by 
the major subjects of Physiology, such as Circulation, Respiration, or the Nervous 
System, this can no longer be done. It would be quite otherwise if we had first written: 

59 1 . 1 : 954 Physiological Zoology: Molluscs which can be 

developed later thus: 
59 1 . 1 1 : 5945[sic for 9545?] Physiological Zoology, respiration: Molluscs, 

Cephalopods pj. 



The question of opportunity resolved, what remains to be examined is whether 
the following theoretical formulation for the internal structure of classification numbers 
can possibly be realized in practice: "Classification numbers are formed sometimes by 
derivation - by making a more general idea more specific by the juxtaposition of 
numerals, sometimes by combination - by adding factors or autonomous numerical 
elements which have a distinct and permanent meaning and which are able to assume 
different functions in relation to each other." This latter method helps to make the 
decimal classification a veritable bibliographical pasigraphy 9 able to translate into a 
number any idea to be classified and to cope with all the details of bibliographical 
analysis [4]. 

Let us observe, fust, that these elements or factors cannot be numerals pure and 
simple. While it is convenient to attribute the idea, "England," to 42, it is impossible 
without confusion to combine these two digits with any number: 597.42, for example, 
would indicate simultaneously Alcanthodidei and English fish. Thus, when one is 
forming numbers by simple derivation, it is always useful and desirable to use the same 
numbers or parts of numbers to express the same ideas. To establish a symmetrical 
correspondence between the subdivisions of the different parts of the classification, one 
should take the subdivisions of one subject area and use them as divisions of another. 
Thus, it is mnemonic to write 611.8 Anatomy of the Nervous System, 612.8 Physiology 
of the Nervous System, 613.8 Health of the Nervous System, for the technique of 
mnemonics uses symmetry as much as logic. 



[3] Let us observe in passing that the intelligibility of a classification number does not depend on its 
conciseness, but on its apparent structure which permits the eye to read synthetically groups of figures 
corresponding to distinct ideas. The algebraic formula for the hyperbola is bx 2 - a?l/ = a^b 2 . The same 
idea is expressed decimally by the number 513.24. The classification of Hartwig's Schema des Real 
Kataloges de Koniglichen Universitdtbitsbliothek zu Halle as. (p. 76) gives notations such as this 
KhQTFcBI4eII2. The Mathematical Bibliographic Index gives the number M*5hB. 

[4] See the preceding studies of Daruty de Grandpr6 and Simoens. 



54 Paul Otlet 

But a condition sine qua non of the autonomy of the numerical elements is that 
they should always be characterized by a distinctive sign. This has been done for the first 
auxiliary indices that have been proposed; the for indices of form, the parenthesis ( ) 
for geographical indices, and the : for the principal modifier [5]. 

One cannot, however, increase in an unlimited way the number of conventional 
signs. While it would be possible to conceive of them, they would make the classification 
unintelligible. Irremediable errors in writing and typography could be expected. But the 
greatest drawback is that, while the order in which the numerals to 9 must be set down 
successively is universally known, it is necessary to establish an arbitrary order, which it 
is difficult to remember, for arranging signs. 

The theoretical and practical aspects of the problem being thus clearly stated, let 
us indicate briefly some proposed solutions. First of all, use of specification by whole 
numbers has been considered. Any idea in the classification can be specified by another 
idea and the classification numbers corresponding to these ideas are separated by the sign 
[:] (sic). This leads us back to the fundamental formula A:B, or to take the concrete 
example cited above, 591.1 : 594 = Physiological Zoology: molluscs. This notation is the 
most explicit of all; each factor keeps its individuality and, there being no abbreviation, 
no explanatory conventions are needed [6]. 

Useful as a general means of establishing relations between all part of the 
classification, especially to indicate the relation of one subject with another (3:17 = 
relation between sociology and ethics; 7:17 = relation between art and ethics), whole 
number specification seems to be less useful for expressing divisions whose periodical 
recurrence is frequent For universal divisions such as time, place and form, we have 
proposed the geographical, historical and form indices, which we have discussed. 

But other categories are also very general such as, for example, chronology and 
language. To indicate them concisely, uniformly and independently, Mr. Dewey has 
proposed to combine letters with numbers. The letters, really substitutes for arbitrary 
conventional signs, would be used to indicate the transition from one order of ideas to 
another, they would imply a well-known order. This is the scheme. Letters not used are 
reserved for future use. The letters proposed are those which would create the least 
confusion in writing: 

0. Form Index (with all its subdivisions), 01, 02. 

a. 

b. 

c. Time, Geological Periods. Divided like 551.7 stratigraphic geology, e.g. CI 
Archean, C2 Cambrian, etc. 

d. Time, chronologic history. Divided thus: 

1. B.C. 5. 1500-1599 

2. 1-499 A.D. 501500-1509 

20 1-49 51 1510-1519 

21 50-99 52 1520-1529 



[5] For what we have said on these three auxiliary indices and their use, see Bulletin, p. 90 and following. * 
[6] See flu/tain, p. 91. u 



Structure of Classification Numbers 



55 



22 100-149 

23 150-199 

24 200-249 

25 250-299 

26 300-349 

27 350-399 

28 400-449 

29 450-499 

3. 500-999 A.D. 
30-39 like 20-29 

4. 1000-1499 
40-49 like 20-29 

e.g. International 



53 1530-1539 

54 1540-1549 

55 1550-1559 

56 1560-1569 

57 1570-1579 

58 1580-1589 

59 1590-1599 

6. 1600-1699 
60-69 like 50-59 

7. 1700-1799 
70-79 like 50-59 

8. 1800-1899 
80-89 like 50-59 

politics in 1895 = 327 d 895. 



f. Physical Place. Divided like 551.4 physical geology, 
f 1 Continents f 16 

f 12 Islands f 17 Fresh Water 

f 13 Mountains f 1 8 Rivers and Lakes 

f 14 Caves f 19 Springs, Wells, etc. 

f 15 Plains, Prairies, Steppes, Deserts 
e.g. fresh water molluscs, 594. f 17. 

g. Oceans. Divided like 551.47, Oceans in geology. For example, 
g 1 Atlantic, North Sea, Baltic 

g2 Mediterranean, Black Sea. 

h. General Place. Divided according to the points of the compass. 

1. Centre 6. South 

2. North 7. South-West 

3. North-East 8. West 

4. East 9. North-West 

5. South-East 

e.g. Travel in the south of Europe 914 h 6. 

j. Specialised place: political divisions. Divisions borrowed from 91 Geography 
and completed by the following table: 
e.g. Civil Architecture in France. 725.1 j44 instead of 725.1(44). 



j 1 1 Arctic and Antarctic Regions 
j 12 Temperate Regions 
j 13 Tropical Regions 
j 14 Northern Hemisphere 
j 15 Southern Hemisphere 
j 16 Eastern Hemisphere 
j 17 Western Hemisphere 



j 21 Europe & Asia 
} 22 Europe & Africa 
j 23 Europe & America 
j 24 Asia & Africa 
j 25 Asia & America 
j 26 Africa & America 



56 Paul Otlet 

1. 

m. 

n. Principal modifier. The addition to a classification number of another whole 
classification number. 

p. Return to the subdivision of the principal number. 

Examples: 



598.2 


Birds 


598.205 


Birds: ornithological periodicals 


598.2 c 7 


Birds in the Cretaceous period 


598.2 d 1 


Birds Before Christ 


598.2 j 44 


French Birds 


598.2 j 13 


Birds in the Tropics 


598.2 n 579.1 


Birds, skeletal organisation 


598.2 n 73 


Birds in Sculpture 


598.2 n 821 


Birds in English Poetry 



598.2 j 43d44 Birds in Germany in the 18th Century 
442. j 73 p2 U. S. Constitutional Conventions 

This notation would become a little clearer perhaps if the numbers with letters 
were themselves placed in parentheses. One would have 597(g3) instead of 597g3. 

Mr. Dewey's solution, however, can be criticized because the mixture of 
numbers and letters removes from the classification its decimal and numerical character 
in which lies both its simplicity and its universality. Thus, we have attempted to achieve 
an identical result using numbers by proceeding in the following manner [7]. 

Various categories of auxiliary indices are borrowed from corresponding 
classification numbers and are placed between parentheses. They would be given an 
exponent corresponding to the main series of numbers. Let (. . . 5 ) be the index for 
geologic time and ( . . . 4 ) the language index, then 598.2 (7 5 ) would represent birds of the 
Cretacious period and 220.5 (917 4 ) would represent Russian translations of the Bible, for 
551.77 is the classification number of stratigraphic geology of the cretaceous period and 
491.7 is the classification number for Russian philology. 

In this proposal, the [:] (sic) would continue to indicate modification by a main 
classification number, and the parentheses given an exponent would be reserved to 



[7] For the numerous divisions which constitute an enumeration rather than a classification into branches and 
sub-branches, it has been proposed to replace decimal division by division into lOOths. This division 
would actually give 80 new headings and not 100, for 01, 02, .... 09 and 20, 30, 40, . . . 90 would not be 
used so as to avoid confusion with indices of form expressing generalities. We would then have 546, 
546.11, 546.12, 546.19, 546.21, etc. It is simpler to proceed thus than by underlining the numbers which 
are to be treated as whole numbers and not as decimal numbers, as in the following example: 546.1, 546.2, 
546.9, 546,10, 546.11, 546. 12. Absolutely decimal notation for dates of the year can be formulated. The 
months would be indicated by 01, 02, 03, .... 11, 12 and the days, 01, 02, 09, 11, . . . ,31. The 7 March 
1895 would be written (1895.03.07). This notation would be useful in History for subdivision by day of 
the month in certain troubled times, such as revolutionary periods and for the history of certain military 
campaigns. Then, it is true, the is being given a sense other than that of the generalities; it has the sense 
of "nothing," but no confusion need be feared. Because of the parentheses and the figures which precede 
it, there should be no inconvenience in using it. 



Structure of Classification Numbers 57 

indicate only auxiliary divisions by time and place. The auxiliary geographic index is 
actually borrowed from the geography of each country. 

9 1 .4 Geography of Europe, (4) Europe 
91.54 Geography of India, (54) India 

Now, the numbers 910 to 913 not being used to indicate the geography of any 
country, the symbols in parentheses, (1) (2), are available. Thus (1) and its divisions 
could be used for the chronological index suggested by Mr. Dewey thus: 

(11) = B.C. 

(17) = 18th Century 12 

(1854) = 1854 

327 (15)= international politics in the 16th century. 

The index (2) would indicate all the subdivisions of physical geography as given 
by Mr. Dewey: 

595 (27) = Lake fish 

Now, as we have said, because the historical divisions for each country have 
numbers symmetrical with those of geography, the auxiliary geographical indices could 
be extended by the historical divisions. Therefore, if we have 

9 1 .44 Geography of France 

(44) France (Auxiliary index) 

9.44 History of France 

9.44.05 History of France at the time of the Revolution 

(44.05) France at the time of the Revolution (auxiliary index) 

combinations like the following become quite clear: 

595(27:44) French lake fish 
595(44:27) French fish: Lakes. 

In addition, direction would be indicated by universally understood letters of the 
compass: Geography of the North of France, 91 (44N). 

Such a solution is still incomplete. It certainly provides a principal modifier for 
all the divisions which return only infrequently and also for some auxiliary indices which 
express uniformly the most generally used categories. It leaves unsolved the third 
problem: divisions which recur frequently in the same branch of the classification. Now, 
the classification of any branch of science nearly always gives rise to a double approach. 
The one involves concrete entities (such as minerals, plants, animals, peoples, 
languages); the other involves abstract and synthetic points of view (physiology, 
anatomy, embryology; lexicography, morphology, prosody, etc.) or put schematically: 



58 



Paul Otlet 





591.1 


591.2 


591.3 


59 ZOOLOGY 


PHYSIOLOGY 


PATHOLOGY 


BMBRYOLOGY. ETC 




a 


b 


C 


592 Invertebrates A 








593 Protozoas B 








594 Molluscs, etc. C 









For this double approach in which combinations are as frequently a: A as A:a, 
the modifier is sufficient. That is, 591.1:592 and 592:591.1 are perfectly intelligible. 
Nevertheless, the expression is a little long and it would be very desirable if the 
terminology of each of the sciences, especially if they have been the object of a 
convention generally accepted by scholars, could be formulated concisely [8]. Now, it is 
necessary to understand here that the point of view of the encyclopedist should be 
defended as well as that of the specialist. It is absolutely necessary in a Universal 
Bibliographic Repertory not to let the same number have several meanings. All 
confusion would appear to be avoided if, on the one hand, in order to distinguish them 
from those of time and place, the numbers expressing the classified terminology of each 
science were derived from .0 (sic) and placed between parentheses, and, if, on the other 
hand, all the parallel nomenclature indices derived from (sic) were kept distinct from 
each other by prohibiting their use outside the science from which they are drawn and 
which provides the context for their interpretation. 

Consequently, in Astronomy, for example, one would have the following 
nomenclature for heavenly bodies: 



(01) 


The Sun 


(031) 


Mercury 


(02) 


The Moon 


(032) 


Venus 


(03) 


The Planets 


(09) 


The earth, etc. 



Then, 525 physical astronomy; 525(01) Physical Astronomy of the Sun; 525(031) 
Physical Astronomy of Mercury. 

In pathology, for example, one would have, the terminology for diseases: 



(01) 

(012) 

(02) 



Diseases of the Circulatory System 

Diseases of the Heart 

Diseases of the Respiratory System 



[8] In a great many sciences, such as chemistry, photography, electricity and anatomy, the nomenclature has 
been fixed by international congresses. 



Structure of Classification Numbers 59 

615.218 (012) Effects of phosphorous on the treatment of diseases of the 
heart [9] 

When several kinds of terminology are used in the same science - as in 
medicine where there is a terminology for diseases, for medicines, for areas, or in 
chemistry where there is a nomenclature for elements and one for organic chemistry - 
they can all be derived from (0). For example: 

(01) Nomenclature of the elements 

(0111) hydrogen 

(0112) chlorine 

(02) Nomenclature of organic chemistry 

(021) alcohols 

(022) esters 

Finally, when it is necessary to use terms outside of their respective sciences, 
the number of the science from which they have been taken can be placed in parenthesis 
as an exponent. Thus, for example, one would write: 368.42 (012 61 ) = Conditions of 
health insurance for those with heart conditions. Nevertheless, in this case it is yet to be 
seen whether the simpler form of the principal modifier would be preferable: 
368.42:616.12. 

In summary, the decimal classification must constitute both a classification and 
a bibliographic notation. As a classification, it must present a framework in which ideas 
can be successively subordinated to each other in different ways, according to whether 
they are assigned a superior position or a subordinate one. As a bibliographic notation, it 
must become a veritable pasigraphy able to interpret by numerals grouped into factors 
having a separate and permanent meaning, all the nuances of ideologico-bibliographic 
analysis. These factors will delimit the principal idea by means of an auxiliary idea, this 
being sometimes another principal idea borrowed whole from some other branch of the 
classification, sometimes a bibliographical category in very general use, such as the 
auxiliary indices of time, place, language, etc., sometimes the very nomenclature of the 
sciences being dealt with. 

The various combinations of these different factors will between them also 
dispense with the necessity of creating new classification numbers each time that it might 
be useful to classify the same bibliographical notices according to different points of 
view. Thus, the encyclopedic requirements of the Universal Bibliographic Repertory can 
be reconciled with the necessities of special bibliographies. 

Bibliographic classification has problems which differ from science to science. 
These special needs have now been the object of a very great number of studies, 
knowledge of which will profit those who at this time are studying the developments 



[9] M.M. Carus (Leipzig), Christie (Greenwich) and Baudouin (Paris) are agreed on the utility of these 
nomenclature indices drawn from each branch of the classification, but the notation that they propose does 
not take sufficient account of the view of the encyclopedist who must prohibit the attribution of the same 
notation to different ideas. 



60 Paul Otlet 

which must occur in the decimal classification. Here are the titles of some of these 
studies: 13 

Bibliographic - LARNED, Library Journal, 7:129 
Art. - CUTTER, Library Journal, 7:168:72 and CARR, 
LL J., 9:172-75. 

Geographie - CUTTER, L J. 9:115-16. 

Bibliography, Larnard: J.N. Lamed, "Bibliography," Library J 'our tw/ 7(1882): 125-130 

Art, Cutter and Cam C.A. Cutter, "Classification of the Book Arts" Library Journal 7 (1882): 168-172; HJ. 

Carr, "Classification and Notation of the Book Arts," Library Journal 9 (1884): 172-175 
Geography, Cutter: [Unsigned editorial by C.A. Cutter on J.N. Larned's scheme see "Sociology, Lamed," 

below]. Library Journal 9 (1884): 115-1 16 
Folklore, Cutter, Noyes, Richardson and Bless (sic) and Wheatley: C.A. Cutter, "The Place of Folklore in a 

Classification: a Problem," Library Journal 9 (1884): 136; S.B.N. "Classifying Folk-Lore and 

Shakespeariana [a paragraph in the section, "Communications"]," Library Journal 9(1884): 156; E.C. 

Richardson, "Folk-Lore Again [a paragraph in the section, "Communication"]," Library Journal 

9(1 884): 177; R. Bliss, [untitled paragraph added to the foregoing]; Henry B. Wheatley, "The Place of 

Folk-Lore in a Classification," Library Journal 9(1 884): 188-1 89 
History, Lomax: Benjamin Lomax, "On the Classification of History." Transactions and Proceedings of the 

Third Annual Meeting of The Library Association of the United Kingdom, held at Edinburgh, October 

1880. London: Chiswick Press, 1881. pp 67-68 
History of France, Tedder following Monod: Henry R. Tedder, "The Bibliography and Classification of French 

history ["the title of the work I have to speak of is Bibliographic de 1'Histoire de France: Catalogue 

mcthodiquc et chronologique des sources et des ouvrages relatifs a l'histoire de France depuis les origincs 

jusqu'en 1789 parG. Monod..."]," The Library 1(1889): 15-23 
Law, Laue (sic): W.C. Lane, "Report on Classification, 1883-85," Library Journal 10(1885):257-262 
Library Economy, Cutter: C.A. Cutter, "Classification of Library Economy and History," Library Journal 

7(1882):271 
Mathematics, Lord Lindsay: Lord Lindsay, "A Proposed Modification of the Amherst Classification in 

Mathematics, Astronomy and Physics," Library Journal 4(1 879): 149- 152 
Pure Mathematics, Rowell: J.C. Rowell, "Classification of Pure Mathematics," Library Journal 17(1892):447 
Natural Sciences, Cutter and Trail: C.A. Cutter, "A Classification for the Natural Sciences," Library Journal 

5(1880):163-166; James W.H. Trail, "The Classification of Books in the Natural Sciences," The Library 

6(1884):13-18 
Philosophy, Cutter and Lamed: "Two Classifications of Philosophy 1. C.A. Cutter, 1879," Library Journal 

10(1885):79-80;"Two Classifications of Philosophy 2. J.A. Lamed, 1884," Library Journal 10(1885):80- 

82 
Recreative Arts, Cutter: C.A. Cutter, "Classification of the Recreative Arts and Athletic Arts," Library Journal 

10(1885):6-7 
Sociology, Lamed: J.N. Lamed, "A Nomenclature of Classification," Library Journal 9(1884):62-69 
Theology, Richardson: E.C. Richardson, "Classification of Theology," Library Journal 8 (1883): 320-321 
Zoology, Mann: B. Pickering Mann, "Zoological Subjects Partly Classified by the Dewey System," Library 

Journal 5(1 880): 143- 144 
Literature, Thomas: E.C. Thomas, "Classification of Literature," Library Chronicle 1(1885):181-183 
Folktales, Cutter: C.A. Cutter, "Classification on the Shelves," Library Journal 6 (1881):^4-69 
^Bibliography of Shakespeare, Cutter, Noyes and Tedder: C.A. Cutter, "Arrangement and Notation of 

Shakespeariana," Library Journal 9(1884): 137-139; S.B.N., "Classifying Folk-Lore and Shakespeariana 

[a paragraph under the heading, "Communications"]," Library Journal 9(1884):156; Henry R. Tedder: A 

Classification of Shakespeariana," Library Journal ll(1886):441-442 [outlines scheme] and 449 

[summary of paper on the subject]. 



Structure of Classification Numbers 61 

Also Consult 14 

Samuel H. Scuder, "The Arrangement of Books in the Libraries of Scientific Societies," Library Journal 12 

(1887): 221-224. 
James Blake Bailey, "On Classification for Scientific and Medical Libraries," Library Chronicle 3 (1886): 109- 

114. 
Borden, "Classification of Photographic Collections" Library Journal 17(1892): 195-197 
Henry B. Wheatley, "Thoughts on the Cataloguing of Journals and Transactions," Transactions and 

Proceedings of the Fourth and Fifth Annual Meetings of the Library Association of the United Kingdom, 

London, September 1881 and Cambridge, September 1882. London: Chiswick Press, 1884. pp. 190-196. 
Henry R. Tedder, "Proposals for a Bibliography of National History [read at the Annual Meeting of the Library 

Association, Plymouth 1885]," Library Chronicle 3 (1887): 185-194. 
F. Madan, "What to Aim at in Local Bibliography [read at the Annual Meeting of the Library Association, 

Birmingham 1887]," Library Chronicle 4(1 887): 144- 148 
F.B.F. Campbell, "An Introduction to the Theory of a State Paper Catalogue [read at the Annual Meeting of the 

Library Association, Reading, 1890]," The Library 3(1891):126-143 
Talbot B. Reed, "Use and Classification of a Typographical Library [Read at the Annual Meeting of the Library 

Association, Nottingham 1891]," The Library 4(1892):33-44 
W.M. Chase, "A General Engineering Classification and Index: Some Possibilities in the Extension and use, by 

the Engineering Professions, of the Dewey Decimal System," Transactions of the American Society of 

Mechanical Engineers 14(1893):780-805 



Editor's Notes 

1. P. Otlet, "Sur la structure des nombres classificateurs," IIB Bulletin 1 (1895-96): 
230-243. This article is followed by one unsigned on how to prepare papers and 
journals in such a way as to assist the bibliographer in his work, particularly by 
assigning decimal numbers: "Indexification d&imale: regies pratiques et modeles," 
IIB Bulletin 1 (1895-96): 244-249. 

2. Victor Cams, "La Zoologie et la classification decimale," IIB Bulletin 1 (1895-96): 
189-193. 

3. Marcel Baudouin, "La Classification decimale et les sciences m6dicales," IIB 
Bulletin 1 (1895-96): 166-181. 

4. Daruty de Grandpre\ "La Classification decimale et les bibliographies rggionales: 
bibliographic des iles africaines de l'ocean indien austral," IIB Bulletin 1 (1895-96): 
205-221. 

5. G. Simoens, "Quelque mots a propos de l'analyse bibliographique," IIB Bulletin 1 
(1895-96): 222-229. 

6. Otlet refers here to a note headed, "The International Conference of the Royal 
Society" and signed by Henry Armstrong, Chairman of the Organising Committee 
which was printed in IIB Bulletin 1 (1895-96): 182-188. Armstrong sets forth 
matters that an international conference on an international catalogue for scientific 
literature would need to consider. He particularly addresses the problem of the 
decimal classification adopted "en bloc" by the IIB, suggesting it will need 
substantial modification if it is to serve the purpose of an international scientific 
catalogue. He provides a lengthy specimen of entries classified by the Decimal 



62 Paul Otlet 

Classification, suggests it has "very great" advantages, but indicates that "no attempt 
has been made as yet to bring the different schemes into harmony." 

7. Otlet's first footnote refers to "Creation d'un Repertoire Bibliographique Universel: 
note preliminaire" translated above. A translation of the work he mentions in his 
Footnote 2,"Regles pour les ddveloppements a apporter a la Classification Decimale" 
follows as No. 4 in the present volume. Otlet misnumbers the footnotes in his text as 
2 and 3 (rather than 1 and 2). 

8. Teratology is "the study of monstrosities or abnormal formations in animals or 
plants." (Oxford English Dictionary). 

9. Pasigraphy is "a name given to a system of writing proposed for universal use, with 
characters representing ideas instead of words, so as to be (like the ordinary 
numerals 1, 2, 3, etc.) intelligible to persons of all languages." (Oxford English 
Dictionary). 

10. Otlet refers to his "Le Programme de llnstitut International de Bibliographic: 
objections and explications," IIB Bulletin 1 (1895-96): 73-100. In the passages 
indicated here he suggests that any classification number can be made yet more 
precise by the use of the form division indicated by 0, by a geographical subdivision 
indicated by a number in parentheses and drawn from the divisions of geography 
with the 91 suppressed, and by chronological subdivisions combined with those for 
geography. He does not in these pages discuss the use of the colon, : . 

11. Otlet refers to, "Le Programme de l'lnstitut International de Bibliographic: 
objections and explications," where he says: "... a synthetic reading [of numbers] is 
singularly facilitated by the fact that the sense given to each component is permanent 
and absolute, identical in all of the combinations of which it becomes part . . . 
Bibliography finds in the numerical symbols of the decimal classification a notation 
assuredly as clear and as practical as the notation of algebra or chemistry." 

12. The text gives(15) for the 18th Century. This presumably is a misprint and should 
read (17) as shown. 

13. The first three references are in the sketchy form given by Otlet They are followed 
by full references that have been verified, each preceded by the subject and author 
form given by Otlet Otlet's citations in this section frequently contain mistakes of 
various kinds and these have been corrected. 

14. The entries in this section have been identified, corrected, rearranged slightly and 
complete bibliographic details provided. The abbreviated citations to American and 
English sources (and the errors) must have made following up most of these 
references very difficult for European readers of the time. 



4. RULES FOR DEVELOPING THE DECIMAL CLASSIFICATION 1 



Several parts of the Decimal Classification must be developed and enriched by 
new divisions. This work has begun under the direction of the International Office of 
Bibliography which has sought collaboration from several scholarly groups. The Office 
centralises and considers for approval all the proposals for modification that are 
submitted to it It is for these collaborators that we have assembled here a few notes and 
some advice on how to go about choosing new divisions so that the necessary 
consistency will be maintained between all parts of the classification. We ask that these 
observations be examined carefully. 

New divisions should be created only in full knowledge of the situation. Thus it 
is important to re-read what has been published on the Decimal Classification in the 
Bulletin of the Institute and in Mr. Dewey's preface to the American edition. Any 
theoretical account being of little value without concrete examples, we refer to the 
developed tables of the Decimal Classification which have been published for 
Philosophy 2 and Sociology. 3 Their application may be checked in the various 
bibliographies that have already been published: Bibliographia sociologies 
Bibliographia philosophica, Bibliographia astronomica. 4 



Before the location for a new number is selected, the alphabetical index of the 
Decimal Classification should be checked to make sure that the subject has not already 
been assigned. The index ensures consistency between all parts of the classification. 

Given the decisions of the Brussels conference, so that past uses of the 
classification and future uses can be kept rigorously consistent, no numbers of the 
Decimal Classification that already exist should be modified. 



A bibliographical classification is different from a strictly scientific one in that 
its objective is quite practical: to arrange bibliographic entries in such a way that where 
they have been placed can always easily be found either by the person doing this work or 
by the person who must consult them. It follows that a bibliographic classification can 
depart from an exact scientific order without the principles of the classification being 
compromised. Moreover, because such a classification must be useful for a subject 
catalogue, one must be aware that to a certain extent it is not ideas themselves that have 
to be classified but entries for the books and journal articles that deal with these ideas. 
Consequently, while there are quite distinct subjects that ought to have their own place in 



63 



64 Paul Otlet 

a theoretical classification, a separate place in a bibliographical classification for them is 
pointless while there is nothing, or next to nothing, written about them. In other words, a 
bibliographic classification is not a pure classification of knowledge, but such a 
classification in relation to bibliographic entries [l] 



In order to create an exhaustive classification, the following rules, appropriate to 
all classifications, should be kept in mind: 

a) a complete enumeration of the objects to be classified; 

b) an examination of the specific characteristics of these objects; 

c) choice of one of these characteristics as the basis of classification; the subordination 
of other characteristics to this; 

d) arrangement of objects in classes and subclasses by proceeding from the general to 
the specific and from the simple to the complex. 

Difficulties arise because any object has many characteristics and consequently 
many possible classifications exist. In order to decide what characteristics to take as the 
basis for classification, the following observations should be kept in mind: 

1. The objects of knowledge are both material entities belonging to the physical 
world, such as minerals, plants, scientific instruments, written languages, etc., etc. and 
intellectual entities, ideas, concepts. These two kinds of objects can be considered from 
two points of view. From the first point of view they can be envisaged as complete in 
themselves, as autonomous, as a totality, as a concrete whole. From the second point of 
view, they are envisaged in terms of their relations with other objects or as parts of an 
abstract entity. 

While a classification always involves the abstract point of view and deals with 
objects in their relationships with each other, it is nevertheless necessary to be aware that 
the two points of view constantly interact For example: plants can be considered from 
the point of view of morphology, physiology, economics and geography. A country can 
be considered from the point of view of climate, geography, administration. Biology 
studies the same phenomena in all the orders of being: plants, animals, man. 

To be complete, a classification should, therefore, enumerate both the objects 
and the points of view and choose as the basis of classification a sequence of one or the 
other as needs be. 

2. The sciences, however, traditionally develop in a way that does not allow 
such clear distinctions. It is necessary to be aware of this in Bibliography, as in 
Education, because it is on this development that the professional specializations are 
based that so strongly influence the composition of the sciences themselves. 

3. Because it is to be used for a Universal Bibliographic^ Repertory, the 
classification must be considered as a whole as well as in terms of its parts. If it were 
only a question of developing a classification for each separate branch of knowledge 



[1] See what has been said on this subject in the Bulletin of the Institut International de Bibliographic, p. 86. 



Rules for the Decimal Classification 65 

without regard to the whole, then the tables for the classification of Chemistry, for 
example, would comprise not only pure chemistry but all the auxiliary and related 
sciences - applied chemistry, the general principles of physics, physiological chemistry, 
etc. On the contrary, the bibliographic repertory is unitary and its various parts support 
each other. As far as possible, therefore, to continue the example, there will be only one 
heading for chemical physiology to be used both by chemists and physiologists, a single 
photographic chemistry for photographers and chemists. 



In the developments that the Decimal Classification must undergo, it is 
necessary to be aware of the following two ideas: to make the system as mnemonic as 
possible by using the same numbers or parts of numbers to express the same ideas; and to 
establish a symmetrical correspondence between the subdivisions of the various parts of 
the classification by taking the subdivisions of one part and making them serve as the 
divisions of another part. 

As to the first point, there are numerous applications of it in the existing 
classification. Thus, history as a discipline is indexed as 9. The history of a discipline is 
indicated by the form number 09: the same number has the same meaning. 

As to the second point, one can see how the developments of philology have 
followed those of literature. In botany and zoology, the divisions 581 and 591 are 
symmetric. In medicine, there is a nearly absolute agreement between Anatomy, 
Physiology, Hygiene and Pathology. For example: 

61 Medicine 

611 Anatomy 

611.8 Anatomy of the Nervous System 

612 Physiology 

612.8 Physiology of the Nervous System 

613 hygiene 

613.8 hygiene of the Nervous S ystem 

In relation to these ideas, it may be noted that: 

1. Nearly all of today's disciplines develop according to the comparative 
method. This is notably true for Biology, Philology and Law. These disciplines, 
therefore, have fundamental divisions that are both common to each of them as a whole 
as well as to each of their component parts. Every language has, for example, grammar, 
syntax, lexicography, phonetics. This comparative approach must be preferred in the 
classification and the numbers of the classification must be arranged in such a way that 
the comparative subdivisions for points of view can be used, unmodified, as subdivisions 
for each concrete element An example is provided by the divisions for Philology (4), 
where 41 is Comparative Philology. All the divisions of 410 recur, with substantially the 
same numbers, in the divisions for the Philology of each individual language. 

2. When developments that are symmetrical and in agreement have been 
created, it is necessary to consider which aspect of a subject is to be accepted as the 



66 Paul Otlet 

principle focus for the subject in preference to other aspects which will be subordinated 
to it for development. For example: the internal administration of a country is divided 
according to the objects administered at 351.7. But there exists an international 
administration whose domain is growing ever larger. It is possible for Public Welfare, 
Unemployment and Vagrancy, Currency etc. to be the object of both national and 
international action. Therefore, all divisions of 351.7 have been repeated as divisions of 
341.27 as objects of international administration. Several of these divisions, given the 
present state of international law, will not be useful and they will be left empty. On the 
other hand, divisions that do not exist already at 351.7 will not be created at 341.27 
because the former number is treated as the focus for the subject Other numbers for 
comparison: 341.2, 347 and 351.7; 347.7 and 347; 351.77 and 614; 351.83 and 331. 

3. A consequence of this rule of symmetry and parallelism is that it is 
important to make complete enumerations even if a particular number is not used. It is 
sufficient that a division should be necessary in certain places for it to become in theory 
generally valuable, even though it may not always be used. Thus the divisions of 
Physiological Zoology will be developed at the outset for all species without regard to 
whether this or that function is characteristic of them all or only some. To begin a special 
subdivision for each species would be to introduce needless complication. Similarly, 
there exists only one series of divisions for Paleontology (56) on the one hand, and 
Botany (58) and Zoology (59) on the other. 

4. There should be a similar concern for the future. There are many divisions 
that are not useful for the bibliography of today's knowledge but which will become 
useful for tomorrow's. Rationally, to all intents and purposes such divisions can be said 
to exist already. It is necessary, therefore, to indicate what they are and to develop the 
classification in such a way that it will be able to accommodate them easily in the future. 



Some specific rules follow: 

A) When it is necessary to introduce a new subject in the classification, an 
available tenth is used. 

B) When there is no longer an available division, one looks for an already 
classified heading to which the new subject is closely related. The existing heading is 
given a more general meaning that embraces the old and the new idea. Subsequendy, the 
decimal subdivisions are developed at this heading. 

For example: The number 341.2 was assigned to international treaties. As there was 
no place for detailed studies about international administration, this classification number 
was given the collective meaning "states, territories, international relations, treaties, 
international administrations." The following divisions were created: 

34 1 .2 1 States or Persons in International Law n^ 

34 1 .22 Territories or Things in International Law 

34 1 .23 Essential and Reciprocal Rights and Duties of States 

34 1 .24 Treaties which Supplement and Modify these Rights and Duties 

In this way treaties properly speaking are no longer the only part of 341.2 
(another example for comparison: 339 Pauperism). 



Rules for the Decimal Classification 67 

C) When a subject has more than 9 divisions and when it is not possible to bring 
two or more subjects together into a collective grouping, all the subjects that are left over 
are placed at the ninth division under the heading "Other" - see the Bulletin, p.89. 6 

D) When the divisions are numerous and constitute an enumeration and not a 
classification into branches and sub-branches, the decimal division into 10 can be 
abandoned in favour of division by lOOths. This division then yields 80 new numbers not 
100, because 01, 02 to 09 and 20, 30, 40...90 must not be used in order to avoid 
confusion with the form numbers used for generalities - consult the development of the 
number 1 19 in the tables for philosophy in Bibliographica philosophical 

E) If one decides that a subject would be better classified at another place, there is 
nothing to prevent it being relocated and given a new number. The old number is not 
suppressed but remains unused. A reference is made from one number to the other and 
this bilocation gives much flexibility to the system. Too many places for the same 
subject should be avoided. 



In order to make an exhaustive listing, one or other of the following procedures 
is used: 

a) one works experimentally by trying to classify already collected bibliographic 
references. 

b) one compiles a classified index for general treatises. 

c) one collects all the words from the indexes of these treatises, from technical 
encyclopedias or from other bibliographies. Because journal articles always deal 
with more specialized subjects than books, it is useful to prepare a classified index 
for technical journals. 



One of the principal merits of the Decimal Classification is its simplicity. It is 
important to preserve this quality, especially from the point of view of combining 
numbers and using parts of the tables. 

The combination of numbers, which has been discussed in the note on the rules 
for the Decimal Classification, involves the geographic index, the history index, the form 
indices and whole number specification (see Bulletin, p. 90). 8 Thoughtful use of these 
numbers can extend the use of the Decimal Classification without creating new numbers. 
To cite only one example, all the scientific applications of photography will be classified 
at the number 778 which can be modified by any specific number. Thus, the application 
of photography to the stars, 778.52, etc. These complementary numbers should be added 
to the pure radical of the classification number as much as possible. This is simpler and 
more mnemonic. For example: 

Public Finances 336 

idem in France 336 (44). 



68 Paul Otlet 

It is necessary to avoid saying - because this would be unnecessarily 
complicated: 



Public Finances 


336 


idem in different countries 


336.1 


idem in France 


336.1 (44) 


Budget 


336.2 



To repeat what has been said about symmetrical and parallel developments, we 
stress the importance of choosing from possible numbers those which allow the greatest 
future development and which are easiest to use in combinations. Several examples of 
this can be found in the present Decimal Classification: 

01 Bibliography 

015 Bibliography by Country 

016 Bibliography by special subject (e.g. 
016:52 bibliography of astronomy). 



In a general way, when a new number or a new combination of numbers is to be 
created, it is necessary to have a mental picture of the exact place the bibliographic card 
that is indexed by the new number will occupy in a catalogue. For example, it is a matter 
of some importance whether literature is indexed on the basis of country then by genre 
for each country and then by periods for each genre, as opposed to periods for each 
country and then genre. Thus: 



or 



French Literature: 




Poetry, 


18 century 
19th century 


Drama, 


18th century 
19th century 


Rhetoric 


18th century 
19th century 


French Literature: 




18th century, 


Poetry 
Drama 
Rhetoric 


19th century, 


Poetry 
Drama 
Rhetoric 



Rules for the Decimal Classification 69 

In the first instance, all French poetry is brought together as is all of theatre, and 
the divisions by genre precede those by period. In the second instance, the dominant idea 
is to group the works of one period. When developing the tables, one must decide in each 
individual case which idea should be primary and which secondary. 

Editor's Notes 

1. Office international de Bibliographic Regies pour les diveloppements d apporter d 
la Classification Dicimale. Bruxelles: OIB, 1896. 13 pp. This is unsigned. 

2. Referred to here, presumably, are the "Tables M6thodiques de la Classification 
Decimale" which appeared in the February 1, 1986 issue of Sommaire ideologique 
des ouvrages et des revues de philosophic published as a supplement to the Revue 
nio-scholastique. (See also Editor's Note 44 to Paper 2, "Creation of a Universal 
Bibliographic Repertory...") These tables and the "Introduction" which precedes 
them are interesting in showing ways in which it was decided to proceed practically 
to fill in gaps in Dewey's tables or re-order subjects where he had not been "strictly 
logical". Related matters were to be brought together at one number which would 
thus have enlarged signification (for example, 165 Sources of Error was also to be 
used for Criteriology). This procedure is discussed later in this paper. A Dewey 
number would be accepted but extended (Dewey's 149.9 would become 149.911). 
Finally, the idea of one number "determining" or "modifying" another was 
described, and indeed, a combined number was shown in sequence in the Tables: 
15:612 Physiological Psychology followed by 150 Psychology and its form 
divisions. A footnote explained "one number can determine another by the use of the 
sign: ...15 indicates Psychology; 612 (with all of its divisions) Physiology; the whole 
expression 15:612 Psycho-physiology." 

3. The Sociology Tables were published in 1895 as Decimal Classification: Sociology, 
Sozialwissenschaft, Sociologie. Tables mithodiques et alphabetique... (See Editor's 
Note 38 to Paper 2, "Creation of a Universal Bibliography...."). 

4. For an account of the Bibliographia sociologica and Bibliographia philosophica see 
Editor's Notes 43 and 44 to Paper 2, "Creation of a Universal Bibliographic 
Repertory..." 

Fascicule I of the Bibliographia Astronomical Astronomic mitiorologie, giodesie, 
physique du globe. Sommaire mithodique des trailis et des revues dresses 
conformement d la Classification De'cimale appeared in 1895. It was sponsored by 
the Library of the Soci6te" Beige d'Astronomie and published by the OIB and George 
Bolat to whom bibliographic matter was to be sent for incorporation into the index. 
The actual "Sommaire" or bibliography is only 4 leaves long, with entries only on 
one side of the page to facilitate their "transfer to separate cards... which explains the 
blank pages in our issue." The introduction describes the Classification and the 
overall objectives of the OIB. The divisions for Astronomy are then listed on pages 
1-10. It is not clear how much more, if anything, was published in 1895 of this very 
slight work (The Editor has seen only this single issue). In 1897 an attempt was 



70 Paul Otlet 

made to take the bibliography up again. An introductory or specimen issue appeared 
in which the Bibliographia Universalis, the Decimal Classification, and conditions of 
subscription to the Bibliographia astronomica were described. A first issue was then 
published marked January-February 1897. The OIB and Bolat are again shown to be 
associated in the publication. Again it is not clear if anything more appeared. 

5. Otlet refers here to his discussion of this point in "Le Programme de l'lnstitut 
International de Bibliographic: objections and explications," IIB Bulletin 1 (1895- 
96): 73-100. 

6. Referred to is "Le Programme de l'lnstitut International de Bibliographie..."where 
Otlet observes that, "after having given the first eight numbers to the first eight 
divisions, one gives to the 9th the meaning 'other subdivisions of the same subject' 
and the remaining subdivisions become 91, 92, 93, 94 etc." He gives an example 
from 914, the geography of Europe: 



914.1 


Scotland 


914.2 


England 


914.7 


Russia 


914.8 


Scandinavia 


914.81 


Norway 


914.82 


Sweden 


914.9 


Other Countries of Europe 


914.91 


Iceland 



7. There is some confusion in this reference. In the "Tables M6thodique" given in the 
February 1896 issue of the Sommaire idologique...de philosophic, 119 is the 
number for Quantity and has no further division. Number 191 is for Modern 
American Philosophers. It is broken down by individuals; for example, 191.3 is 
Ralph Waldo Emerson. The enumeration does not continue beyond the 9, but 
follows the rule for division if there are more than 9 divisions described in the 
preceding footnote. Thus, 191.9 is Other American Philosophers. The entries in the 
Sommaire itself show that this number is not further subdivided to enumerate the 
other American Philosophers. Otlet's footnote [7] to "On the Structure of 
Classification Numbers" (Paper 3 in this volume) is relevant here. 

8. Referred to here is Otlet's "Le Programme de l'lnstitut International de 
Bibliographic." He discusses combinations with form and geographical numbers 
and how to derive the number 537.09 (44.04) - history of electricity at the time of 
the French Revolution. Otlet does not here discuss what I have translated as "whole 
number specification" involving use of the colon in the related discussion in the 
previous paper "On the Structure of Classification of Numbers". 



5. THE SCIENCE OF BIBLIOGRAPHY AND DOCUMENTATION 1 



The world's most important character, who has been discussed for perhaps three thousand 
years in turn as a giant or a pigmy, conceited or modest, sometimes bold or timid, knowing 
now to assume all forms ana all roles, capable in turn 01 enlightening or clouding minds, of 
moving the passions or of calming them, creator of factions, conciliator of parties, a veritable 
Proteus whom no definition can capture - this personage is the Book.[i] 

Does there exist for the extraordinary being thus described, who appears 
successively behind the exteriors of millions of volumes, brochures, compendia, reports and 
journal articles, each reproduced in thousands of copies, a body of systematic knowledge, a 
well organised discipline? What is this discipline called? How is its subject defined, 
delimited, divided up? 



Inappropriate terms lead to erroneous or imperfect conceptions. When one consults 
any dictionary taken up by chance, one reads: "BIBLIOGRAPHY (Biblion, book, graphd, I 
describe), Science, knowledge of Bibliography; BfflLIOGRAPHER, one who is acquainted 
with books, editions, etc." The vagueness of such notions is striking. Not having a precise 
definition, one must first of all find out what knowledge of the book has involved up till now. 

If one proceeds empirically one can divide the works which have dealt with this 
subject into several large classes. The first class of works is addressed to technical persons 
and deals with the making of paper, type-fonts, the printing of books properly speaking, the 
industry and commerce of books: that is to say, with all that is concerned with printing, 
publishing and the book trade. 

In the second class, the History of the Book is studied by going back to its origins in 
the invention of writing and then, whether written on papyrus, parchment or paper, whether 
written by hand or printed, by tracing its various developments among the peoples of the 
Orient, Greece and Rome, to the Middle Ages, and up to the modern period. Works on the 
history of printing are the most important in this class. 

A third class of books deals with library economy or with the techniques of libraries, 
institutions whose purpose is to preserve works and to make them available to readers. Here 
it is mainly a matter of the physical installation of libraries, organisation, administration, 
their relations with the public, and of the classification and cataloguing of materials, etc. 
Certain works under the name Library Ecography [biblioecographie] deal with the 
description of particular libraries. 



[ 1 ] E. Hgger, Histoire du Uvre depuis ses origines jusqua nos jours, Paris, Hetzel, p. viL 



71 



72 Paul Otlet 

A fourth class of works deals with Bibliophily. Here it is not a matter of book 
production, systematic description, preservation, or use. Rather, the book is considered solely 
as a precious and rare object, worthy of being collected in the same way that paintings, 
engravings and curios are collected. 

A fifth class is directed towards a special public concerned with artistic matters. 
Here illustrators, designers, water colourists, and engravers are studied: that is to say, 
everything connected with the graphic decoration of the book and its binding [2]. 

A sixth class of works deals with bibliographical techniques properly speaking: that 
is to say, methods of describing works and forming bibliographical catalogues as well as 
organising the institutions responsible for their care. 

A seventh class of materials comprises all bibliographical works themselves: that is 
to say, bibliographical repertories of all kinds and descriptive lists of books. 

If some strict rule determined the formation of scientific terms, the word bibliology 
would long ago have taken its place beside bibliography. As a general name it would have 
included all of the various subjects which deal with books. Thus it is that "philology" 
comprises all that bears on the study of language, "sociology" all that deals with the study of 
societies, "technology" all that touches upon industry and the mechanical arts. 

Rationally the term bibliology ought to be defined as: the science of the book, or the 
whole of our knowledge relative to books. Unfortunately, the term has been frequently 
employed in a restricted sense. It cannot replace the term bibliography [3] because this 
already has a special sense which leads to confusion as one has just seen: its etymological 
formation has led to it signifying aspects of subjects rather than the theoretical aspects of 
knowledge about the book. 

Because there is no generic, logically-formed name, all of our knowledge relating to 
the book has sometimes been placed under the heading, "Science of the Book." But this 
expression is itself inexact and of a kind to cast doubt on the precise subject of this 
knowledge, for the word, "book", in its strict sense does not include periodicals or 
newspapers or separately printed leaves or cards. None of the appellations proposed up till 
now, therefore, appears adequately to express the subject of the knowledge with which we 
are concerned. 

Apart from any question of terminology, preliminary to it even, is the very real need 
to determine in a rational way the structure of the discipline that embraces all of what we 
know about the book and to systematize a few of the subjects that it includes. 

Some difficulties, common to all studies of this kind, appear at the outset To define 
a discipline, to delimit its subject, is above all to establish its relations with other disciplines. 
It is, in the final analysis, to undertake a task of classification. Now, needless to say, all 
classification is naturally, in part at least, a matter of convention. It must be based on only 
one of the characteristics of the objects to be classified even though analytically there are an 
indefinite number of such characteristics. Objectively there exist only distinct objects or 
separate ideas. All links which we establish between objects or ideas bear the mark of 



[2] See, principally, Le Livre by Henri Buchot. 

[3] "Bibliography", said Ch. V. Langlois in his Manuel de bibliographie historique (Paris, 1896, p. vi) "is the 
science of books in contrast to library economy which deals with the classification and the physical description 
of books and the organisation and history of libraries, in contrast to bibliology which deals with the History of 
the Book from the point of view of its physical make-up (printing, binding, selling). Bibliography, in its strict 
sense, is that special part of the science of books which deals with catalogues and which furnishes the means of 
acquiring as promptly and completely as possible information about sources." 



Science of Bibliography 73 

subjectivity. Thus, in a certain sense, it would be exact to say that the sciences are simply 
collectivities of what is known that can be shaped in very different and varying ways into 
self-contained bodies of doctrine. 

Sometimes the mind takes the physical, concrete object as the basis of study and 
examines it from all points of view; sometimes, on the contrary, it deals with the ideal, 
abstract concept, with law or theory, which is examined in terms of all kinds and forms of 
relevant objects. Hence arises the principle of the sciences of objects and the sciences of 
ideas; but, in fact, most of the now developed sciences involve complex knowledge. They 
overlap each other and information related to them is often assembled in heterogeneous 
ways. Order can only be established by explicit or implicit agreement that is based on 
tradition, the decisions of congresses, the grouping of professions or the distribution of 
subjects among institutions of scientific research and teaching. 

Given these general observations, we can now usefully examine the question posed. 
If one looks at things in a general way, one may observe that the book is only a particular 
case, a term derived from a series of notions which can be subordinated thus: 

Knowledge or Understanding 

Everything we know about objects in the external world or from our own thinking, physical 
objects (natural or artificial), non-physical objects (laws, thoughts, sentiments). 

Graphic documents 

Everything which expresses an element of knowledge directly (a known fact) by any 
graphic representation whatever (manuscripts or printed texts, inscriptions, 
epigraphy, drawings, iconography). 

Writings 

Those documents which represent knowledge by means of writing. 

Printed works 

Those written documents which are reproduced typographically or 
by analogous procedures of mechanical multiplication. 

Books 

Those printed works which are published separately and 
which contain a certain number of leaves devoted to the 
exposition of a single idea or a single group of ideas. 

Numerous consequences flow from this subordination of ideas. 

The science of the book cannot involve the study of the actual information contained 
in documents. This is a matter for the various individual disciplines. Knowledge is not 
identical with the documents which make it available and preserve its elements. It is quite 



74 Paul Otlet 

distinct, for it is a work of the human mind. Nevertheless, because the human mind is 
parcelled out into as many pieces as there are individuals, because it is not possible to gather 
together all who concern themselves with the same subject into a universal and permanent 
assizes, because man can only communicate his thought to man when not physically present, 
successively and by means of external signs, he has been forced to have recourse to the 
intermediary of innumerable written statements. The possibility of gathering these writings 
together, of blending and translating ideas, creates that permanence and simultaneity which 
ought to be typical of the human mind. Such are the role and function of conservation and 
transmission of thought which have devolved onto writing. 

One should note that once produced, written texts can, in their turn, become objects 
of study and as such, inspire systematic knowledge based on what books have in common, 
once the subject matter with which they deal has been set apart. Our analysis, however, leads 
us in general to distinguish the book and the idea as form from substance, the container from 
the contents, and clearly to distinguish knowledge on the one hand from documentation on 
the other. 



Documentation should be distinguished with no less care from the Organization of 
Knowledge. This imprecise expression, which it is convenient to use in the absence of a 
unique term with a definite meaning, is here applied to the whole of the facts and 
considerations which are involved in the life and external organisation of knowledge itself, 
everything that has risen from creating it, preserving it, teaching it, disseminating it. 

Knowledge has been defined as "the systematization of what is known on a given 
subject" The unity and inter-dependence of individual branches of knowledge have been 
recognised. A characteristic of universality through time and internationalism across 
countries has been proclaimed. As a corollary of these fundamental characteristics of human 
knowledge, it has been necessary to create an intellectual machinery for the simultaneous and 
continuous development of knowledge, to make effective the co-operation of scholars of 
different generations and of different countries and also to make general syntheses possible 
concurrently with analytical studies, to ensure that the progress of specialities keeps in step 
with the development of whole disciplines. 

Following ever more detailed plans that reflect recent developments more 
effectively, we have witnessed each branch of knowledge organising itself separately at first, 
then we have seen organisations common to several areas emerge. What has been done, what 
exists today and what is projected in this area are considerable. To discuss this here would 
mean writing a treatise about the organisation of knowledge as a special discipline which in 
the future ought to be regarded as such. It would be analogous with respect to their external 
characteristics to general philosophy with respect to their internal conditions. 

Let it suffice here to list some of the chapters of this treatise by mentioning some of 
the issues common to all branches of knowledge, or, to be more exact^the issues presented 
by each of them. 

Because any subject is susceptible in principle of becoming a discipline or branch of 
systematized knowledge, all that is needed is for a certain number of persons to be 
sufficiently interested in its investigation for them to organise themselves for co-operation in 
research. Whereupon a scientific society is born which has these studies as its particular goal. 



Science of Bibliography 75 

When societies having similar goals have been created in this way in different countries, they 
usually join to form an international association or institution which organises congresses or 
periodic meetings. Nearly all of these societies publish a Bulletin or Proceedings which they 
exchange with each other. These publications fulfil the double aim of making the work of 
their members known to others and, by providing an analysis of the work of those belonging 
to other associations, of keeping their members abreast of the general development of the 
discipline. Next, the "Year-book" of the discipline is bom; that is to say, a compendium of 
general information on the subject it is concerned with and the names and addresses of 
persons and institutions dealing with it The preparation of the special Bibliography of the 
field begins at the same time. This is sometimes published periodically in each of the 
Bulletins, sometimes collected and published as a whole in the Year-book or in a special 
publication. It is often taken up as a task by one of the societies in the group of those dealing 
with a particular field or by the international association that they have formed together. 

Congresses devote themselves to the discussion of scientific problems in the field, 
matters on which no vote is taken. Congresses also discuss the organisation of work and this 
does become the object of decisions and resolutions. What is involved here, indeed, is 
organisation and administration, an area where convention (rather than free scientific 
enquiry) plays the major role. Thus, scientific congresses deal with the standardisation and 
generalization of such matters as measurement, methods, apparatus and instruments, 
terminology and classification. They also discuss, support or undertake research requiring 
extensive co-operation and collective publications whose aim is the co-ordination of a great 
deal of information or a great many documents. This research and these publications could 
not possibly be undertaken by individual initiative alone. 

The teaching of a discipline at all levels is also a matter for the Organisation of 
Knowledge: special professorships, practical courses and seminars, popular lectures, research 
institutes, and all the ways of encouraging the study of a science: competitions, study 
scholarships, travel scholarships, etc. 

Finally, with all its faltering, its questioning, its observations, its discoveries, its 
discussions, its plans whether completed or just being formulated, knowledge taken as a 
whole produces as it unfolds thousands and thousands of graphic documents, principally 
books and journal articles. Dealing with these is of great concern to the Organisation of 
Knowledge: the composition and editing of works, their physical production, their 
preservation in libraries, listing and indexing them in bibliographical and reviewing 
publications, etc. 

Such are the various subjects related to the Organization of Knowledge and which 
are studied in a comparative way. It is not limited to the examination of a particular 
discipline. Its investigations involve different disciplines, each of which is examined for what 
it has done best in these various areas. This is brought to the attention of specialists in other 
disciplines, and thus, gradually, a typical organisational structure is determined on the model 
of which in the future all new knowledge can be built 

As one has just seen, everything which deals with scientific documentation, can, in 
the final analysis, be considered as a branch of the organisation of knowledge. Nevertheless, 
because of its importance it is advisable to make this branch of study, like teaching, an 
independent and self-contained subject. 



76 Paul Otlet 



Not all documents are the province of the Science of the Book. It is necessary here 
to make some distinctions and to attempt some definitions. The sources of our knowledge, 
the documents on which it depends are: 1) the physical objects themselves, 2) monuments, 3) 
written sources. 

In the first category of documents, it is necessary to include natural objects, 
specimens or samples of them, and non-graphic models or representations of them. These 
objects lead to graphic reproductions and to written works either about the objects 
themselves and the various matters related to them, or about reproductions of them. 

Figurative documents include inscriptions, drawings and all works of plastic, 
decorative and pictorial art, monuments, antiquities, utensils, and various objects which 
principally are related to art, archaeology, epigraphy and iconography. These documents, like 
the physical objects themselves, also become the subject of graphic reproductions and written 
literary works. 

Written sources comprise literary materials, archival documents, and all other 
writings. By writings is generally meant any document containing a transcription by means 
of the letters, words, and phrases of the spoken language. It does not matter much what the 
transcription is made on (paper, vellum, silk, etc.), or the instrument or the procedure by 
which it is performed (hand, typewriter, printing press), or the format in which the writing is 
presented (manuscript, printed volume, brochure, periodical article, separate sheet, card, etc.) 

Literary works are artificially created written works - systems of facts and of ideas, 
scholarly statements or expositions, products of the imagination and sentiment - intended for 
the public and definable in one or several brief words (the title), which provides a summary 
of them and indicates exactly what they contain. These literary works are either handwritten 
or printed, and the printing is either from originals or from reproductions. As for news, casual 
information, news briefs, announcements, simple facts, they are of documentary interest, of 
course, but being reported in a fragmentary way and having involved no effort of synthesis, 
they are not literary works properly speaking. 

Archival materials are official or private written documents produced in the course 
of the life or functioning either of an institution or an organisation (state, province, town, 
government service), or of a family or an individual. They are charters, diplomas, letters, 
diplomatic correspondence, laws, accounts, surveys, reports, forms, memoranda, etc. 
Archival documents or materials are sometimes in manuscript and unpublished, sometimes 
printed. Some of them were printed at the time they were created, as in the case of 
parliamentary documents and the contemporary publications of states; others have been 
printed at a later period than when they were produced, such as, for example, the publication 
nowadays of old maps and ordinances. 

Other writings (notes of personal studies, autographs, correspondence), depending 
on circumstances, can become sources of information. Their mass is considerable; they have 
very little general interest except when circumstances happen to place them in the category of 
archives. ^ 

Which of these diverse kinds of documents are within the scope of the Science of 
the Book and by what signs do we recognize them as such? It is not possible theoretically to 
find an absolute criterion for a document in the fact of its being printed or constituting a 
literary work, or being intended for the public and having been published, or appearing in the 
form of a volume. 



Science of Bibliography 77 

If one were to confine oneself to the generally accepted view today, one would have 
to say: literary works alone are within the scope of the science of the book. By literary works 
one means written documents which externally have the physical form of the book or, at 
least, a form which is derived from it (a gathering of several sheets of paper, vellum, etc.) 
and, internally, have the structure of an intellectual organism, a statement of closely linked 
notions and ideas with a beginning, a middle and an end, and a logical construction of 
phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and chapters. Actual physical objects and monuments, it goes 
without saying, would therefore be ruled out But polygraphic reproductions of them would 
also be set aside as would everything which constitutes a figurative, schematic or symbolic 
representation of them: that is to say, drawings, engravings, prints, illustrations of all kinds, 
photographs, musical parts, diagrams, maps and outlines. No longer would manuscripts be 
included or archives or printed items of news or collections of these (that is, newspapers) or 
any other kind of writing. But such a limitation applied to the documents which fall within 
the domain of the science of the book can be countered by numerous and forceful arguments 
[41 

The limitation is based on the morphology of documents and not on their function. 
Now, one can observe that in most branches of scholarly work, the function of documents is 
becoming more and more important. It consists in achieving an ever better distribution of 
exact, precise and complete information on all the topics which are the subject of the study 
and concern of man, no matter the form in which the information can be supplied. This 
general point of view, whose acceptance is only relatively recent, takes into account the 
present situation and future requirements much more than traditional approaches and the 
historical development of the Science of the Book. It gives to the latter a more rational and 
stable foundation than the rather arbitrary distinctions that have been used to justify the 
inclusion of certain categories of documents in the domain of the book or their exclusion 
from it Whether literary works are printed or in manuscript, whether it is a matter of 
complete and systematic accounts or of single, separate facts, whether the written documents 
have been prepared to meet particular needs or whether they were intended from their 
inception for the general public, whether they constitute manuscript archival materials or 
publications distributed in a great number of copies, or whether, finally, they are writings 
pure and simple or drawn representations or photographs of real objects or schematic 
representations of intellectual concepts - all of these documents, without distinguishing 
between them, are able to make some contribution of knowledge to whoever is searching for 
particular information on a given matter. Henceforth, it will be the documentary character of 
these different classes of objects which will prevail over others and will justify their 
inclusion, from this point of view, in the domain of the Science of the Book. 

The trend towards the systematic organisation of documentation, towards making it 
the true object of the knowledge that until now has been indicated by the name Science of the 
Book, is clearly demonstrated by an examination of three orders of fact: the orientation of 
bibliographical works, the modern requirements of libraries, and the attempts which have 
been made to improve and change the present form of publications. 



[4] The determination of the domain of the science of the book has practical implications for the documents which 
bibliographic repertories are to include or exclude. 



78 Paul Otlet 

Of the role of bibliography as an instrument of documentation, there is no need to 
speak here other than by way of recapitulation. Statements of purpose of all the great 
bibliographical works which have been undertaken deal repeatedly with the several aspects 
of this question [5]. Born of the need to have an inventory of literary riches, bibliography has 
been extended and improved until it has become an indispensable guide across the vast 
terrain of written documents. 

Following the unforeseen development of scientific literature as a result of the 
journals and bulletins of learned societies, one may assert that nearly everything that has 
been discovered, observed or thought, has become the basis of an article, or a note, or a 
printed communication. This enormous mass of apparently unconnected documents 
nevertheless does have at least one most important link: it is the product of international co- 
operation for the development of knowledge. If an immense map of the domains of 
knowledge were set before us, showing all of the complex divisions and sub-divisions of 
their territories, we would be able to pin-point quite easily any work being undertaken in any 
of these regions. We would see how this work adds to similar work in order to advance what 
was written previously, and how in its turn it serves as a link between past achievements and 
future progress. Such a unitary and synthetic conception of knowledge and documentation 
underlies the foundation of the Universal Bibliographic Repertory [6], When this repertory is 
completed, all that has been written can, in a certain sense, be thought of as forming a single 
great book, a book of formidable proportions with a more or less unlimited number of 
chapters, but, in the final analysis, a book that is well organised and easy to consult because 
of the general index by subjects and authors' names that the repertory provides. 

Documents that have been collected and lie today unused in lifeless depositories - 
because they are unknown to those who have the greatest need of them - will then truly 
contribute to the general development of ideas. They will be able to nourish intellectual work 
wherever it is undertaken. At last intellectual workers will possess a precise and 
comprehensive instrument of learning and information able to respond at any moment to the 
questions which will be addressed to it in this two-fold form: "what works have been 
published on such and such a question? What works have been published by such and such 
an author?" 

The completion of this task will not mean that the work of Bibliography will be at 
an end. It must then, let us proclaim it, attempt to take a new step forward. The ultimate units 
registered and classified in the bibliographic repertory are books, brochures, and journal 
articles. Bibliography must not be limited to what are in effect such gross components. If the 
development of science proceeds from the simple to the complex, scientific research 
proceeds from the complex to the simple. Just as chemists have moved from analysing 
molecules to analysing atoms, and biologists from tissues to cells, even so must the 
bibliographer, having completed the inventory of written works, attempt an inventory of the 
contents of these works. Analytical Indexes must take their place beside Bibliographical 



[5] See particularly, the Bulletin of the Inst it ui International de Bibliographic and the Repertoire Bibliographique 
Universel, Vol. l,p. 15 2 

[6] "To gather together, to amalgamate and co-ordinate the bibliography of the works of all places, in all 
languages, on all subjects in a single repertory consisting of two parts: the first a repertory of subjects, the 
second a repertory of authors; to set up this repertory in such a manner as to permit its reproduction in multiple 
copies, to divide it according to the various branches of knowledge and to keep it constantly up to date with 
current scientific and literary production - such is the work undertaken by the International Institute of 
Bibliography under the title Universal Bibliographic Repertory." 



Science of Bibliography 79 

Catalogues. Methods will be found to index works quickly and completely in order to permit 
the retrieval, instantly and without trouble or difficulty, of the substance of what each 
publication contributes to knowledge. 



But bibliography, whatever improvements it may one day enjoy, is only a guide, an 
instrument of research. Ultimately, it is necessary to go to libraries to obtain the actual 
documents, the sources of our written knowledge. Thus it is no wonder that in recent years, 
as the requirements for more extensive and easier documentation have become more clearly 
accepted, libraries have been undergoing profound changes. No wonder, moreover, that new 
principles have been formulated in programmes of "political library economy," if one can 
express by this term all of the ideas which have been proposed for future action in this area. 

For a long time, libraries were only "warehouses of books" entrusted to "curators" 
whose principal pre-occupation was to keep close guard on the collections placed in their 
care. The development and of the collections and the better use of them by the public 
certainly were not irrelevant concerns, but how secondary in their view were such tasks and 
how primitive the methods they employed! In order to understand how this happened it is 
necessary to re-read from this point of view the history of the origin and development of the 
great libraries. 

Today, there exist collections of books comprising more than two million volumes 
and whose annual accessions are more than one hundred thousand volumes [7], They have 
had to come to grips with quite new problems arising, on the one hand, from difficulties of 
storage, classification and circulation of such tremendous masses of materials situated in the 
centres of large cities, and on the other hand, from new ideas within the research community 
about what it should be able to gain from such resources. Once, one read; today one refers to, 
checks through, skims. Vita brevis ars longdi There is too much to read; the times are wrong; 
the trend is no longer slavishly to follow the author through the maze of a personal plan 
which he has outlined for himself and which, in vain, he attempts to impose on those who 
read him. 

Works are referred to, that is to say, one turns to them to ask for a reply to very 
precise, specialized questions. The reply found, one parts company, ungratefully no doubt but 
certainly for a thousand good reasons, from the obliging friend who has just given such good 
service. It rarely happens that an adequate reply is found in a single book and that it is not 
necessary to obtain such a reply from a combination of partial answers provided by a variety 
of works. Thus arises the necessity of having available great quantities of works, as many as 
possible; thus, also, the obligation of not systematically eliminating any work from book 
collections because little importance or value is attributed to it. Who can make a 
pronouncement on the usefulness or uselessness of a document when so many interpretations 
of the same text are possible, when so many former truths are recognized as wrong today, 
when so many accepted facts have been modified by more recent discoveries; when, in the 
present anarchy of intellectual production, so few questions have been dealt with 



[7] See Paul Otlet: "La Statistique intemationale des imprimes" in the Bulletin de I'lnstitut International de 
Bibliographic 1896,300-319; 1900, 109-121; 1902, p. 210-212. 



80 Paul Otlet 

exhaustively by a single author; and when, so often, it is necessary to be content with a half- 
truth or run the risk of remaining in a state of complete ignorance? 

The number of works which libraries contain increases the need for documentation, 
just as organs develop functions. This need, in its turn, acts strongly on the necessary 
enlargement of collections of books. But this process cannot be confined to the realm of large 
libraries. It spreads beyond them through the diffusion of the works themselves. More 
reliable, better arranged, more up-to-date books can be produced because of the improved 
bibliographical apparatus of these libraries. Such books become models that, naturally, 
intellectual workers, who otherwise only have access to inferior bibliographical equipment, 
wish to imitate and surpass. Such books lead us to pose very clearly the problem of 
documentation in relation to libraries of the second rank. 

It is just the impossibility of satisfying everyone by increasing the number of large 
libraries that has imperceptibly given rise to the notion of a new organisation for collections 
of books. A general library service is undertaken in each country by the central or national 
library in cooperation with special and local libraries. From the public's point of view, these 
will be transformed simply into departments or branches. The central library, according to 
this programme, is thought of as a "universal library" in terms of periods, countries, and 
subjects of the books in it Even with all the restrictions which must be imposed in fact on 
such a notion, in principle it constitutes the realization of the complete library of which the 
Universal Bibliographical Repertory is the ideal catalogue. Hitherto unorganised deposits of 
older materials which it assimilates into its own collections begin its development, and it 
continues to grow by means of purchases, exchanges and donations. 

This concentration, this fusion, as in industry, brings with it tremendous economies 
of management It places materials in more beneficial conditions with respect to security, 
care, maintenance, and protection from fire and other dangers. Moreover, it facilitates 
enormously the use of materials because the location of the central library is in general more 
accessible during the day, and because a more numerous and expert personnel is responsible 
for cataloguing, housing and circulating the materials. The collections also complement each 
other. They are acquired with more discrimination and the amalgamation of budgets leads to 
the avoidance of duplicate purchases which are so disconcerting when resources are lacking 
for the acquisition of essential items. 

On the other hand, the increase in budgets permits improved facilities. Buildings, 
furniture, heating, lighting, and the circulation of books can be dealt with in quite new ways. 
Mechanization is transforming older systems and is beginning to be used in Documentation 
to deal as extensively as possible with the material side of its preparation and to free it from 
physical restrictions that have no interest or value [8]. 

The central library has become very much better organised. It is divided into 
sections, each of which corresponds to one of the major branches of knowledge: this is the 
principle of federation. Documents are classified by subject. A specialist is placed in charge 
of each section and is located with the works belonging to his subject and under his control. 
Readers are no longer brought together in a single large room in the chance order of their 
arrival, but are dispersed in various rooms which house the books belonging to each specialty 
so that the distance between books and readers is reduced to a minimum. Readers have free 
access to the shelves and can make use as they wish of all the works there. Thus readers have 



[8] Spofford, A.R., 1903: "The mental and mechanical in librarie (sic)." Library Journal, January 1903. 



Science of Bibliography 81 

an opportunity of really getting their hands on the best books on the subjects of interest to 
them [9j. 

Following the integration of its own services, the central library gradually absorbs 
into its organisation previously independent but related services whose importance 
immediately begins to increase when they become part of a well-organised whole. These 
services are international exchanges between scholarly bodies, legal deposit, the exchange of 
duplicates between libraries, the publication of union catalogues for several libraries, the 
collection and distribution of government documents, bibliographical services, the industrial 
archives of patent offices, the libraries of learned societies, and collections of documentary 
photographs, portraits and scenes. 

The administration of the central library is divided into sections first according to 
the nature of service and second according to various subject specialities: philosophy, natural 
sciences, medical sciences, social sciences, etc. But to strengthen and extend the scope of 
what it does, the central library also tries to involve in its management and work the 
scientific institutions and associations that want to be useful. In this way it attempts never to 
lose contact with what can keep it informed of the true needs of those who must have access 
to it. 

Finally, use of the documents preserved in these great depositories, the 
dissemination of their treasures, will become a major activity in the future. Already the 
library has been christened the University of the People. This is intended to indicate that it is 
truly the place where the public can come at all hours of the day to find knowledge freely 
available without any preliminary formality and without being restricted by the 
complications of programmes of classes and lectures: it is the university of self-instruction. 
Bibliographical catalogues situated at the entrance of the reading room provide initial 
guidance. Beside them, Section Heads are living informants, eager to introduce those 
unfailingly obliging but modest and reserved "teachers" who speak only when spoken to, 
which is what books and documents are. These are not the only kinds of information to be 
offered to the public. As well as the catalogues and the section heads there are information 
services on every general subject Having themselves been coordinated and considerably 
improved, these services too have become associated with the central library. They are the 
scientific and technical information services which government departments and private 
institutions set up many years ago to inform and guide the practical activities of citizens in 
the fields of industry, commerce, agriculture, and social service. Such services (commercial 
museums, social museums, colonial offices) have arisen because of the difficulty experienced 
by most people in finding their way around publications when they need to get information 
rapidly and comprehensively. It is noteworthy that these services are being associated with 
the central library, for they are also, in some fashion, sources of documentation. 

Organised as just described, the central library truly constitutes a central Institute of 
Documentation. It becomes, with respect to received knowledge that it must preserve and 
disseminate, a kind of special universitas, just as knowledge that is new and to be taught has 



[9] "All scholars wish to encounter in a library neither physical impediments nor administrative intermediaries; one 
dreams of being able oneself to search in easily accessible shelves for a wanted book, to go through a series of 
periodicals, to scan a card catalogue, to consult "a source" for a bibliographic reference, and to do all this just at 
the exact moment one's curiosity is aroused before it is blunted by an often vain wait or irritated by the 
traditional "the book is at the bindery". (A note by M. Maxweiler about the Library of the Institut de Socio] ogie 
Solvay, Revue des bibliotheques et des archives de Belgique, 1903, p. 235. 



82 Paul Otlet 

been gradually concentrated in the great modern universities. 3 Moreover, as the latter have 
ramified throughout the country in special institutes, institutions of secondary education and 
university extension and in various other decentralised ways, so the central library ministers 
to the whole of a nation. First of all it establishes relations with all of the libraries in its own 
location, the capital city, and then with the various provincial libraries. Modern methods of 
transportation are used in dealing with requests for and the distribution of books: post, 
telephone, cartage, railway and underground communication by means of pneumatic tube or 
monorail. Provision is made for the circulation of documents between the principal centre 
and all of the secondary centres no matter how far away they are. The functions of the latter 
are being transformed; they are becoming simply places for reading and consultation; though 
physically distant from the centre, they are organisationally a part of the central library. 

Such are, schematized, summarized and inter-related, the organisational trends 
characteristic of our most modern libraries, to the great bodies of which we must give a brain 
and a soul. These trends, as we have seen, are all the result of the increasingly apparent need 
for organising documentation itself. 



The attempts which have been made to improve and change present methods of 
publication, in their turn suggest another aspect of the same need. The study of documents as 
such results in two kinds of knowledge, depending on whether documents are considered 
from a physical or an intellectual point of view. The physical construction of the document, 
its substance, its external form, and in so far as the book is concerned, its manufacture, sale, 
use and preservation, have led to the creation of special branches of knowledge. But the 
writing, composition, planning, editing, the internal structure of a document, a book, an 
article, etc., the mode of publishing any statement of ideas or information, can become the 
basis of a separate body of observations and considerations, some of which are applicable to 
all documents while others are special to certain categories of them. 

No matter the form they take, not all explanations or statements are equally clear or 
easy to understand. This preliminary remark provides a basis for observations that can be 
made when a great many pieces of writing are compared from the point of view of how they 
present facts and ideas. 

Since antiquity, rhetoricians, critics, and literary theorists have carefully 
distinguished genres of literary works. No matter what the author's subject is or the language 
he uses, they have tried to arrange these works into groups and sub-groups according to rules 
they have derived from the best examples: works poetical, dramatic, oratorical, epistolary, 
didactic, narrative, historical, etc. This analysis has been restricted to literature properly 
speaking. It is really only now that the immense mass of scientific and technical writing has 
become the object of systematic classification by genre and form. These works are of 
relatively recent origin. Their general types are only gradually, and as yet incompletely, 
being distinguished from primitive "amorphism" and "polygraphisni." Everyone, however, 
can recognize, if not define, such categories of published works as the journal, the annual, the 
handbook, the general treatise, the encyclopedia, the glossary, the textbook. In all branches of 
learning, written materials have today spontaneously taken one or other of these expository 
forms each of which is a response to a special documentary need. It seems possible and 
useful, therefore, to deduce from the study of a great many works the conditions which each 



Science of Bibliography 83 

work of the same genre should satisfy if it is to approximate to an ideal type and meet some 
reasonable statement of requirements. Indeed, no one will argue that, if one handbook seems 
to be more practical and easier to consult and handle, to be clearer and more complete than 
another, this is because it is adapted better to clearly stated needs. 

What are these needs and by what means can they be satisfied? 

The theory and technique of bibliographical or documentary forms, their anatomy, 
morphology, philogeny, if one can use these figurative expressions which indicate 
fundamental approaches that can be taken to the study of anything, have yet almost entirely 
to be developed but constitute a kind of knowledge which is directly related to 
documentation considered in general. 

If these problems were made the object of sustained research and of fairly extensive 
comparisons, it is clear that eventually the types of publication would begin to improve 
markedly. This study would make selection, the result of the struggle for life [sic] among the 
intellectual organisms which is what books are, more conscious and better-informed. New 
forms would also begin to be produced to be added to the range of those that already exist 
and to respond more effectively to modern documentary requirements. 

Finally, having improved and increased in number, these forms of works will 
imperceptibly lead to a complete transformation of modern publishing. This is not the least 
important conclusions to which the examination of these questions leads. 

Books, brochures, and journal articles appear nowadays apparently as the products 
of chance. Everyone has freedom to publish on any subject, in any manner, in any form, in 
any style, consequently, to clutter up the field of documentation with vague and useless 
productions which have nothing seriously new to say as to substance and which represent no 
improvement as to form. Should we not impose a doctrine of "moral restraint" in the sphere 
of the book where an overwhelming and truly harmful proliferation is rampant? In fact, no 
one would dream of suppressing or even limiting this precious freedom of writing, a 
necessary corollary of freedom of thought, which is, itself, nothing more than the 
fundamental right of intellectual life, action and procreation. But the task of organising this 
freedom by means of appropriate institutions, just as political institutions and codes of law 
have organised other freedoms, falls to those who are aware of the problem. 

Individual publications will continue to appear quite independently of each other. 
They will retain their characteristics of being separate, idiosyncratic and poorly related to the 
whole body of knowledge itself. But paralleling the innumerable books published on the 
subject-matter of each discipline, will be drawn up the "Universal Book" of that discipline. 
This Book, the "Biblion", the Source, the permanent Encyclopedia, the Summa, will replace 
chaos with a cosmos. It will constitute a systematic, complete and current registration of all 
the facts relating to a particular branch of knowledge. It will be formed by linking together 
materials and elements scattered in all relevant publications. It will comprise inventories of 
facts, catalogues of ideas and the nomenclature of systems and of theories. It will condense 
various scientific data into tables, diagrams, maps, schemas. It will illustrate them by 
drawings, engravings, facsimiles, and documentary photographs. It will be like a great 
cadastral survey of learning, in which all developments in knowledge will be reported and 
recorded day by day. This function will devolve on specialists, or keepers, whose duty will 
no longer be to preserve documents, but the actual knowledge they contain. Readers, 
abstracters, systematisers, abbreviators, summarizers and ultimately synthesizers, they will 
be persons whose function is not original research or the development of new knowledge or 



84 Paul Otlet 

even teaching existing systematic knowledge. Rather their function will be to preserve what 
has been discovered, to gather in our intellectual harvests, to classify the elements of 
knowledge. 

The old forms of the book will no longer be maintained; they must give way before 
the abundance and the variety of matter. 

Information, from which has been removed all dross and all foreign elements, will 
be set out in a quite analytical way. It will be recorded on separate leaves or cards rather than 
being confined in volumes that are compact and in many copies. They are mixtures of what is 
repetitive, preliminary and for reference and contain all those superfluities in which, 
nowadays, an original thesis, a new proposition, a novel observation, an important result, are 
submerged and disappear. By gathering these leaves together, and classifying and organising 
them according to the headings of a reliable, precise, and detailed classification, we will 
create the "Universal Book" of knowledge, a book which will never be completed but which 
will grow unceasingly. Appropriate furniture, on the model of what is now being used to 
organise, classify and house the cards of the Universal Bibliographic Repertory, will be 
necessary for housing it. 

The analogy of this repertory will also extend to methods of publication and 
consultation. Printing these information-cards will no longer be considered an indispensable 
necessity. Offices of documentation, whose collections will be formed by cutting and pasting 
and by manuscript transcription, will be set up as annexes or complementary organisations to 
libraries. 

These offices will be the distributors of all scholarly information. Organisations for 
the preservation and diffusion of knowledge, they will disseminate it by the written means of 
the document just as schools and teachers transmit it by oral means. When someone wants to 
have without delay reliable, exact, and completely up-to-date information that is analytically 
presented so that it is ready for immediate use either in some personal interpretive study in 
which he is engaged or to advance research which he is planning, he will apply to these 
offices. But these offices themselves will gradually begin to publish the "Universal Book" 
with whose creation and preservation they have been entrusted. This publication will itself 
take a loose-leaf form or be on cards, the more recent of which, always continuing the 
summarizing and condensing process, will replace earlier leaves or cards. Finally, a day will 
come, the ultimate step, when it will generally be recognized, if not by all at least by most, 
that every publication should be subject to precise rules for editing, composition, printing and 
distribution. The form of "The Universal Book" will then determine the form in which all 
scholarly publications will be issued. The work of documentary offices will be considerably 
simplified at this point. The "Universal Book" will create itself from day to day as the leaves 
of individual publications are gathered together. As many whole or partial, complete or 
abridged duplicate copies will be available as existing documentary institutes and particular 
individuals might want 

So that such a view as this will not lay itself open to the charge of being a 
theoretical dream when it is only an extension of present developments, let us briefly recall 
here some of the phenomena that suggest what will happen in the future: works written at the 
request of publishers aware of the needs of particular categories of readers; works prepared in 
response to competition questions or in response to the desiderata formulated by scientific 
societies or conferences; basic works whose authors have died but which are continued by 
other authors following the same methods; supplements, complements, addenda and 



Science of Bibliography 85 

corrigenda to important works published by various persons; the periodical revision by 
authors themselves of the general works which they have published on their special subjects; 
the creation of increasingly specialized, comprehensive and frequently issued journals for 
keeping up with a particular movement of ideas and for reproducing the principal documents 
related to it; abstracts of the publications which appear daily on a subject; the assumption of 
responsibility for basic publications (formularies, encyclopedias, handbooks, collected 
works) by official or scientific institutions when there is reason to believe that private 
enterprise will only produce incomplete, irregular or partial documentation, etc., etc. These 
are some of the trends characterising the development of the systematic spirit which must 
govern new publications. 

On the other hand, bibliographical indexes, abstracts, reviews, extracts and 
summaries, the number of which has been increasing in an extraordinary way, publications 
issued in the form of fascicules or on cards, the complex numbering systems of materials 
published in the great collections, the multiplicity of tables and indexes which characterise 
certain works - all of these demonstrate the existence of the need to condense what has been 
written and to retrieve scientific information in an analytic form from which any personal 
interpretation has been removed. 

Finally, the organisation of documentary offices has been anticipated by the 
organisation of those permanent offices or bureaux whose duty these days is to collect and 
register facts and make them available to the public: institutes of bibliography with their 
catalogues; social and commercial museums with their files of documents and information; 
various services of large government departments such as, typically, labour offices, which 
are required to monitor, note and maintain a record of certain facts about governmental or 
social activity; geological services which must draw up and keep current manuscript 
geological maps; observatories which publish tables of observations, maps of the sky, 
catalogues of stars; cartographic and geodesic commissions whose files are placed at the 
disposal of scholars in order to improve periodically published maps; patent offices whose 
industrial archives form a permanent registry of inventions and discoveries; statistical offices 
whose year-book and tables of numerical data can at any time be augmented by the actual 
cards which were used for the various kinds of census, etc., etc. [10] 

In summary, the book as shaped by the past is in the process of complete change. 
The experiments that we are now witnessing are to make the book easier to consult and easier 
to handle so that it is more effectively and more quickly informative - in a word, more 
documentary. These experiments are all leading to a better organisation of documentation. 

In the preceding pages we have investigated how to define bibliography, its major 
areas, its essential object Our analysis, a little abstract perhaps - but how can one approach a 
general subject without using fundamental ideas? - leads to the following conclusions: 

The term, The Science of Bibliography, given the limitations of our language, seems 
to be the most suitable term to describe the body of knowledge and the present state of 



[10] Consult particularly: Otlet, Paul, 1901. "La Technique et l'avenir du periodique". Brussels, Bulletin de I'lnstitut 
International de Bibliographie, VI, p. 179-184; Ouet, Paul, 1901, "Comment classer les pieces et documents 
des societes industrielles", Brussels, Bulletin de I'lnstitut International de Bibliographie, 1901, p. 85-124; 
Didier, Charles, 1898, "La Revue a decouper. Note sur un mode plus rationnel de publier les articles de 
revues", Bruxelles, Bulletin de I'lnstitut International de Bibliographie, HI, p. 175-182; Institut International de 
Bibliographie, 1902, "Notice sur reorganization de la publicite des brevets d'invention (bibliographie des 
brevets", Brussels, Bulletin de I'lnstitut International de Bibliographie, VII, p. 175-176. 



86 Paul Otlet 

research on the subjects that we have examined. The Science of Bibliography can be defined 
as that science whose object of study is all the questions common to different kinds of 
documents: production, physical manufacture, distribution, inventory, statistics, preservation, 
and use of bibliographic documents; that is to say, everything which deals with editing, 
printing, publishing, book selling, bibliography, and library economy. The scope of this 
science extends to all written or illustrated documents which are similar in nature to books: 
printed or manuscript literary works, books, brochures, journal articles, news reports, 
published or manuscript archives, maps, plans, charts, schemas, ideograms, diagrams, 
original or reproductions of drawings, and photographs of real objects. 

The practical aim of the Science of Bibliography is the organisation of 
documentation on an increasingly comprehensive basis in an increasingly practical way in 
order to achieve for the intellectual worker the ideal of a "machine for exploring time and 
space." 

Editor's Notes 

1. "Les Sciences bibliographiques et la documentation", IIB Bulletin 8 (1903): 125-147. 

2. It is not clear what this reference is to. Presumably, Otlet is referring to "Creation of a 
Universal Bibliographic Repertory" (see paper 2 in this volume). Page 15, however, 
presents part of the outline of the Dewey Decimal Classification. Pages 8-11 however, 
list some of the great bibliographical ventures of the past from Marucelli to the 
Catologues of the Bibliotheque Nationale and the British Museum. 

3. The medieval "universitas" meaning "totality", "all in one" (perhaps with a hint of 
"solidarity") was a guild for scholars who had come together in "studia generalia" or 
"centres of general learning", chartered as they matured and attained influence by the 
Pope. They were devoted to the preservation through repetition and copying of 
established texts, knowledge of which was tested in commentaries and debate. 
McArthur, whose definition I give above, notes that "in due course, by a kind of social 
osmosis the name for the scholarly brotherhood was transferred to the institution in and 
for which they worked" (Tom McArthur Worlds of Reference, p.59). It was not until the 
nineteenth century that universities began to be regarded as more than centres of 
traditional learning but as places in which a pervasive commitment to research informed 
and created a characteristic tension with their teaching function. 



6. ON A NEW FORM OF THE BOOK: THE 
MICROPHOTOGRAPHIC BOOK. 1 



All contemporary developments in the external form and substance of the book, 
the way it is written and set in type and the way its subject is organised, have an 
important place in bibliographic studies. 

These studies should not be limited to an examination of the past alone. Like 
other branches of knowledge, the Science of the Book should lead to practical 
applications. In addition to history and theory, it should be concerned with the ways in 
which its object (volume, journal or newspaper; text or image) can continually be 
improved. 

As far as its external form is concerned, the Book - which successively has been 
cut in stone, baked on brick, painted on papyrus, hand-written on parchment, engraved 
on wood and reproduced by printing and lithography on paper - nowadays is tending to 
assume a photographic form [lj. Until now this development has been limited to the 
illustrated matter of the book. Such a "pictorial" limitation is not justified. This 
development can be extended to the text itself. 

What has been achieved in this area? What can realistically be expected in the 
future? This is what this preliminary communication is about. 



All progress, all reform is the result of a need of which we become aware and 
for which a clear expression emerges as a result of the criticisms that can be made of 
anything ongoing. As far as the book is concerned, despite admirable technological 
progress since the fifteenth century, all is far from perfect 

The book is still heavy to handle and takes up a relatively large amount of 
space. On average, one square metre of shelf space 35 centimetres deep is needed to hold 
100 volumes, without taking into account aisles between stacks and the area required for 
such various installations as lifts, conveyors, etc. which are required for the use of books 
in a library [2]. Books come in very different sizes - from 5 centimetres to a metre in 
height and in all widths [3]. Books are expensive because of the technical requirements 



[1] Paul Otlet, Les Aspects du livre, Brussels, publication of the Musee du Livre, 1901 (The last paragraphs 
are devoted to a theoretical and analytical statement on future forms of the Book). 

[2] Graesel, Bibliothekslehre, p. 123 gives the surface area and volume occupied by the books in several large 

libraries. 
[3] On the format of books and journals and the need to standardize them, see especially discussions of the 

Congres de la presse pcriodique beige, Ostende, 1906, given in the Bulletin [of the Institut International de 

Bibliographic], 1906, p. 89. 



87 



88 Paul Otlet 

for their manufacture. In thirty years the average price of scholarly works has increased 
by 33 percent [4]. 

Books cannot be voluntarily reproduced as needed except by the always 
burdensome process of issuing re-prints or new editions. Several hundreds or thousands 
of copies must be produced at any one time without knowing how many will be sold. 
Hence arise attempts by publishers to rid themselves of unsold stock. This is disposed of 
to anonymous second-hand dealers or is simply destroyed. Thus, copies of a book rapidly 
become scarce and, a few years after publication, are no longer available. 

The end result of this sequence of events can be confirmed by a statistical 
analysis recently completed in Berlin. The Konigliche Bibliothek in Berlin and eleven 
Prussian university libraries, having agreed to form a union catalogue (Gesamtkatalog) 2 , 
were disappointed in their hope of great economy of work, for it was found that 60 
percent of the titles were held by only one of the twelve libraries [5J. 

In short, the present situation of the Book and the Periodical from the point of 
view of scholarly research is this: titles are distributed to many libraries which are 
situated in cities far distant from one another; access to these libraries is not always easy 
and delays in securing works often discourage the most tenacious workers with great 
injury to scientific progress. 



The documentary method complements the other methods of study and research 
- observation, experimentation, and deduction. All the related research work that is 
completed in various countries by various persons, whether predecessors or 
contemporaries, is recorded in books and journals. If one is to use this work, if it is not to 
be repeated, if one is to take advantage of the cooperation of others and immerse oneself 
in all the information that it is desirable to have, it is necessary to be familiar with the 
bibliography, with the literature - past and present, national and international - of a 
subject But it is not enough that a general organisation of bibliography is leading each 
day to the development of a Universal Bibliographic Repertory, which is an instrument 
for concentrating and a point for distributing bibliographic information. It is still 
necessary that the writings referred to, the original sources themselves, and not merely 
abstracts or summaries of them, be put into the hands of researchers. 

The journeys of scholars, international exchanges of scholarly books between 
libraries [6], copies or extracts requested from abroad and the purchase from agencies of 
clippings from periodicals [7], are quite inadequate for this purpose. The concentration of 
collections of books in every city into a single great library is a trend which is increasing. 
The creation of special international libraries, even an international library that is 



[4] Die Finanzlage der deutschen Bibliotheken. In Sammlung bibliothekswissenschaftlichen Arbeiten. 16th 
fasc, Leipzig, Spirgatis, in 8, 30s. 

[5] On this subject see Zentralblatt fur Bibliothekswesen, 1906, passim for discussions about the 

Gesamtkatalog. 2 
[6] On international exchanges between libraries see especially Graesel, Bibliothekslehre, p. 349 as well as a 

note in the Bulletin [of the Institut International de Bibliographic], 1906, p. 1 12. 
[7] See Bulletin, 1906, p. 221. 



Microphotographic Book 89 

universal in scope, has been advocated [8]. However, it is a new method of publication 
that would contribute most rapidly and extensively to the improvement of the present 
situation [9]. 

From the preceding examination the requirement can be deduced that a new 
form of the Book should be found which will do away with the inconveniences referred 
to and which in the future will produce books that are: 1) less heavy and smaller, 2) 
uniform in size; 3) on a permanent material; 4) moderate in price; 5) easy to preserve; 6) 
easy to consult; and 7) continuously produced: that is, copies or duplicates can be 
produced on request. 



Photography would seem to be able to provide a solution to the problem thus 
posed. It is this to which we must now have recourse for new developments in 
documentary methods. 

Research along these lines has been undertaken at the International Institute of 
Bibliography. The goal has been to create in a practical way a microphotographic book 
which can be enlarged as needed at the time of reading. The experiments made so far 
suggest that it will be possible to reproduce in very small dimensions any page of a book 
or any kind of printed image on one of the successive and very small sensitized frames 
which make up a microphotographic reel. These frames would then be brought before an 
enlarging apparatus at the time of reading. 

This is the overall idea. It is not entirely new. As early as 1865, Simpson 
suggested it in extremely precise terms. Indeed, one can read on page 158 of a work 
published in 1880 by H. Vogel (The Photography and Chemistry of Light): "In England, 
Simpson observed that by means of photography it is possible in an area of a few square 
decimetres to concentrate the contents of huge folio volumes and that books occupying 
whole rooms can be fitted into the equivalent of a single drawer by means of reduction 
by microscopic photography. This is an important consideration because of the rapid, 
ceaseless growth of materials accumulating in our libraries. It is true that it would be 
necessary to use a microscope or magic lantern to read these miniature books." 3 

During the siege of Paris in 1870, the procedure suggested by Simpson was used 
to send dispatches by carrier pigeons from the country into the city. Dagron carried out 
the photography involved. A film 4x4 centimetres held up to 1500 dispatches. A film 3 
x 1 centimetres contained 16 printed pages. The films were subsequently enlarged by 
means of a magic lantern. 4 Since that time, Scamoni of St. Petersburg has obtained 2.5 
square centimetre proofs that are quite legible under a microscope of the German 
newspaper Ueber Land und Meer. The governments of various countries have set up 



[8] Paul Oilet. L'Etat acluel de V organisation bibliographique Internationale; chap, iv (Les idees actuelles sur 
le Livre, sa function et son utilisation p. 28 [Contemporary ideas on the function and use of the book] and 
L'Organisation raiionelle de 1'informalion et de la documentation en matiere cconomique. [The Rational 
Organisation of Information and Documentation in Economic Matters]. 

[9] Rigby Smith (L'accessibilite d'informauons) in this felicitous expression summarizes present needs: "it is 
imperative that society have intelligent coordination of intellectual work." The goal underlying the 
development of the Universal Bibliographic Repertory is precisely to have in the future a research 
instrument for books such that all past, present and future writings can be considered as the chapters and 
sections of a single great book which sets forth the whole of human knowledge and for which the 
Repertory is the table of contents. 



90 



Paul Otlet 



war-time work-rooms for microphotographic correspondence in their military pigeon- 
stations. 5 

With such precedents, it is now a question of having these methods accepted in 
current practice and of devising commercial procedures for creating and reading 
microphotographic books. Here are some brief facts about the direction and the results of 
the experiments we have undertaken. It is necessary to distinguish two stages in time: the 
creation of the microphotographic document and its use, that is to say, reading it. 

1. We have tried to create documents in the form of tough, stable, non- 
flammable film in the format of the international catalogue card (12.5 x 7.5 centimetres) 
[microfiche]. This has a usable surface, narrow margins assumed, of 72 square 
centimetres. Reducing the pages of a book by a 50th, 100th or 200th according to format 
and type, one may assume for the purposes of investigation and discussion that, after 
reduction, a page of text covers one square centimetre, or a whole fiche will hold 
seventy-two microscopic pages plus the title of the book in ordinary "microscopic" type 
in the form of entries for the Universal Bibliographic Repertory [10]. The reproduction 
should be made from top to bottom and then from left to right We would then have the 
following pattern, in which the numbers in each centimetre square would be the 
successive pages of a book; 



Durand, Louis 

1906 - Sur ['expression des grandeurs thermiques. Compte rendu Acadbmt dts Scitncts, 1906, p. 420-492. 



536.771 



1 


7 


13 


19 


25 


31 


37 


43 


49 


55 


61 


67 


2 


8 


14 


20 


26 


32 


38 


44 


50 


56 


62 


68 


3 


9 


15 


21 


27 


33 


39 


45 


51 


57 


63 


69 


4 


10 


16 


22 


28 


34 


40 


46 


52 


58 


64 


70 


5 


11 


17 


23 


29 


35 


41 


47 


53 


59 


65 


71 


6 


12 


18 


24 


30 


36 


42 


48 


54 


60 


66 


72 



[10] The Charpentier page format, which is used for most novels, is 18.5 x 12 centimetres or 222 cm 2 . The 
area of the printed text in this format is about 13 x 8 centimetres = 104 cm 2 . A very frequently used page 
format for scientific periodicals is an octavo 25 x 16.5 centimetres = 412 cm 2 with the text occupying 18 x 
10.5 cm or 189 cm 2 . From the point of view of readability after reduction it is necessary to take into 
account the size of the typeface and the degree of clarity of its design. On this last point see the very 
important studies of the eminent oculist Dr. Javal: Psychologie [sic for Physiologie] de Vicriture et de la 
lecture, Paris, Alcan. 



Microphotographic Book 91 

Care should be taken in reproducing the printed pages that enough of their white margins 
are preserved to maintain a pleasant appearance and to ensure that they are clearly 
separated from each other. 

Clarity of image being a prerequisite of readability, slow, fine grain film and 
wet processing should be used. Exposure time can be extended. Thus it is possible to 
return to older processing techniques that the requirements of portraits, landscapes, and 
moving scenes have led us gradually to abandon. These silver-based techniques have the 
advantage of being extremely economical. The price of silver has decreased by nearly a 
half in the last few years and several methods of partial recovery of the quantities used 
have been explored. 

As observed earlier, the negatives for the document must be created in the form 
of a film. As a result of technological progress, the problems involved no longer need to 
be regarded in the same way as they were in 1865 and 1870 and solutions can now be 
foreseen to the difficulties which held back our predecessors. The way to go is suggested 
by the manufacture of transparent positive film for the moving pictures involved in 
cinematography i.e. projection. But steps must be taken to protect the negatives against 
deterioration and fire. These are matters which industrial chemists should be able to 
solve. 

2. The second moment in time which must be considered is the use of the 
microphotographic document, that is, its enlargement for reading. To be practical, 
enlargement should be instantaneous and should be accomplished by devices of the 
smallest possible size the use of which will not fatigue the viewer. 

Different kinds of apparatus can be envisaged apart from the simple magnifying 
glass or the microscope. Much progress has been made in enlarging devices since 
Simpson spoke of "magic lanterns." Lighted projection is in current use nowadays. Not 
only are ordinary scenes projected in laboratories and lecture halls, but also microscopic 
slides. 

If the film-negative described above is placed in a very simple enlarging 
machine which contains magnifying glasses and is lit by an electric light, the image, 
enlarged at will to various sizes, can be projected on the frosted glass which closes the 
opposite side of the camera obscura. 6 That is where "seeing" the text, reading it, will 
take place. A contrivance adapted from the carriage of the microscope or typewriter will 
move the fiche from left to right and from top to bottom merely by pressing a button. 
Thus the reader is free to bring one after another in front of the lens the pages 
microphotographed on each centimetre of film. 



Laboratory experiments suggest that the technical problems we have just 
described can be considered as completely solvable. If, as it is hoped, industrial 
applications of the processes are possible, the practical consequences will be of the 
greatest importance. First, the preservation of microphotographic documents will become 
easy. They will be arranged in banks of drawers similar to those now used for card 
catalogues. Because of the light weight and small size of the documents, it will be very 



92 Paul Otlet 

simple to set up collections rigorously classified by subject or according to some other 
order. 

Moreover, each filmed document can be used as a negative in its turn for 
making new copies. It is of little consequence whether a printed text is read black on 
white or white on black; that the latter is preferred for advertisements and publicity 
suggests that it is actually more legible. 

In addition, the microphotographic process will be very economical. Labour is 
almost the only factor to be taken into account in creating the film; raw materials are 
insignificant in price [li]. 

Initially, the procedure described would be used to reproduce collections of 
illustrated matter or periodical articles, even indeed separately the conclusions of theses. 
They could be reproduced at the same time as the bibliographic cards themselves. This is 
a goal particularly aimed at by the Institute of Bibliography. It would meet the 
requirements of those who consult its repertories and who crave some rapid means of 
distinguishing the useful from the useless in the cards supplied without having to waste 
precious time in numerous libraries. Collections of periodicals in our public depositories 
are generally very limited and incomplete, while journals are not systematically collected 
by individuals. 

Since each fiche contains an area on which at least seventy-two pages of text 
can be reproduced, only one card would be needed for most articles because they rarely 
exceed this length. In principle, it would be best if a distinct and separate card were used 
for the photographic negative of each article. 

If photomicroscopic printing and reading processes come into use on a large 
scale, undeniably extensive consequences may be anticipated from them. A more rapid 
distribution of printed matter of a scholarly kind would occur as a result of their extreme 
cheapness and the ease with which each centre, library, or institute which contained the 
documents, could have them reproduced either from actual copies or from 
photomicroscopic negatives. The situation of libraries in these new circumstances would 
be similar to that of museums of documentary photographs [12]. Old manuscripts, original 
documents, rare or out-of-print works would be reproduced first and fires in our 
depositories would thus be less dreaded. All kinds of prints, pictures, and documentary 
photographs which have been assembled in local or special collections, could be 
duplicated and exchanged by means of this new mode of "publishing." It would be 



[11] It is to be hoped that the price of a master containing 84 pages of text will not exceed 25 centimes, or, with 
everything included, one franc for a volume of 336 pages which today costs libraries at least 5 francs (the 
price of the book, 3.50, binding 0.50; shelf space 0.20; building 0.75 at least). The building and materials 
of the Library of Congress alone, not including its collections, cost 36 million francs. The allocation for 
shelves in the new Konigliche Bibliothek in Berlin, calculated on the basis of 5 million volumes, has 
amounted to a million francs or 20 centimes a volume. This latter library will be 150 x 90 metres in size. 
The stacks will have 9 floors 2 metres high. It can be approximately calculated that to house and classify 
one million volumes the following are necessary: 10,000 square metres of shelf space, 35 centimetres 
deep; 3,300 cubic metres of shelves; 6,200 square metres of floor space, 2.25 metres high; and a building 
of 13,700 cubic metres. In comparison with this last figure, the space needed for the cabinets containing 
one million microphotographic volumes with a reduction factor or 100, would be about 75 cubic metres or 
444 times less. 

[12] On the importance and future of these museums see the work of the Congres international de la 
documentation photographique in Marseilles, October 1906. 7 



Microphotographic Book 93 

possible at last to anticipate setting up international and universal libraries and picture 
collections. 

If one had the necessary resources at one's disposal all of Human Thought could 
be held in a few hundred catalogue drawers, ready for diffusion and to respond to any 
request 



It is quite natural that such developments should seem like marvels and that initially, 
deeming them to be impossible, the mind should reject any pursuit of them. But, 
according to a common slogan, do we not live in a time in which yesterday's Utopia is 
today's dream and tomorrow's reality? In order to create the most serious expectations let 
us simply recall the following result of combining microphotography and enlargement by 
projection which has already been achieved and widely used: a roll of motion picture 
film 50 metres long can now be stored in a small metal box 15 centimetres in diameter 
and 2.5 centimetres deep. The roll contains 5,000 exposures. Each of these exposures can 
be projected on a screen which can be as large as 16 square metres. This small box, 
therefore, contains in the form of a minuscule volume the wherewithal to project at will 
and repeatedly 80,000 square metres of photographic documents. 

Note. This communication was read at the Congres international de documentation 
photographique at Marseilles (19 October 1906). After discussion, the following resolution was 
adopted: "The Congress takes note of the communication of the International Institute of 
Bibliography on the subject of the kind of research that it is undertaking with the collaboration of 
M. Robert Goldschmidt in order to find a practical procedure for creating and reading documents 
(both text and illustration) according to the methods of microphotography and cinematography. 
Observing the importance inherent in the procedures proposed, the Congress invites specialists to 
cooperate with the International Institute of Bibliography in finding a solution to the requirements 
that have been formulated." 



Editor's Notes 



Robert Goldschmidt and Paul Otlet, Sur une forme nouvelle du livre: Le Livre 
microphotographique. Publication No. 81; Bruxelles: Institut International de 
Bibliographic 1906. This was also published in IIB Bulletin 12(1907):61-69, in the 
January 1907 issue of the Journal des brevets and in part in Photorevue, 6 January 
1907. 

Robert B. Goldschmidt, 1877-1935, had a remarkable career. Educated in Brussels 
and Berlin, and professor of chemistry at the University of Brussels for some thirty 
years, he worked only for a time in the field of chemistry. He then turned to Aviation 
and in 1909 constructed a dirigible balloon, La Belgique. He became interested in 
radio telegraphy and worked extensively in the Belgian Congo setting up a telegraph 
and telephone network; he also invented an amphibious train and a wood burning 
truck for use there. In 1908 he opened a Popular Laboratory of Electricity in 
Brussels, a kind of public museum. He continued to be interested in 
microphotography throughout his life working on reading machines and film 
processes. 



94 Paul Otlet 

2. The Prussian Union Catalogue (Gesamtkatalog) was a fascinating, and very 
Prussian, undertaking. Cataloguing rules were drawn up for use by the Prussian State 
Library and the ten University libraries - not 1 1 (Berlin, Bonn, Breslau, GOttingen, 
Greiswald, Halle, Keil, KOnigsberg, Marburg and, MUnster) and were printed in 
1899. Each of the libraries then revised its catalogue to conform to these rules. This 
was completed in 1902. In 1903 the Prussian State Library then began to circulate 
cards in alphabetical order for items in its catalogue in batches of about 100 to 150 
entries to the University of Breslau. On these cards were noted the items Breslau 
also had and additional cards were added for the items which it held but the State 
Library did not. The cards were then sent to the next library. It was found that 60 
percent of the books whose main entries were circulated were held in only one 
library. This part of the catalogue was for materials published up to 1897. More 
current materials were dealt with separately (see Editor's Footnote 5 to the following 
paper in this volume, "The Reform of National Bibliographies . . . "). A good 
account in English of the Gesamtkatalog is provided by J.H.P. Pafford, Library 
Cooperation in Europe; a more contemporary account in English is Ernest Crous, 
"Cooperation Among German Libraries by Mutual Loans and the Information 
Bureau", 1914. 

3. "The magic or optical lantern is an instrument for projecting on a white wall or 
screen largely magnified representations of transparent pictures painted or 
photographed on glass...when suitably constructed it can be used in the form of a 
microscope.. .Another application.. .is found in the cinematograph...." {Encyclopaedia 
Britannica 1 1th ed. Vol. XVI, p. 186.) 

4. During the siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War, carrier pigeons were taken 
from Paris in balloons, and microphotographic messages (both private messages for 
families in Paris and official dispatches) were attached to their legs. Out of 363 birds 
released only 40 returned to Paris in a five month period, but because the messages 
were reproduced many times, some 60,000 of 95,000 dispatches entrusted to the 
pigeon post were received in Paris. Dagron, a famous photographer, was given a 
contract promising him 25,000 francs for his photographic work in connection with 
the pigeon post, and with his assistants was carried out of Paris toward Tours by 
balloon. (The early attempts at filming, the reading of messages by magnification on 
a wall, and other details are given in Baldick's popular The Siege of Paris). 

5. Carrier or homing pigeons have been used for centuries to carry messages. The use 
of pigeons for purposes of military communication, however, became widespread 
after the Siege of Paris. Many governments set up special services, including Great 
Britain. The Admiralty discontinued its pigeon service about 1910. With the advent 
of wireless telegraphy, pigeons were thought suitable only for fortress warfare. 
Homing pigeons were used in the Korean War. 

6. "Chambre noire" or camera obscura is "an optical apparatus^ consisting of a 
darkened chamber (for which its name is the Latin rendering) at the top of which is 
placed a box or lantern containing a covered lens and a sloping mirror, or a prism 
combining the lens and the mirror. ...We can produce on a horizontal sheet of paper 
an unperverted image... i.e., the image has the same appearance as the object and is 
not perverted as when the reflection of a printed page is viewed in a mirror." 



Microphotographic Book 95 

Encyclopedia Britannica; 1 1 ed.; vol. V, p. 104). The use of magnifying glasses 
presumably distinguishes the apparatus Otlet is describing. 

7. The resolutions of the conference Otlet mentions in his footnote, one of which he 
gives as a note at the end of this paper, are given in full in L'Organisation 
systematique de la documentation et le diveloppement de L'Institut International de 
Bibliographic, IIB Publication No. 82; Bruxelles: IIB, 1907. pp. 62-64. They show 
the importance of collections of documentary photographs, express interest in 
Goldschmidt's work for microfilming documents and providing an apparatus for 
reading them, desire that work be carried out in a uniform way so as to make a 
Universal Iconographic Repertory possible, define three standard sizes for cards and 
sheets on which photographic proofs should be mounted, recommend the use of The 
Decimal Classification, and that a bibliography of photography, a guide to major 
photographic collections, and a Manual for documentary work in photography be 
created. 



7. THE REFORM OF NATIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND THEIR USE IN 
UNIVERSAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 1 



In his letter of 28 November last to the national associations of publishers, M. 
Morel 2 , the acting director of the International Bureau of Publishers in Berne, among 
other things recalled the following advisory resolutions taken in the various sessions of 
the International Congress of Publishers: 3 

Systematic classification in publishers' catalogues 

7. The Congress resolves as follows: that systematically classified catalogues be more 
widely used in the book trade; 

8. Among the methods of classification, the Congress particularly recommends the 
study of that based on the decimal system. 

9. Publishing houses in all countries should work for the formation of a national 
bibliography which could be used some day as the basis for the compilation of a 
Universal Bibliographic Repertory. 

34. The Congress, considering the stake publishers in all countries have in issuing 
catalogues that are thoroughly classified and easy to consult, resolves that a standard, 
systematic classification for publishers' catalogues should be adopted. It approves and 
recommends the following arrangement: 1) an alphabetic index by author's names; 2) a 
classified index by subject; 3) an alphabetic index of subjects by catch words with 
reference to the author's name and to the brief title. 



In support of these resolutions, we have the honour of submitting to the 5th 
International Congress of Publishers, a collection of the last ten years of the 
Bibliographie de Belgique as well as the first issues of the edition on cards for the year 
1906. 



The Bibliographie de Belgique is published by M. Ernest Vandeveld under the 
auspices of the Ministere de l'lnteneur et de llnstruction Publique and the Cercle beige 
de la Librairie in collaboration with the International Institute of Bibliography. It appears 
monthly in issues that contain a first part devoted to books, a second part to newspapers 
and periodicals, and a third part to a listing of articles contained in die periodicals. 4 

In the first part, books (about 3,000 a year on average) are listed according to 
the names of authors, but each entry contains the decimal index number for its subject as 
it appears in the Universal Bibliographic Classification based on the decimal system. A 
systematic index at the end of the year lists the works in classified order. 



96 



Reform of National Bibliographies 97 

The second part contains, listed alphabetically by periodical title with a single 
entry per year, the periodical publications which appear in Belgium (about 1,300). This 
part is completed at the end of the year by an annual classified index. 

In the third part, the actual articles in the periodicals are indexed and are 
classified systematically according to the Decimal Classification. At the end of the year, 
an author index and an index of subject headings completes this part. 

Independently of the ordinary edition in volumes which has been appearing 
since 1875, an edition of the book section of the Bibliographie de Belgique has appeared 
monthly since the beginning of 1906 on cards in the international format, 75 x 125 mm. 
It has become, therefore, the first national bibliography whose method of publication 
follows that of the great bibliographical publications undertaken by the International 
Institute of Bibliography, by the Library of Congress in Washington, by the Concilium 
Bibliographicum of Zurich and that announced for the Union Catalogue of German 
Libraries (Gesamtkatalog). 5 

Each card contains the bibliographic entry for a single work (author's name, 
forename, title, sub-title, place of publication, name of publisher, format, number of 
pages, price, and, as necessary, notes for clarification.) The author's name is printed as a 
heading at the left. Immediately, underneath, the date. Facing it, to the right, is printed 
the bibliographic index or number of the decimal bibliographic classification for the 
subject of the work. At the bottom of the card to the right is the running publication 
number of the cards. 

The publication of cards allows bibliographic cards that are prepared at different 
times to be classified and kept in the order of the Universal Bibliographic Repertory into 
which they can eventually be incorporated in a single sequence with cards deriving from 
other publications prepared according to the same methods. 

Subscription to two copies of the card edition of the Bibliographie de Belgique 
allows one copy to be classified in an Idea Catalogue (or by subject) which is arranged 
according to the order of the numbers of the decimal classification and one in a Name 
Catalogue (or by author) which is arranged according to the alphabetical order of 
authors' names. In each of these catalogues, works under the same number or the same 
author's name are arranged chronologically. 

Annually, there are about 3,000 cards in the card edition of the Bibliographie de 
Belgique. The annual subscription has been put as a start at 20 francs a set, plus 4 francs 
for carriage costs in the countries of the Postal Union. The cards are sent monthly to 
subscribers in numbered fascicules through the good offices of the International Institute 
of Bibliography [l]. 6 

Procedures for the formation and classification of card catalogues have been 
described in the comprehensive volume which the Institute has published called, Manuel 
du Ripertoire Bibliographique Universel, an abbreviated edition of which has also been 
published (Manuel abrigi)? 



[1] For all information contact the Institute, 1 me du Musee in Brussels. 



98 Paul Otlet 

The International Congress of Publishers, which since 1897 [2] has been kept 
informed by the International Institute of Bibliography about the subject of universal 
bibliography, has responded with a resolution that national bibliographies should one day 
become the basis for the creation of a Universal Bibliographic Repertory. 9 The 
Bibliographie de Belgique in every way meets this requirement, for, if the method 
adopted for its publication were applied to other national bibliographies, it would only be 
necessary to assemble and merge the cards deriving from these various bibliographical 
sources to create the Universal Bibliographic Repertory from such elements. The 
publication which we present for the examination of the Congress, it should be noted, 
displays the following characteristics: 

1. The Bibliographie de Belgique is the cooperative work of various groups 
whose aim is to establish an excellent national bibliography for Belgium. The State is 
represented by the Ministere de l'instruction publique whose responsibility is to see that 
national literary and scientific publication is inventoried on a daily basis and brought to 
the attention of all interested persons both within the nation and outside it. Publishers and 
booksellers are represented by the support of the Cercle de la librairie. The National 
Library (the Royal Library) uses this Bibliography as a list of all the works officially 
acquired for its collections. Finally the International Institute of Bibliography sees to it 
that the international and universal goal is adhered to as well as the purely national one. 
The cooperation of all these interested bodies contributes in important ways to the 
development of the work; it makes use of all these contributions, coordinates them and 
avoids duplication. 

2. The Bibliographie de Belgique is complete. It covers the whole field of 
Belgian publication: books, periodicals, periodical articles. In this respect it offers a rare 
example in relation to other national bibliographies which, in general, have so far 
neglected the indexing of periodical articles. 

3. The Bibliographie de Belgique is arranged systematically by subject. Its 
classification is based on the Universal Decimal Classification which is recommended by 
the International Institute of Bibliography for universal bibliography and is applied in the 
prototype Universal Bibliographic Repertory being developed under the aegis of the 
Institute; this now comprises more than 7 million cards [3]. The basis of this classification 
is the designation of subjects by a permanent number taken from the tables of the 
bibliographic classification in which all areas of knowledge (science, philosophy, art, 
technology, etc.) are listed in a systematic arrangement [4]. This classification, whose 
origins are American (Melvil Dewey), has been developed from edition to edition until in 
its present form it contains 33,000 headings or divisions. Thus it now permits extremely 
detailed classification, a condition for which workers are particularly grateful. 

From the scientific, practical, and international points of view, the classification 
numbers have numerous advantages: the numbers permit the replacement of an 



[2] See Actes du IP congris, Brussels, 1897. Mr. Zech du Biez has been drawing the attention of the 
Congress to the International Institute of Bibliography since 18%. 8 

[3] On the present state, organisation and extent of work completed on the Universal Bibliographic Repertory 
see the Manuel [See Editor's Note 7 below]. 

[4] See "Expos6 de la classification decimale" in the Actes du l e congris des editeurs, p. 44 (the report of Mr. 
Zech Du Biez on the necessity for systematic classification in publishers' catalogues), and in the 
publications of the International Institute of Bibliography, especially its Manuel du Repertoire 
Bibliographique Universel which contains the developed tables of the bibliographic classification. 



Reform of National Bibliographies 99 

alphabetic arrangement, in which subjects are scattered by chance according to subject 
terms, by a systematic classification preferred by scientific men. The numbers have the 
necessary precision for getting a vast encyclopedia into order and for searching within it. 
They have the brevity required for addition to bibliographic entries without 
overburdening them. Finally, they are international and universally understood. Thus 
only the index of the classification needs to be translated into different languages, 
whereas the bibliographic entries, because of their decimal classification index numbers, 
can be utilised in catalogues intended for persons in any country who are familiar only 
with their own national language. 

4. The Bibliographie de Belgique is published simultaneously in a card edition 
and in book form. The use of the card system is becoming increasingly common because 
information is being continuously produced by a multitude of sources and must be kept 
up to date. This is very much the case in bibliography. Already it is important for a 
national bibliography to be able to organise entries for works issued in a particular 
country in a single arrangement according to one classification system, whether it be 
alphabetic or systematic. What delays are avoided when searching can be done in one 
place instead of having to be repeated in the monthly fascicules of ten or twenty years of 
publication! But when it comes to universal bibliography it is invaluable to be able to 
extend this fusion of bibliographic elements published in each country so that only a 
single repertory is created. This can be made available in all important centres to scholars 
and to the commercial book trade either in its entirety or in parts limited to particular 
periods or branches of knowledge. 

The format of the cards of the Bibliographie de Belgique, 125 x 75mm, is now 
an international format widely adopted in America and England, and which, on the 
continent, has gradually won out over other extremely varied and nonstandard formats. 
Publication on cards of this size has been adopted for all the publications of the 
International Institute of Bibliography and its affiliated groups, most notably the 
Concilium Bibliographicum in Zurich which has printed more than 160,000 different 
cards of this type. This format has also been adopted by the Library of Congress in 
Washington which so far has published more than 180,000 different cards for its own 
catalogues and the catalogues of American libraries. It has been proposed that the same 
method be followed in Germany for the publication of the Gesamtkatalog of the libraries 
of the Empire and in England for the union catalogue of English libraries [5]. 

5. As a set, the cards of the Bibliographie de Belgique can stand alone as a 
catalogue that is sufficient unto itself, but the cards have also been prepared in strict 
relation to the Universal Bibliographic Repertory. The cards are arranged in boxes or 
card-drawers; they are then divided into groups separated by guide or divisionary cards 
which are higher than and of a different colour from the bibliographic cards strictly 
speaking. This makes searching easier. The catalogues thus formed should be thought of 
as a book but in a continuous, loose-leaf format having three parts: 



[5] See L'Etat actuel de ['organisation bibliographique Internationale, 1905, a report presented to the 
International Congress of Publishers (Milan 1906) by P. Otlet (Brussels: Headquarters of the Institute). At 
the July 1905 Congress in London for the Convention of the International Catalogue of Science, 
publication on cards was strongly recommended by several delegates and a resolution for this was 
adopted. In Italy the late Commander Desiderio Chilovi vigorously supported the use of the international 
card. 10 



100 Paul Otlet 



A. Brief explanation, a kind of introduction where what generally precedes or 
follows a bibliographic compilation can be found, such as title, preface, method used, 
table of contents, index, relation to similar works, etc., 11 

B. Subject catalogue arranged systematically according to the Decimal 
Classification. On the verso [sic for recto?] of the divisionary cards extracts from the 
classification tables are printed and this considerably facilitates searching. 

C. The author catalogue in which the same cards as those for the subject 
catalogue appear again but are arranged alphabetically by authors' names. 

Thus organised, bibliographic repertories like the one we now present to the 
Congress, even though it is limited to the bibliography of Belgium, are capable of 
incorporating all other bibliographic elements. The arrangement is elastic: it is capable of 
accepting entries from any source providing that they have been prepared according to 
the same method. 



In its present form, the card edition of the Bibliographic de Belgique is such that 
it is able to provide important services. Librarians will gain valuable savings of time by 
incorporating directly into their catalogues printed cards for the new works which their 
libraries acquire. Booksellers will be able to create in their own work-rooms classified 
subject and author catalogues that are always up-to-date with the latest publications and 
can use the catalogues to give their clients accurate and timely information. It will also 
be possible to keep readers and researchers, as well as scientific or educational 
establishments, informed on a daily basis of all current Belgian publishing and in a form 
directly usable in their own files [6]. 

We intend to distribute the card edition of the Bibliographic de Belgique free of 
charge to a certain number of foreign libraries as a form of publicity for our national 
works. Publication on cards of a section on forthcoming books is being studied. 
Published as annexes to national bibliographies, publishers announcements have the 
great inconvenience of not being classified. On the other hand it is difficult to deal with 
prospectuses and circulars of differing formats. A kind of duplicate card has been 
prepared containing, in addition to the bibliographic entry, a short summary of the work 
and how it can be obtained by the public, as well as a detachable order form for sending 
to the publisher. These summary cards would be sent to subscribers to the bibliographic 
cards and would be classified in the same way in their catalogues. They could also be 
more widely distributed than this. Thus, these catalogues could also constitute a very 
important and permanent medium of publicity by means of which supply could be put in 
touch with demand. 



[6] See the specimen cards in the envelope at the end of this brochure: (1) Title card for the Universal 
Bibliographic Repertory; (2) An index card for the classified part; (3) A Book card with an order request; 
(4) a dispatch card. * 



Reform of National Bibliographies 101 

Card catalogues are a superior format for national bibliographies that cannot 
help attract the attention of those interested in the subject. Of course, it is important not 
to belittle the usefulness and use of compilations published in volume form, but these do 
not meet every need. They do not fulfil the requirements of rapid, complete, current 
documentation. National associations of publishers should take the initiative in these 
matters. Representing those who produce books, they must become involved in 
everything which helps in the distribution of the books produced. 

Insofar as the quantity of intellectual works is growing (the figure is 150,000 
books produced annually throughout the world), and insofar as intellectual relations are 
multiplying between nations, it is increasingly necessary to give some organisation to 
matters related to the book and to try to use this vast output for the greatest good of all. 

A Universal Bibliographic Repertory, conceived of as the union of national 
bibliographies prepared according to the methods used in the Bibliographie de Belgique 
seems to be something which will endow Humanity in the twentieth century with a 
permanent organisation for intellectual exchanges. 



Editor's Notes 

1. Paul Otlet and Ernest Vandeveld, La Riforme des bibliographies nationales et leur 
utilisation pour la bibliographie universelle. Rapport pr6sent6 au Ve Congres 
International des Editeurs, Milan, 1906. Bruxelles: Administration de la 
Bibliographie de Belgique and L'Institut International de Bibliographie, 1906, 8 pp. 

Ernest Vandeveld, 1863-1934, was Honorary President of the Cercle beige de la 
librairie, and President of the Syndicat des 6diteurs. He was a director and then 
Managing director of the firm, Etablissements de rimprimerie Emile Bruylant. He 
had a particular interest in copyright 

2. Henri Morel, 1838-1912, a Swiss lawyer, joined the International Office for the 
Protection of Intellectual Property (Headquarters of the Berne Copyright Union) in 
1888 and became Director in 1892, serving the cause of international copyright 
protection for the next 20 years. In 1901 Morel undertook to organise at Berne a 
permanent office for the International Congress of Publishers which had first met in 
1896. He resigned as Secretary-General of the International Congress of Publishers 
in 1910 (Miller, pp. 17-18 and 23). 

3. A numbered list of the resolutions taken by the Congres international des Editeurs 
appears in the general report of the 5th Congress in Milan at which Otlet and 
Vandeveld's paper was read ("Liste des resolutions votees par les quatre premieres 
sessions du Congres international des Editeurs tenues a Paris, Bruxelles, Londres et 
Leipzig," Congres international des 6diteurs, cinquieme session Milan, 6-10 Juin 
1906, Rapports. Milan: Associazione Tipografico-Libraria Italiana, 1907. pp. 17- 
36). The numbering of the resolutions given by Otlet and Vandeveld corresponds to 
the numbering given in this list. 



102 Paul Otlet 

4. From 1895 the Bibliographie de Belgique was published by the Cercle de la 
Librairie et de l'lmprimerie and the Ministere de l'lnteiieur et de l'lnsmiction 
Publique. In 1896 to the parts for books and periodicals a third part, "Classified 
Indexes", was added. One section of this gave brief entries for all books for the year 
classified by the UDC; another section did the same for periodical titles and a third 
section was a classified index of periodical articles, "Tables des Sommaires." In 
1897 UDC numbers were included in the main entries for books. No introductory 
matter describes the various changes between 1895 and 1899. An introduction to the 
volume for the latter year, however, announces "The transformation of the 
Bibliographie de Belgique." The title page now notes that the work is published 
"with the support of the International Office of Bibliography and Vandeveld is 
listed as Editor. 

The card edition, begun in 1906, was suspended in 1914. In 1911 the whole work 
was transferred to the Bibliotheque Royale and Vandeveld's connection with it 
ceased, though the IIB contributions remained. After the war these were limited to 
the preparation by Louis Masure, OIB Secretary, of a "Bulletin des articles de fond." 
This continued the "Bulletin des sommaires" but, unlike it, had no annual indexes 
and is now of little use. It ceased to appear in 1926. 

5. The Library of Congress announced its Card Distribution scheme in October 1901. 
Libraries could subscribe to copies of printed sets of cards for books catalogued for 
the library. Sets of all LC cards were sent regularly to Brussels to the OIB until war 
broke out in 1914. 

The Concilium Bibliographicum issued card versions of its major bibliographies: 
Bibliographica anatomica (also published as a supplement to the Anatomische 
Anzeiger), Bibliographia physiologica (also published as a supplement to 
Zentralblatt fur Physiologie) and Bibliographia zoologica (also issued as a 
supplement to Zoologische Anzeiger). 

As part of the Preussische Gesamtkatalog, the Prussian State Library in Berlin began 
to publish its list of accessions in 1892. In 1897, the ten Prussian Universities were 
asked to supply entries for their accessions of material that was dated 1898 or later 
(earlier material for the union Catalogue was to be dealt with by other procedures - 
see Editor's Note 2 to the previous paper in this volume "On a New Form of the 
Book . . . "). These lists were eventually known as "Titeldrucke." As an exercise in 
central cataloguing, it was proposed to use the type set up to print the lists also for 
printing cards. In 1909, the international format for cards was adopted but because 
entries were prepared according to the Prussian cataloguing code, the Prussian 
Instructions (Instrucktionen fur die Alphabetischer Katalog der Preussichen 
Bibliotheken, 1899 and revised 1908), the cards were in fact of little use outside 
Prussia. 

6. The card edition was despatched to subscribers in cardboard drawer-like boxes with 
rods. Each box contained about a thousand cards representing entries published in a 
group of the fascicules of the regular edition (for example the British Library has 19 
boxes comprising the cards issued from 1906 to 1913). The cards were arranged in 



Reform of National Bibliographies 103 

UDC order within each fascicule. Each box contained a series of preliminary cards 
containing information on the IIB, illustrations of its repertories, information about 
its organisation and methods, the services it offered, its publications and so on. 
Much of this information had been printed and then cut up and pasted on the cards. 
The impression is of a very professional enterprise. 

7. Manuel du Ripertoire Bibliographique Universel: Organisation. Etat des travaux. 
Rigles. Classification. (Publication No. 63; Bruxelles: IIB, 1905-1907). The first 
176 pages deal with the organisation, work and methods of the OIB. The next 32 
pages describe the classification and present rules for cataloguing and classifying. 
The classification schedules follow on 1409 unnumbered leaves. Issue of the Manuel 
was in fact begun in 1904 and revisions were presumably incorporated into it until 
1907. Each copy is numbered and dated. 

Manuel Abrege du Repertoire Bibliographique Universel: Organization. Travaux. 
Methodes. Tables abregis de classification. (Publication No. 65; Bruxelles: IIB, 
1905). The introductory matter is the same as for the larger work, but the 
Classification Tables are abridged and give numbers only up to 3 figures. 

8. Guillaume Zech du Biez, 1844-1904, was a printer who had been Vice-President and 
President of the Cercle Beige de la librairie et de rimprimerie and at one time 
President of the International Publishers' Association. His major work, issued in 
fascicules, was a chronologically arranged descriptive bibliography of Belgian 
almanacs. It is interesting to note that, while Otlet and Vandeveld mention Zech's 
work as a publicist for the Decimal Classification at the meetings of the International 
Publishers' Association, Vandeveld was himself active in this group and was 
rapporteur for the 1901 Leipzig meeting. 

9. The attitude of the International Congress of Publishers towards Otlet's cherished 
schemes waxed and waned. At its first meeting in 1896 in Paris a resolution along 
the lines mentioned here was taken. At the Milan Meeting of 1906 to which this 
paper was presented there was "a skirmish between the partisans and adversaries of 
the decimal system (Dewey)," Otlet and supporters taking one side and a prominent 
French book-trade bibliographer, Henri LeSoudier, taking the other. As the slightly 
ironic commentator in Droit d'auteur observed: "The adoption of the general 
resolution proposed by the Rapporteur.... put an end to the tournament". ("Congres 
international des 6diteurs. V e session, Milan, 5-10 Juin 1906," Droit d'auteur 19 
(1906): 86). 

10. Desiderio Chilovi had been the Librarian of the National Central Library of Florence 
and had supported the IIB in its early days. An article of his in the Bolletino delle 
Publicazioni Italiane had been translated as "La Cooperation nationale et 
internationale au Repertoire Bibliographique Universel" IIB Bulletin 1(1895-6): 320- 
324. 

Entries for the various subject volumes of the International Catalogues were 
prepared on paper slips of a uniform size at the Regional Bureaux that were set up in 
various countries for this purpose. The slips were then sent to the Central Bureau in 
London for checking, final editing and amalgamation for printing in volume format. 



104 Paul Otlet 

The first 17 volumes appeared in 1901. None of the Catalogue was issued in card 
format 

11. It should be remembered that what is being described here is the order of the 
elements of books published in French where typically the Table of Contents comes 
after the body of the text and before the index (if there is one). 

12. The envelope with the specimen cards Otlet and Vandeveld mention in their footnote 
is formed by a large piece of cardstock of the same light weight and colour as the 
brochure's cover and is pasted on the recto of the back cover. The Title card is 
salmon in colour and lists the three parts of the Universal Bibliographic Repertory as 
follows: Section A - Administrative Part (Organisation. Elements); Section B - 
Subject Repertory (Classified decimally); and Section C - Author Repertory 
(arranged alphabetically). The divisionary card for the "Repertory Classified by 
Subject" is blue and lists the ten main classes of the Decimal Classification on the 
recto. Finally, there is a folded piece of white cardstock which is the announcement 
of a forthcoming book or analytical card. One half of this has the bibliographic entry 
for a sample book along with a fairly extensive abstract of it, the other half being the 
order blank to be detached along the fold. The order blank is essentially a postcard 
with printed details on one side with blanks for requester's name and address. The 
other side has the publisher's name and address. 



8. THE SYSTEMATIC ORGANISATION OF DOCUMENTATION 

AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL 

INSTITUTE OF BIBLIOGRAPHY. 1 



1. The General Idea of Documentation 

Today Documentation is understood to mean bringing into use all of the written 
or graphic sources of our knowledge as embodied in documents of every kind, though 
chiefly printed texts. These documents consist of whatever represents or expresses an 
object, a fact, or an impression by means of any signs whatever (writing, picture, 
diagrams, symbols). 

Knowledge and impressions would last for only a limited time without the help 
of graphic documents to capture and hold them fast because memory alone is insufficient 
for recollection. Memory has a narrow scope as well, for the spoken word serves as a 
means of communication only within a very limited circle. 

In a general way, one can say that documents of all kinds, the production of 
which began centuries ago and continues unceasingly in all countries, are registering or 
have registered, day by day, all that has been discovered, thought, imagined, planned. 
Thus, they constitute the means by which all of this has been transmitted from generation 
to generation and from place to place. As a whole, then, documents form the graphic 
memory of humanity, the physical body of knowledge. 

2. Use of Documents and the Documentary Method 

The documentary method consists in having recourse to documents in order to 
extract facts and information from them for the acquisition of knowledge, for study or for 
scientific research. It complements other methods of investigation: observation, 
experimentation, deduction. Supported by integrated and up-to-date documentation 
(libraries and collections), helped by instruments of research (catalogues), exercised 
according to rational and thoughtful procedures (criticism of sources), the documentary 
method actually allows one to have the assistance of all who have previously worked on 
the same subjects and to follow their research to the point where they stopped. Thus it 
makes division of labour possible and allows for the full use of what has already been 
discovered. 

Documentation, therefore, has a position next to Education and Scientific 
Research. The work of Science lies in the investigation of new facts. It leaves to others 
the task of preserving and using its results. The task of Education is the gradual, 
systematic shaping of the intellect in school and university. The aim of Documentation is 
rapidly and easily to provide all researchers, whatever their level of knowledge or 



105 



106 Paul Otlet 

culture, both with the materials of study which represent the totality of human experience 
and with detailed information on particular points. In scientific, technical, historical, 
social and industrial matters, it is the systematically organised intermediary between the 
public and documents, between those who read and those who write. It provides recorded 
information, that is, the distribution of information by the book, periodical, newspaper, 
and photographic image. 

3. The Divisions and Branches of Documentation 

The following distinctions must be made so that the scope and several aspects of 
Documentation can be made better known. 

A. From the point of view of graphic documents one can distinguish: 

1. Written documents or texts (books, periodicals, newspapers, manuscripts, 
archival pieces, etc.) 

2. Pictures (engravings, drawings, photographs, etc.) 

3. Ideograms (maps, plans, schemas, diagrams, etc.) 

4. Music (parts) 

B. From the point of view of the subjects dealt with (sciences, branches of activity, 
knowledge), Documentation can be divided into the following classes: 

1. Knowledge, Books and Documentation in General; 

2. Philosophy and Ethics; 

3. Religion, Theology; 

4. Social Sciences, Administration, Law; 

5. Philology and Linguistics; 

6. Mathematics, Physical and Natural Sciences; 

7. Applied Sciences: medicine, engineering, various industries; 

8. Fine Arts, Sports; 

9. Literature and Belles Lettres; 

10. History and Geography. 

C. From the point of view of using documentation we must distinguish: 

1. Collections of individual documents as they are originally produced and 
published by their authors; 

2. Documentary work based on groups of documents such as bibliographic 
indexes and catalogues; 

3. Documentation services comprising on the one hand collections and 
catalogues and, on the other hand, a staff responsible either for developing 
these collections and catalogues or for using them to provide the public 
verbally or in writing with all of the information that it requests. 

The connections between the different branches and divisions of documentation are so 
close that in practice it is impossible to make any clear distinctions between them. On the 
contrary, in treating them as various elements of an enormous whole and in 



Systematic Organisation 107 

systematically organising them in light of a common purpose - integrated information - it 
is possible to achieve considerable economies of effort. 

Isolated collections of documents without catalogues constitute inaccessible 
treasures. Conversely, catalogues without documents are sterile inventories of treasures 
because they cannot be used. All of the branches of knowledge interpenetrate and none 
of them can be developed separately as though it could exist by itself without need of 
reference to any other. On the contrary, each of the branches of knowledge is related to 
every other and they owe the better part of their progress to their interconnections. It is 
also necessary to recognize that speculation and results, theory and practice, study and 
action constantly react one against the other. Science instructs art and industry, but they, 
in their turn, provide new materials for science. 

The different kinds of graphic documents are only different means of expressing 
the same things. It does not matter in what form information is transmitted. What is 
essential for researchers is to collect information that is precise, plentiful, accurate and 
up-to-date. 

4. Necessity for a Systematic Organisation 

The need to organise documentation systematically arises from the following 
circumstances: 

1. Large masses of documents exist and continue to be published every day. 
The diffusion of culture in all countries, the development of science and the arts, 
technological progress, and the increasing numbers of social relationships of all kinds are 
responsible for this intellectual output. About 150,000 new books and from 400,000 to 
500,000 periodical articles appear annually. An exploratory study has established that 
prior to 1900 this output was a minimum of 10 million books and 15 million periodical 
articles; 2 

2. Documents are not centralised in a few great depositories but are scattered 
in libraries throughout the whole world. Certain national libraries - those in Paris, 
London, Berlin, Washington - hold from one to three million volumes. Special libraries 
have been created wherever separate study centres exist - in universities, schools, 
museums, observatories, parliaments, government departments, scientific associations, 
etc. Public libraries, lending libraries, and so-called popular libraries are scattered over 
the entire surface of the globe and number several thousand in the major countries; 

3. The inventorying of documents leaves very much to be desired. Catalogues 
do not exist for a great many libraries or they are published only after considerable delay 
and are not kept up to date. They are always limited to particular collections and rarely 
contain indexing for periodicals. Some periodicals only publish tables of contents and it 
is unusual for these to be complete, to be cumulated after several years and classified in 
detail. National or special bibliographic compilations are not created according to any 
integrated plan which would allow them to be considered to be parts of the Universal 
Bibliography. They are fragmentary, frequently interrupted and abandoned. Like library 
catalogues, they have their own classifications and editorial procedures and are published 
in various languages, all of which make consulting them very complicated. As for 
booksellers and publishers catalogues, these deal only with particular collections and are 
commercial in character. Nevertheless, the number of these various bibliographic sources 



108 Paul Otlet 

has risen to more than 40,000. Even though taken all together they would actually 
constitute the Universal Bibliography, it is impossible to have them assembled in one 
place. This is what always makes the research needed to prepare a complete list of 
documents about a particular subject (the literature of a subject) a delicate task, full of 
difficulty, delay and uncertainty, and consequently impossible to do for a great many 
people; 

4. The documentary methods of the past are unable to produce an effective 
organisation of collections or of research instruments. They are dominated by particular, 
individual points of view in the way they are edited, arranged and published. The works 
were undertaken without any overall programme, links or cooperation; 

5. The need for recorded information, however, increases in proportion as 
contacts increase, as work becomes more international, as undertakings become more 
distant from each other, as general ideas assimilate all individual ideas and become more 
universal, and as the social action of individuals and groups becomes more 
interdependent. These facts determine the present situation of scholars, of those persons 
responsible for education or in professional occupations (engineers, physicians, lawyers, 
industrialists) or responsible for the management of public affairs (legislators, 
administrators, civil servants, etc.); 

6. Even though bibliographies draw the existence of documents to the 
attention of researchers and libraries make them available, documents constitute, it must 
be said, materials in a rough state. The same facts are so often repeated in them and in 
such different ways that it would be a waste of time to require the great majority of 
researchers to read or to consult everything. Documents contain simultaneously what is 
definitely false and what is accepted as true, what is outdated and of only an historical 
interest and what is current and of practical usefulness. 

For all of these reasons it is necessary to provide researchers with guides to the 
mass of scattered documents and thus to organise documentation. 

5. General Basis for and Characteristics of the Organisation 

The organisation of documentation should be based on the following: 

1. Universality of Documentation. All kinds of documents, all documents 
taken individually and all the genres of documentary work must be included. The 
Organisation should be undertaken gradually, beginning with those aspects that are most 
useful and most easily realisable. 

2. Collections. Documents (writings, books, images, photographs) must be 
assembled and arranged to form collections, that is systematic, organised wholes that are 
as complete as possible (libraries, picture libraries and so on) and agreements for 
exchange and use should be set up between these collections. 

3. Repertories. The documentary work to which documents are subjected in 
order to make their existence known and to facilitate knowledge of their contents, must 
result in a variety of catalogues. Each should be considered an aspect of integrated 
documentation and as able to be combined in such a way that they are all 
complementary. Repertories should be formed from separate entries which are prepared 
individually so that they constitute so many single, identical units, recorded on separate 
leaves or cards. Repertories should be indefinitely extensible and kept up to date by 



Systematic Organisation 109 

current publishing. They should be classified in such a way that their contents are made 
accessible by means of numerous and varied entry points. 

The primary objective of documentary work should be the listing and 
description of documents in such a way that an instrument of research is created by 
means of which all documents of the past, the present and the future can be regarded as 
chapters, sections and paragraphs of a single book containing all of Knowledge and 
Thought The Universal Bibliographic Repertory, the living product of individual 
bibliographies, will be considered to be the immense table of contents of such a book. 

Next, documentary work should have the objective of analysing and 
summarising documents, of coordinating and codifying their contents. The systematic 
reading of works by a few for the benefit of all will permit the extraction of results that 
are scattered in innumerable sources. Original ideas (facts, theories, methods, plans) can 
then be amalgamated in the uniform and impersonal structure of a kind of Universal 
Book, the Permanent Encyclopedic Repertory, a manuscript register that is kept up-to- 
date by all the information that has been collected. It will be a systematic compilation 
divided into as many sections as there are branches of knowledge and incorporating the 
original elements of each document. Its cooperative organisation will guard against any 
limitation, exclusiveness or bias. 

4. Standardisation and Inter nationalisation of Methods. Repertories and 
collections must be created according to a standard methodology that includes 
simultaneously the form of documents, their arrangement, classification, preservation, 
and communication. This method must be applicable internationally. 

The two-fold basis of the documentary method consists first, in the card which 
allows each item of information to be recorded separately in any place and at any time in 
a standard, even if distributed, manner, subsequently to be integrated into a single 
sequence made up of similar elements. Second, Classification by subject which allows 
each document and each card to be assigned a permanent class number which determines 
its special place in the encyclopedic structure of general documentation. 

5. Cooperation. The organisation must enlist the widest collaboration from 
individuals as well as institutions in all countries and in all branches of knowledge and 
activity. Only thus will so considerable an undertaking, which is directed to the whole 
world and utilises materials drawn from everywhere, be brought to a successful 
conclusion. It is important that the international organisation of documentation be 
permeated by a truly universal spirit. 

6. Concentration and Decentralisation. Federation. The collections and 
repertories built up in this way should increase in number and become as extensive and 
complete as possible. The results of universal cooperation must be made as widely 
available as possible. The organisation should cover all countries and all the great centres 
in a vast network of documentation services that, though more or less fragmented, are set 
up by the separate groups (institutions or individuals) according to standard methods. 
These institutions will be linked to a central International Institute, which is conceived of 
as a federative organ, the emanation and representation of all of the separate groups. This 
institute will have to direct cooperative work, divide up the tasks, encourage support, 
supervise the maintenance and development of the methodology and organise general 
services common to all groups (exchanges, inventories, etc.). Finally, it must ensure the 
conservation and use of prototype examples of the collections and repertories. These 



110 Paul Otlet 

examples are needed to achieve physically the consistency required in one place and to 
maintain it in the collections and repertories distributed elsewhere. 

6. The International Institute of Bibliography 

The International Institute of Bibliography was founded in 1895 as a purely 
scientific institution inspired by the considerations listed above. Because of the help of 
the governments, associations and individuals [l] and the support offered it by 
international congresses [2], it has gradually matured until now an appropriate goal for it 
seems to be that of becoming the institution responsible for organising documentation 
internationally. This task requires a permanence, continuity and amplitude of effort 
beyond the power of individuals or even groups in a single country. 

The objectives of the institute are as follows: 

1. The study and diffusion of all theoretical and practical matters of concern 
about Documentation in general and about its various branches in particular; the 
elaboration of a general documentary methodology; 

2. The creation of systematically formed collections of documents and the 
development from a universal point of view of repertories whose purpose is coordination 
and accessibility of documents [3]; 

3. The organisation of cooperation in relation to the formation and use of 
these collections and repertories. For this purpose, achieving an agreement between 
various regional, national and special documentation services, and most especially with 
international organisations, and the affiliation of these services and institutions to the 
Central Institute. 

Conclusions 

Organised on the basis just discussed, Universal Documentation through its 
collections and its various repertories would truly become a "World Memory." This 
would not be limited to recording facts, but would automatically and instantly permit 
their retrieval. It would be a vast intellectual mechanism designed to capture and 
condense scattered and diffuse information and then to distribute it everywhere it is 
needed. 

From the point of view of scientific work, the organisation described above 
would constitute an enormous application of the ideas of cooperation and the division 
and coordination of effort In developing the habit of collaboration, it would gradually 
introduce more consistency, more agreement, and more integration in future scientific 
work. From the international point of view, it would constitute an undertaking of capital 
importance in ensuring the extension and continuity of intellectual relations. 



[1] See below the chronology of facts related to the development of the International Institute of 

Bibliography. 3 
[2] See below the text of the resolutions related to universal bibliography of international congresses. 4 

[3] See below the notices about the repertories, collections, and publications of the International Institute of 
Bibliography. ' 



Systematic Organisation 111 



Editor's Notes 

1. L'Organisation systimatique de la documentation et le diveloppement de I'Institut 
International de Bibliographie. IIB Publication No. 82; Bruxelles: IIB, 1907. pp. 7- 
15. This publication is unsigned and consists of the section translated here together 
with the sections described in Editor's footnotes 3, 4, and 5. It also appeared in IIB 
Bulletin 12 (1907): 3-11. 

2. Referred to here are two studies: Paul Otlet, "La Statistique internationale des 
imprimds, quelques sondages," IIB Bulletin 1 (1896): 300-319; and Paul Otlet, "La 
statistique internationale des imprimis, "IIB Bulletin 5 (1901): 109-121. An 
extended study of this subject was presented to the 1910 International Conference of 
Bibliography in Brussels on behalf of the IIB by B. Irwinski ("La Statistique 
internationale des imprimis: resultats g6n6raux," IIB Bulletin 16 (1911): 1-139). 

3. "Chronique des principaux faits relatifs au diveloppement de I'Institut International 
de Bibliographie," pp. 35-50. This is detailed and rather discursive account 
invaluable for the history of the IIB. 

4. "Resolutions des congres," pp. 51-64. this is arranged by year and contains the 
resolutions in extenso. As well as the various conferences of bibliography, 
publishers and so on are such resolutions as that of the 3rd International Congress of 
Hygiene and Demography in Brussels in 1903 that an International Bibliography of 
Hygiene and Demography be created. The resolutions of the 1906 International 
Congress on Photographic documentation are particularly long and detailed. (See 
Paper No. 6 "On a New Form of the Book.. ."in this volume) 

5. "Repertoires, collections, publications, services de I'Institut International de 
Bibliography," pp. 17-33. This is particularly interesting in giving full description of 
the various repertories being elaborated at the time. The 'unitary' Universal 
Bibliographic Repertory had about 14 component repertories. 



9. THE UNION OF INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATIONS: 
A WORLD CENTRE 1 



The organisation of the world is due to a vast and continuous movement which, 
remote in its origin, has, of late years, acquired an immense impetus. It tends to stimulate 
more cooperation among similar groups in all countries, insures a greater acquisition of 
knowledge and of technical expertise throughout the world, promotes the unification of 
methods and international agreements on all subjects wherever possible and desirable. 

International Associations have become the centralising organs of this movement. 
Whether official or private, created by the union of States or formed by the drawing together 
of national federations on their own free initiative, it is to them that we owe results which 
have transformed the world's mode of living: the world's postal service; the extension of the 
decimal metric system to all nations; the coordination across frontiers of railway services and 
navigation; international law applicable to all judicial relations of persons and property; 
arbitration between nations substituting the reign of peace for the arbitrament of war, the 
interparliamentary discussion of great world interests; co-operation, charity and insurance 
extending solidarity and fraternity to all countries; public health protected from great 
scourges by concerted hygienic measures; works of art and books protected, exchanged and 
lent internationally, and documents made universally available; science studied in common, 
and, by the contributions of results obtained by workers in all countries, constituted into a 
universal synthesis of knowledge. 

At the present time there are about 400 International Associations in actual 
operation. Because of the variety of their aims they cover practically every field of study and 
activity. Each of them endeavours to collect into a central organisation, generally of a 
federative character, the most representative forces in their own particular domain from the 
different countries. 

The activity of these Associations is continually made evident in meetings and 
congresses, publications, enquiries, petitions, contributions and communications, collections 
and joint services; in incessant publicity for their ideas. They all tend towards cooperation of 
effort, concerted reforms, and general progress. In this way, the International Associations 
constitute so many centres of World Life. 

At first, during the long period in which they remained isolated, these Associations 
carried out their separate programmes without seeking to coordinate their ideas and action or 
to cooperate with one another. Coordination and cooperation became imperative, however, as 
a natural consequence of their work of self organisation. Once they had placed all their 
national groups in close communication, once they had united these forces into a universal 
bond and began to act according to shared views and mutually agreed on plans, it became 
necessary for the International Associations to consider what relations they could establish 
between themselves, to realise the extent of their fundamental solidarity, and to understand 



112 



Union of International Associations 113 

that they formed parts of a larger whole which embraces the entire social functions of 
mankind. 

The Union of International Associations sprang out of the movement for connecting 
these bodies. It was constituted in 1910 by a World Congress at which there were delegates 
from 132 international organisations. The scheme had been prepared as far back as 1907 by 
the Central Office Of International Associations, the foundation of which was suggested at 
Brussels by the leading men of several associations which had their headquarters in that city. 
Since 1910, the Central Office has become the headquarters for the Union [l]. 

The essential aim of the Union, as defined by its organisers, is to bring the 
International Associations together in order to pursue the systematic organisation of 
International Life in all its branches. Its object is to extend and coordinate international 
cooperation in the domain of all scientific, technical and social activities by developing the 
more than 400 international associations now existing, by harmonizing their programmes and 
their work, and by maintaining a world centre for their general services. 

The Union attains these objectives by the following means: 

a) Organising representatives from all of the international associations into a 
federated body (the Union holds periodic congresses and carries out its resolutions through a 
central executive office). 

b) Consolidating the work done by the several associations through the 
establishment of universal systems, namely: 

1. Standardisation (legal standards of weights and measures, efficiency 
methods, etc.) 

2. Regulation (standard contracts, international rules and conventions, etc.). 

3. Terminology and language (technical and scientific nomenclature, 
notations, classifications; rules for the use of national languages in 
international relations). 

4. Publication and documentation (system of synthetic and coordinated 
publication, recording of international literature; international use of the 
great storehouses of publications and documents). 

c) Forming international collections: 

1 . International Museum (comparative and national sections). 

2. International Library 

3. Cyclopedical Archives. 

4. Universal Bibliographic Catalogue. 



[1] See inter alia The Union of International Associations, publication no 25a of the Central Office, and the articles 
by Messrs. La Fontaine and Otlet which constitute the introduction of the Annuaire delavie Internationale, and 
of the review, La Vie inter nationale. 



114 Paul Otlet 

d) Creating and administering a headquarters for international associations already 
existing, and for those not having any permanent office. 

e) Issuing Publications dealing with facts, ideas and the organisation of 
international life: 

1. Monthly review: La Vie Internationale. 

2. Year Book: Annuaire de la vie international . 

3. General code including the desiderata and the resolutions of International 
Congresses 

The Union receives contributions from the affiliated international associations in 
proportion to their means. The Interparliamentary Union provides a yearly subvention of 
1,000 francs and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace a yearly subvention of 
15,000 dollars. Voluntary gifts from benefactors interested in world organisation have 
contributed to the progress of the collections. 

The World Congress has adopted a motion to the effect that all governments should 
be requested to give moral and material support to the Union and to organise national 
sections representing the best forces in their respective country. 2 



I. Co-operation between international associations: 
A World Centre 

The Union invites Associations to deliberate in general meetings, where important 
issues, common to the whole of humanity, may be brought forward; to formulate unanimous 
views; to act to achieve greater force and harmony by avoiding duplicated or isolated efforts; 
and thus to bring about unity of methods. 

Instead of engaging in work having no relation with what has been done up to the 
present, the Union proposes to act in concert with Associations already existing and 
operating, and to make use of them. It proposes that together they should set up an 
International Centre which is both an Intellectual Centre of ideas, methods, exchanges, 
relations and propaganda, and a Physical Centre of collections and of persons devoted as 
much to the study as to the management of affairs having a world-wide and universal 
character. 

The existence of a Centre assures both continuity of work and international 
collaboration. It provides a milieu conducive to comparative studies, to the diffusion of new 
ideas and to the multiplication of relations. Essentially neutral, extra-national so to speak, in 
a manner extraterritorialized, here the representatives of each nation in the various branches 
of study and action can consider themselves at home and not the guests of another nation. 

The Centre must create the sympathetic and non-partisan atmosphere necessary for 
the production and development of ideas and initiatives of world-wide influence. In the 
Centre all international interests may be discussed frankly and openly but with mutual 
respect. A great deal of this programme is now being carried out as shown by what follows. 



Union of International Associations 115 

II. The Publications of the Union of 
International Associations 

The Union has undertaken several publications which form a series whose parts are 
all completed by one another. They are the Annuaire de la vie Internationale, a monthly 
review La Vie internationale, the proceedings of the World Congresses, and the codification 
of resolutions and wishes of the International Associations. 

a) The Annuaire de la vie internationale (Annual of International Life), condenses 
the results of a permanent enquiry regarding International Associations, whether official or 
unofficial. The first volume of 1500 pages was published in 1910. The second volume of 
2650 pages was published in 19 12. 3 These volumes contain separate entries 4 elaborated 
according to the same plan for all International Associations. These entries form a first 
collection of facts concerning the history of each association, its object, its programme, its 
statutes, the work already done, the composition of its staff, and the international conventions 
concluded through its intervention. The reproduction of the texts of the resolutions voted by 
the Congresses and of the conventions signed by the States make the Annual a collection of 
the greatest documentary value. All the information is obtained from original documents 
which are preserved in the Archives of the Office. 

b) The review, La Vie internationale, constitutes a monthly survey of ideas, facts 
and organisations related to International Life. It endeavours to show the organic nature of 
the movement towards internationalism and how the world community is growing. The 
review is a tribune placed at the disposal of the leaders of the international associations and 
to some extent forms a permanent World Congress. First published in 1912, the two volumes 
for each year cover about 1300 pages. 

c) The Codification of resolutions and wishes of International Associations is 
undertaken by the Central Office. International Congresses are practically parliaments, each 
specializing in its own domain. Their resolutions, therefore, may be considered as special 
international laws. These laws are not enforced by sanctions similar to those available to 
enforce the laws of national parliaments. But they have an inherent power of persuasion, and 
in most cases command a powerful indirect sanction: moral compulsion, exclusion, or 
boycott. 

The first part of this codification has already appeared (see proceedings of the 
World Congress, 1910, pp. 39-196). 5 It coordinates principles, ideas, facts and regulations 
that have already been formulated on the question of world organisation by a great number of 
special congresses, but which had never before been brought together. The utility of such a 
codification consists not only in the fact of collecting scattered information, but also in 
giving a practical demonstration of the interdependence and solidarity of the work done by 
International Associations. The codification will be presented as a whole to the Governments, 
and in the future will result in a systematised account of all the means considered by 
international leaders as best for the progressive organisation of the world. 



116 Paul Otlet 

III. The International Collections 

The International Centre organises International Collections of world-wide 
importance. These collections are the International Museum, the International Library, the 
International Bibliographic Catalogue and the Universal Documentary Archives. These 
collections are conceived as parts of one universal and international body of documentation, 
as an encyclopedic survey of human knowledge, as an enormous intellectual warehouse of 
books, documents, catalogues and scientific objects. Established according to standardised 
methods, they are formed by assembling cooperatively everything that the participating 
associations may gather or classify. Closely consolidated and coordinated in all of their parts 
and enriched by duplicates of all private works wherever undertaken, these collections will 
tend progressively to constitute a permanent and complete representation of the entire world. 

I. The International Museum 

The aim of the International Museum is to demonstrate the progress achieved in all 
fields relating to the domain of internationalism and, from a scientific and social point of 
view, to emphasize the importance of the facts connected with them. 

According to the general idea of the Museum, it has both National and Comparative 
Sections. In the National Sections are assembled, according to educational and synthetic 
methods, all possible objects and documents showing the general aspects of the various 
countries or ethnic groups in order to facilitate comparative study: political and social 
organisations; natural and artistic wealth; economic development; civilisation and culture; 
participation in world life through material and intellectual exchanges; participation in 
international agreements whether of an official or a private kind. 

The National Sections will be organised by each Government aided by an executive 
committee and the associations of the country. Their aim is to realize permanently at the 
International Centre what has already been accomplished temporarily at the great Universal 
Exhibitions. Taken as a whole, the halls of the National Sections should form a vast 
geographic and ethnographic museum, a museum of the Earth and Men. 

The Comparative Sections of the Museum are formed by the International 
Associations, and each will there organise with the help of the Union an educational and 
impressionistic 6 exhibit of the progress achieved in the various branches of science and 
practical activity. It will be simultaneously a Universal Museum and a Technical, 
Educational, Geographical, Economic and Social Museum. 

The Comparative Sections will take up all that is general, universal and essentially 
human: the physical and psychic being of man, the place he occupies amongst his fellow men 
on the planet and in the universe; the history of ideas, creeds, and philosophical systems; the 
transformation and present state of the organisation and application of the sciences and of 
cooperation in research and in the diffusion of knowledge, which are the guiding principles 
for intellectual and physical work; the chief facts of Universal History and the various phases 
of civilization; the laws of the formation and development of human societies; the 
mechanism of production, circulation and distribution of wealth throughout the globe; the 
succession of great inventions; the snuggle against diseases and plagues; the large 
undertakings that have transformed the human abode and given to men power over nature; 



Union of International Associations 117 

the means of transportation and of communication; the immense development of railways; 
the progressive development of the great transcontinental railway lines, the creation of what 
one might call a transmondial system as they have been joined together; the present state of 
maritime transportation, inter-oceanic canals and maritime routes; the origin, history and 
diffusion of the universal postal service, the telegraph, submarine cables, the telephone and 
wireless telegraphy. 

It must be a museum of the best types and standards. It must endeavour to arrange 
its material systematically, and to collect what otherwise can only be found in the world at 
the cost of great effort, loss of time and considerable travelling. 

The museum will be a world in miniature, a cosmoscope allowing one to see and 
understand Mankind, Society and the Universe. Formed by the combination and synthesis of 
all the factors of past and present progress, it will give a vision of the future. 

The International Museum, begun in 1910, today occupies sixteen large halls having 
an area of 2640 yards. It contains 12,000 objects and documents. The arrangement of the 
proposed building must provide for a development appropriate to the programme which has 
just been discussed. 

The Comparative Sections will become in time special international museums which 
each International Association will form for its own field. Different museums created 
separately by International Associations have already combined with the International 
Museum while retaining their individuality, for example the International Administrative 
Museum and the International Museum of Roads. ' 



II. International Library 

The International Library has as its programme the gathering of a vast collection of 
books, not in response to national or local needs like other great existing libraries but guided 
by the principles of internationalization and univcrsalization. Its purpose is to seek to respond 
to the requirements for comparative study of the International Associations. 

Books are themselves the tools for all cooperative work carried out by numerous 
minds working in separated localities. They are by preference the tools of associations. All 
that is discovered, observed, and achieved takes the form of a written work which is printed 
and addressed to the public, to anonymous and unknown people from whom it is hoped to 
win approval or cooperation in one form or another. Printed matter as a whole summarizes 
and synthesizes all information. It constitutes the memory of humanity and registers its 
collective experience. Its power for the general good will be especially strengthened when its 
accessibility is made easier through more systematic selection and more detailed and better 
organised cataloguing, but also through publication procedures which are more responsive to 
general needs and which are placed under the control of the Associations themselves. 

The constitution of an International Centre cannot be conceived without the 
organisation of important documentation services. These have been assumed by the 
International Institute of Bibliography, whose large collections are themselves the results of 
collective efforts. 

The International Library will take the beginning of the 20th century as its point of 
departure. It aims at being above all a modem library without, however, with respect to 



118 Paul Otlet 

fundamental matters, excluding collections of materials relating to previous epochs. It must 
be constituted from collections having different origins, such as: 

1. Deposit of libraries belonging to each International Association. These actually 
collect works and periodicals from the whole world relative to their specialty. This is fairly 
easy owing to exchanges, authors' presentation copies, and organised national 
correspondence services. 

2. Deposit of collections of official publications printed by the different 
Governments and by administrations and scientific establishments which depend on 
governments or are under their auspices. This literature increases in importance as the duties 
assumed by the State extend, and as the principle of public powers giving aid to important 
scientific and social publications is generally accepted. Official publications are today 
already used by Governments for international exchange. From this point of view, the 
International Library in fact constitutes a central depository for duplicates of all publications 
which, according to international conventions, ought to be exchanged between the signatory 
Governments. 

3. Donations of works by authors and publishers who will appreciate more and 
more the advantage of being represented by their publications in these central collections. By 
bringing these works in contact with the general literature on their subject, the International 
Library gives them useful publicity. 

4. Donations of whole libraries by men of science and private persons who desire 
to cooperate in the constitution of a World Library and to save from dispersion the works 
they have collected in connection with comparative studies. 

The International Collective Library was set up in 1907. Today it contains the 
collections of 62 affiliated organisations and includes about 75,000 works. 

The number of printed items in all countries since the invention of printing is 
estimated at 12 millions. Periodicals and journals now number 72,000. It is from this 
formidable array that a selection has to be made. The constitution of an International Library 
of 2,000,000 items is a programme appropriate for collective effort. 



III. Universal Bibliographical Catalogue 

The Universal Bibliographical Catalogue is the realization of a project for 
concentrating cataloguing work, often sketched during the last century, but carried out only 
since 1895 as a result of the International Conference organised by the International Institute 
of Bibliography. 

The Catalogue constitutes a universal list of writings, books, and articles from 
journals, classified according to authors and subjects. It concentrates and coordinates the 
catalogues of the great national and international libraries of all countries and special 
international bibliographies, a great number of which are undertaken by international 
associations. It is at once the collective work of the international associations and the proper 
work of the International Institute of Bibliography which drew up the general rules for it 

Science cannot progress without a regular system of bibliography and of 
documentation which is accepted and used by a large majority of scientists in all countries. 

To work systematically it is necessary, first of all, to enquire if a subject has been 
studied previously and what results others have obtained. This is only possible by means of a 



Union of International Associations 119 

systematic organisation of documentation, a very difficult task on an individual basis. The 
quantity of publications produced annually and added to existing publications, the dispersion 
of works in a great number of libraries, the difficulty of knowing that publications exist when 
they are wanted, the great number of bibliographic lists or catalogues drawn up according to 
different plans and of doubtful completeness, the loss of time in bibliographic investigations, 
the unintegrated character of scientific publications themselves - these are insuperable 
obstacles. 

The Universal Bibliographic Catalogue which endeavours to give exact, complete 
and rapid information, now contains 1 1 million entries; it should contain SO million to be up 
to date. 

Its method is as follows: it is established on cards of universally accepted size, some 
manuscript, other printed. The classification, according to the outlines of the decimal system, 
is very minute. An alphabetic index enumerating the headings used for the classification's 
35,000 subdivisions covers the entire field of knowledge and activity. 

Each country is invited to issue, according to standard rules, a catalogue of the 
works published by its citizens in order to insure the direct incorporation of the titles of their 
works into the Universal Repertory. Each International Association is invited to prepare a 
systematic bibliography of the periodicals of its specialty according to the same methods. 
Thus an integrated catalogue of intellectual production will gradually be established and 
placed at the disposal of workers throughout the entire world. 



IV. Cyclopedical Archives 

The Cyclopedical Archives complete the documentary work of the Library and the 
Bibliography. This work can be considered under a four-fold aspect: first of all it is necessary 
to collect and classify the titles of all the writings published in the different countries at 
different epochs (Bibliography); then to collect the writings themselves (Library); further, all 
the writings ought to be reduced by a form of disintegration and readjustment into the form 
of files each conceived as chapters and paragraphs of a single universal book; finally, 
because of the abundance of documents and the frequency of repetition and obvious errors, it 
has become necessary to summarize and coordinate them in a Universal or Perpetual 
Encyclopedia. 

Such an encyclopedia will be a monument erected to the glory of human thought 
and will be the graphic materialization of all the sciences and arts. It will have, in fact, the 
thinkers of all ages and countries as collaborators. It will be the total sum of the intellectual 
effort of centuries. It is clear that the Universal Encyclopedia should avoid all national 
tendencies; it must really emanate from the combined efforts of the best men of every 
country. 

Already, with the aid of some International Associations, it has been possible to 
begin the work on a small scale and to form the following collections: 

1. A classified collection of documentary files (Universal Repertory of 
Documentation) concentrating papers and documents relative to a question or a group of 
questions (pamphlets, articles from reviews and journals, statistical tables, maps, diagrams, 
schemas, commercial catalogues, laws, reports, etc.). 



120 Paul Otlet 

2. A classified collection of iconographical documents (Universal Iconographical 
Repertory). On each subject pictorial documentation is created in connection with the main 
documentary files. This work is done by the International Institute of Photography. 8 

3. A general repertory of information which is divided into as many parts as there 
are categories of facts to be considered. This contains information about institutions and 
persons (Annual of annuals), statistics, tables of legislation; abstracts of natural species; 
physical and chemical coefficients, patents, etc. 

4. Archives of the Press which, on a daily basis, follows the production of 
periodicals, reviews and journals in every country. This work is done by the International 
Museum of the Press. 9 



IV. A Centre for International Studies 
and Information 

The large collections brought together at the International Centre will attract from 
all parts of the world workers who will be certain of finding there in a few hours complete 
and up-to-date information for the gathering of which they would have had to spend many 
long days elsewhere. These workers will find in the centre common study rooms or private 
offices which have been especially arranged for the purpose of research. 

The official documentation of every country will attract foreign commissioners 
delegated by their Governments to obtain comparative information on questions of general 
welfare. 

Selected students from every country will come to the centre to complete their 
education and the organisation of an International University will soon become a necessity. 
The best professors of the world will be invited to teach in such a university. All countries 
will be proud to send their most clever men and to give them an opportunity of addressing 
large cosmopolitan audiences in surroundings of high and universal culture. 

But the International Centre is not only a centre for concentration 10 ; it is also a 
distribution point. The utilization of the collections on the spot is complemented by measures 
making them available at a distance by loan, by copying, or by reprinting. The objects 
belonging to the Museum may be duplicated to enrich existing collections or to form new 
ones. Copies of the cards of the Universal Bibliographical Repertory can be obtained on 
demand, whether the demand is limited to a special question or to a special language or 
period. The books in the Library may circulate. Photographic processes also permit the 
provision of exact reproductions of texts, figures, statistics, maps, and engravings at a very 
low price. Typewritten copies can be given of documents preserved in the archives. 

The consequence is the organisation and operation of an International Bureau of 
Information (commerce, legislation, technical questions, social work, etc.). 

The documentary centralisation aimed at by the Union of International Associations 
is not merely of inestimable value for personal consultation on the spot; its scope is more 
extensive. The International Centre will make the world known to the world. It will incite 
men to work together and promote their cooperation in all the domains of knowledge and 
action. It will provide a home for the study and discussion of the management of the great 
interests of mankind. It will provide humanity with a consciousness of its unity. 



Union of International Associations 121 



V. The World Palace and the Headquarters 
of the International Associations 

The World Congress of 1913 adopted a motion to the effect that the services and 
collections of the World Centre should be installed in an appropriate building or group of 
buildings (World Palace) and that the International Associations should be assisted by the 
governments and individual benefactors of all countries. The following plan was presented to 
the Congress. 11 

The World Palace will contain, first of all, spacious halls capable of assembling 
large congresses, together with competently organised services which nowadays are 
necessary for temporary meetings of a great number of delegates. 

From this point of view, the arrangements will be as complete as those provided on 
a temporary basis in the Congress Palaces of the great Universal Exhibitions: large assembly 
halls, general assembly rooms, committee rooms, places for the distribution of publications 
and correspondence, places for members of the press, and numerous others for postal, 
telephone and telegraph services, etc. 

The fact that in one city of the world there will exist premises always ready to 
receive great international meetings, and organised in such a manner as to diminish as much 
as possible the expenses such assemblies entail, will have as a consequence an increase in the 
number of these meetings which will become more regular and frequent 12 

Naturally, there is no question of opposing the trend towards associations holding 
their own assemblies in different parts of the world, thus spreading their ideas in every 
country. But the time has come to complete this kind of itinerant organisation by creating a 
centre which is ever ready to receive the associations when financial or diplomatic 
difficulties arise elsewhere and which also offers easy access from different countries for the 
frequent meetings of special commissions. 

In the Palace there will be premises for the Executive Committees of the 
Associations and for their Secretaries' Offices as well as for the Executive Committee of the 
Union itself. The affiliated Associations will be able to establish at the Palace not only their 
Permanent Head Office but also to organise special institutes and laboratories for research. 

A great number of these services are already in existence and new ones will 
certainly be created when facilities are offered. The Union's offices will be installed there, as 
will the services it will organise for the Associations, such as handling and forwarding, 
copying and printing, photographing and illustrating 13 , the provision of a central deposit for 
publications and the necessary rooms for collective publishing services. 

The fact of actually assembling in one and the same building a great number of 
organisations will allow each of them to profit by a reduction in the cost of a whole series of 
general services which would be impossible for them to undertake separately for their 
individual use. They may utilize premises, collections, appliances and a staff placed at their 
disposal at very little cost, by paying a proportional part of the expenses. 

On the other hand, the mutual aid the different organisations will be able to render 
each other will be greatly increased by doing away with correspondence which often requires 
long delays between enquiry and reply. The presence of persons on the spot, study facilities, 
and the furtherance of the means of action will mean considerable aid in scientific and 
administrative work. 



122 Paul Otlet 

The International Associations will be invited to establish their headquarters at the 
International Centre, but naturally those among them who have their Head Offices elsewhere 
may be represented at the Centre by establishing an agency or branch. They will thus be able 
to utilize all or some of the advantages offered by the Centre and, reciprocally, the Centre 
may benefit by their collaboration. 

It is only by becoming sedentary and having a fixed domicile that Associations can 
really develop their services. Out of the 400 International Associations now existing, only 
161 having established headquarters. Consequently there remain about 240 Associations yet 
to find a permanent location, apart from new International Associations which may be 
organised in the future. 



VI. The Participation of the Governments 
in the World Centre 

Governments are the constitutive elements of a world organisation. It is for the 
benefit of the peoples who comprise the nations that Governments are established. At the 
present time, when all the trends of technical progress bring men closer to one another and 
create not only a material but also a moral international interdependence, it is the first duty of 
Governments to take part in such a movement 

It is in the greatest interest of all nations to be known as they are, to show how they 
can contribute to general progress, to indicate the services which they can render to other 
nations and which other nations can render them. Until the present, such knowledge has been 
scattered in pamphlets and articles. Nowhere has it been possible to have a clear view of the 
conditions, needs, or riches of the countries of the world. The forging of international 
relations has been the result of accidental circumstances, not of scientific and permanent 
enquiry. 

The Union of International Associations has fully realized this lack, and each of its 
federated groups is trying in the different domains of activity and research to discover and to 
recommend what is best for the general welfare of men. But their efforts often fail because 
they do not possess an accurate idea of the conditions existing in the various countries. 
Therefore the Central Office of the Union has divided its services into sections by countries 
(national sections), and by subjects (comparative sections). Both, as can be seen from the 
explanations given above, should be equally important to the Governments, and no stronger 
argument would seem necessary to prove how much in their interest is participation in the 
vast work of coordination and cooperation undertaken by the Union of International 
Associations. 

The various Governments are requested: 1) to give their support to a section devoted 
to their country and organised at the International Centre; 2) to be permanently represented 
by at least one delegate at the Union and especially at its triennial Congresses; 3) to help the 
Union by providing an adequate subsidy; 4) to co-operate in the formation of the 
international collections: a) of the International Museum by sending exhibits suitable for 
forming a permanent national section like the official sections established temporarily at 
universal exhibitions; b) of the International Library by sending all the official publications 
issued since 1900 by the various governmental authorities or prepared under their auspices; 



Union of International Associations 123 

c) of the Universal Bibliographic Repertory by sending all the catalogues concerning works 
published in their countries or possessed by their leading libraries. 14 



TABLES AND DIAGRAMS 15 

/. History 

1 895. Foundation of the International Institute of Bibliography. 

1906. Preliminary meeting for the creation of a Central Office of International 
Associations. 

1 907. Foundation of the International Library. 

1909. Annuaire de la vie internationale published by the Central Office. 

1910. First session of the World Congress of International Associations. 

1912. The Review, La Vie internationale, published as official organ of the Union. 

1913. Second session of the World Congress of International Associations. 



124 Paul Otlet 

2. Internationalization of Modern Life 
A. MATERIAL LIFE. 



Relations Emigration. Travel. Unification of railways, telegraph, 

radiotelegraph. 

Nutrition Use of food products coming from all parts of the world. 

Generation International marriages. 

Health International measures against cholera, yellow fever, plague, 

tuberculosis, etc. 

B. ECONOMIC LIFE. 

Production Division of labour. International trusts. Foreign workmen. 

Circulation International capital and banking. Foreign shares. 

C. INTELLECTUAL LIFE. 

Technics International organisation of research. 

Congresses, institutes. Systems of weights and measures. 
International inventions. 

Art, Literature Their international influence and protection. Libraries becoming 
international. 

Education Unification of programmes. Equivalence of diplomas. Exchange 

of professors and students. 

Creeds. Morality Universal religions. Universal morality 

D. POLITICAL AND JURIDICAL LIFE 

Organisation of International Parliament (Peace Conferences, special diplomatic 
the powers conferences). International Justice (Court of Arbitration, Court of 

Prizes). International administration (Public collective services). 

Law Public international law. Private international law: marriage, 

guardianship, inheritance, bills of exchange, artistic and literary 
property, patents, maritime navigation, extradition, etc. 



Union of International Associations 125 

3. World Centre 

founded in 1910 by the Union of International Associations to develop the 
Organisation of International Life 

A. ORGANS. 

1 . World Congresses (Representative organ). 

2. Central Office (Executive organ). 

3. National Centres of Internationalism (Local branches). 

B. WORKS. 

1 . Cooperation between the International Associations. 

2. Contribution to special international legislation. 

3 . Coordination of systems of units. 

4. Systematic organisation of International Associations. 

5. Synthetic and coordinated publications. Information. Education. 

6. Terminology and international language. 

C. COLLECTIONS. 

1. International Museum. 

2. International Library. 

3. Documentary and Encyclopedic Archives. 

4. Universal Bibliographic Catalogue. 

D. PUBLICATIONS. 

1. Review, La Vie internationale. 

3 . General Code of Resolutions of International Congresses. 

4. Acts of the World Congress. 

E. DIFFUSION 

1. Central University and Centre for Comparative Studies. 

2. Circulating University. 

3. International Information Bureau. 

F. COOPERATIVE SERVICES. 

1. Bureaux for International Associations. 

2. Cooperative bookselling and publishing services. 



126 Paul Otlet 

4. Statistics 

Organisation 

International organisations affiliated (1913) 169 

Governments represented at the World Congress (1913) 22 

Publications 

Review La We internationale (1912, 1913). 

Number of pages 2.478 

Yearbook Annuaire de la vie internationale (1908-1909; 

1910-1911). Number of pages 4.202 

World Congress Transactions: Actes du Congris mondial (1910) 

Number of pages 1 .246 

Number of reports 60 

World Congress Transactions: Actes du Congris mondial (1913) 

Number of pages 1 .600 

Number of reports 80 

General Codification of resolutions of the International 
Associations (in preparation). 

Number of pages 140 

Classification: Manuel du Repertoire Bibliographique 

Universel. Including the 35,000 headings of the Decimal 

classification. Number of pages. 2.250 

Bibliographia Universalis. 16 

Number of contributions 122 

Number of printed notices (1913) 1.293.652 

Collections 

International Museum: 

Number of objects 12.000 

Number of visitors (1913) 12.904 

International Library: 

Number of deposited libraries 62 

Number of volumes 75.000 

Universal Bibliographic Catalogue: 

Number of cards 1 1 .000.000 

Number of consultancies (1913) 1.790 

Documentary Cyclopedical Archives: 

Number of files 10.000 

Number of pieces 300.000 



Union of International Associations 127 



Editor's Notes 

The Union of International Associations: A World Centre (Publication No. 60; 
Bruxclles: Union des Associations Internationales Office Central, 1914.) This unsigned 
English publication has been edited in an attempt to make its language correct, clearer, 
and more natural than as it now stands. It should be attributed to both Otlet and La 
Fontaine. 

The text is followed at this point by a table of contents, "Sommary" [sic], for the 
numbered sections or chapters that make up the rest of the pamphlet. It is omitted 
here. 

This publication was in fact begun by Alfred Fried and had been published by the 
International Institute of Peace at Monaco since 1905. The fourth volume, for 1908-09, 
was jointly edited by Fried, Otlet and La Fontaine. It was issued in 1909, not 1910, by 
the Office Central des Associations Internationales in Brussels. At 1500 pages, it was 
about 5 times the size of Fried's more modest compilation. The next volume bears the 
imprint date 1911, not 1912. The Belgian Sociological Society undertook a major survey 
of the international associations, drawing up a lengthy questionnaire for the purpose. It 
was the formidable results of this that led to the expansion of the Annuaire and the 
collection of much more information about each of the associations than had been held 
earlier. This work was co-ordinated by Cyrille Van Overbergh, President of the Society 
and Director General of Higher Education in the Ministry of the Sciences and Arts. He 
acted for a time as one of the Secretaries General of the UIA. 

The text uses the word "monographs" not "entries" here and in the following sentence. 

This was a first cut at what became known as the Code des voeux. It appeared in the 
proceedings of the first World Congress of the International Association(Acfe.s: 
Documents preliminaires, rapports, procis-verbaux, code. Congres Mondial des 
Associations Internationales, Premier Session, 1910. Publication No. 2a; Bruxelles: 
Union des Associations Internationales, 1913). The Second World Congress, held in 
Ghent and Brussels in 1913, formally recommended the preparation of a complete Code 
des voeux. After the war, in 1920, the League of Nations granted the UIA a subsidy of 
1500 to publish the work. It was in fact never finished. Compiled eventually by Henri 
La Fontaine, a first volume, over 900 pages in length, appeared in 1923, but no more was 
published. 

The text uses the phrase "didactic and intuitive demonstration". 

These museums had their origin in special exhibitions associated with conferences at the 
1910 International Exhibition of Brussels. The Catalogue of the Musee Administratif 
International was issued as publication No. 2 of the International Museum. The 
International Museum of Roads also had a separate catalogue: Notice et catalogue 
sommaire du Musie international de la route organise" par le Congris de la route. This 
was publication no. 9 of the International Museum. Other sections having separate 
catalogues were Esperanto and Education. 

The International Institute of Photography was set up in 1905. Ernest de Potter, editor of 
the Revue beige de photographic undertook to donate his collections to the new Institute 



128 Paul Otlet 

and to serve as "Conservator of the Photographic Division of the International Institute 
of Bibliography." Primarily the Institute was to organise a Universal Iconographic 
Repertory which was described as "a general collection of pictures and documentary 
illustrations originating from various sources on all subjects and classified." (La 
Documentation et V iconographie. IIB Publication No. 78; Bruxelles: 1906, p.8). This 
grew steadily and in a general report on the IIB in 1912 its secretary, Masure, estimated 
that it had well over a quarter of a million entries. 

9. The Newspaper Museum, Musee de la Presse, had been set up in 1907 in the IIB as a 
cooperative venture with the Union de la Presse Periodique Beige of which Otlet was 
then Vice-President (President from 1908 until 1923) and the Cercle des Collectionneurs 
des Journaux. The new Museum was the beneficiary of two major newspaper 
collections: that of Andre Warzee which had been left to the Union de la Presse 
Periodique Beige and that of Jan Van der Broeck who had been active in setting up the 
Museum. The Museum grew apace and a Curator, Albert de Fonvert was appointed at 
some time before 1911 (Le Musee international de la presse: section de I'Institut 
International de Bibliographie. Notice catalogue. IIB Publication No. 108; Bruxelles: 
IIB, 1918). 

10. The text uses the phrase, "... is not only an attracting center ... " 

11. The major description of the Palais Mondial or World Palace on that occasion is given in 
"Le Centre International et le Palais Mondial", Congres mondial des Associations 
internationales, Bruxelles, 1913 [Actes:] premiire partie - introduction, documents 
preliminaire, liste des adherents, rapports; second partie - procis-verbaux des stances; 
troisiime partie - resolutions, receptions et visites, tables. Publication No. 46; Bruxelles: 
UIA, 1914, pp. 1-15. The resolutions referred to are given in: "LUnion des Associations 
Internationales et le Centre International", ibid., pp. 1 178-1 182. 

12. The text has "periodical" 

13. The text has "drawing". 

14. Section VII of the pamphlet, which follows at this point, "Governments and International 
Associations represented to [sic] the World Congress, 1913", is simply a long list and is 
omitted here. 

15. This pamphlet is completed by 14 unnumbered leaves of tables, diagrams and plates of 
photographs of the International Centre. The first photograph is of the Palais du 
Cinquantenaire, built in 1880 as part of the celebrations for Belgium's 50th anniversary 
as an independent state. The caption describes it as the "present seat of the International 
Museum", though the UIA had, only been given use of part of one wing. Another leaf 
shows small snapshots of the "Political and Juridical Sections" of the Museum, 
"Technical Section, Aviation Laboratory", and "The Spanish Section". These suggest the 
presence of professionally prepared graphics but few other exhibits. The Aviation 
Laboratory appears to have had eight or so small models of aeroplanes suspended from 
the ceiling over a large bordered circular surface (a landing field: a magnifying glass 
shows a tiny model plane on it) on a yet larger square table. Other plates have sketches 
or photographs of the Library, the Bibliography and the "Documentary and 
Encyclopedical Archives". The final plate contains the reproduction of a design for the 
projected - and grandiose - World Palace that would be built "for the Housing of the 



Union of International Associations 129 

World Centre and of Seats of the International Associations, Congresses and Assemblies 
- Museum - Library - University". An extremely wide, elaborately colonnaded front is 
surmounted by a dome. Two tall thin towers at some distance on either side, punctuate 
the expanse at the points where, extending beyond them to complete the facade, the 
building's wings begin. 

The following tables and diagrams are omitted here: "Progressiv [sic] Extension of 
Social Structures", "Relations between the Organisms", "Statistics of International 
Assemblers [sic] (Congresses and Conventions)", Aim and Action of the World Centre 
and "The World Center[>/c]". The last is a diagram showing levels or organisation in 
relation to broad subject areas. The order of the tables included has been changed. 

16. "Contributions" to the Bibliographia Universalis were of two kinds: separate one-off 
bibliographies (such as, for example, Charles Sury's Bibliographie feminine beige and La 
Fontaine's Bibliographie de la Paix) or periodically published indexing or abstracting 
services. "Contributions" were so designated if they followed methods of compilation 
recommended by the IIB, especially inclusion in the entries of, or arrangement of entries 
by, a UDC number thus permitting direct incorporation of the entries into the Universal 
Bibliographic Repertory. Some of the periodical bibliographies grew out of, or were 
influenced by, Otlet and La Fontaine's proselytizing for the Repertory and sometimes 
adopted a common Latin form of name either as title or sub-title: Bibliographia 
Zoologica, Bibliographia Geologica and Bibliographia Philosophica, for example. 
Some were actually compiled under the auspices of the OIB, though published 
elsewhere, such as the Bibliographia Economica Universalis or the "Bulletin des 
sommaires", the monthly index of Belgian periodicals that was issued as part of the 
Bibliographie de Belgique. 



10. NOTE FOR M. DURAND, PREFECT OF POLICE 1 
Paris, 21 December 1915 



Explanation 

I have not come to Paris to make propaganda for peace. But like all thoughtful, reflective 
men I am completely preoccupied with the origins, the development and the objectives of 
this war and with what should follow it I have devoted myself to the sometimes 
contradictory study of these matters in order to find some objective basis for them, a 
procedure which is required for the solution to any problem examined in a scholarly way. 
Thus I have had conversations here with some of the important figures in the world of 
science and politics who are long-standing acquaintances for the most part, and I have 
given a five-part course at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales: "After the War: 
Origins, Causes, Problem and Solution." I had taught here on two different occasions 
before the War, and the presentation of the above course was requested by the School's 
Administration rather than being pressed on them by me. 

For twenty years the study of international matters has been one of my 
concerns. In Brussels, with the patronage and concrete support of the Belgian 
government, I founded the Union of International Associations, which has attempted to 
concentrate and coordinate the international movement of which Belgium had 
spontaneously become the headquarters fifty years ago. I am one of the organisers of the 
great congresses of this Union. I administer its offices and its publications as well as its 
Museum which is installed in government buildings. 

This is to say that I am an internationalist I add that I am not a pacifist. The 
distinction, which is not always made, is real. At the same time as the means of 
communication are making the world smaller and smaller, its population is increasing 
enormously. The natural result is that it is impossible to keep everyone confined to his 
own territory. International relations are being created and are proliferating; a world life 
is being revealed in every arena. There is a two-fold result on the one hand common 
interests are established across political frontiers, everyone being more or less engaged in 
the immense circulation of men, products and ideas; on the other hand, antagonisms 
increase with the points of contact and the possible areas of friction multiply. 
Governments in general have not been sufficiently attentive to this profound 
transformation. The consequence has been that all of this international life, at once so 
fertile and so dangerous, has been left pretty much to itself rather than being channelled 
into institutions that would organise it and establish necessary checks and balances. This 
is why it is necessary to search out the deep-seated cause not of this war - there have 
always been wars - but of the universal character of this war, of the terrible way in which 



130 



Note for Prefect of Police, 1915 131 

it has been conducted, of the involvement in it, either directly or indirectly, of all the 
civilian elements of the population. 

The Pacifist wishes for peace at any price. This sentiment deludes him about 
human goodness and does not encourage rational thinking about sociological causes. He 
is like the charitable man who gives at once without bothering to find out if his alms will 
bring effective help. It is this, though, that concerns practical men and politicians who 
desire social reforms that can reduce suffering at its source. 

The internationalist waits for a lasting peace and for a better organisation of the 
relationships between people which should be its natural fruit Peace at any price, peace 
without justice, peace today without surety of its lasting tomorrow holds no interest for 
him. 

Such different points of view result in quite different practical consequences. 
The evil which must be guarded against is international insecurity, an evil which made its 
ravages felt long before the War in that the armed peace, with its continual alerts, was no 
more than latent war and permitted nothing stable to be created. Internationalists believe 
that, in the future, security must be sought in the organisation of a Society of Nations in 
the same way in which a national society is organised. It should have a single authority 
that decides what must be done in this area; a judiciary to which all conflicts are 
compulsorily submitted, and an executive body with the power of sanctions, moral and 
economic in the first stages, military subsequently (an international allied army). 2 But 
The League of Nations should be founded in Liberty and Equality and should repudiate 
all hegemony, all domination by one state of others. It is directly opposed, therefore, to 
the German conception of Universal Empire or of a Confederation of Europe under the 
control of Prussia. This is why we must continue to fight "until victory" (Briand.) 3 But 
clearly we must understand what the outcome must be, that is, a victory in which "the 
public law of Europe" triumphs (King George), which will overthrow all those "who 
preferred War to negotiation" (The same), which will result in "Freedom for the nations" 
(French and English ministers) and which will cause "Civilisation to triumph over 
barbarism" (all the French, all the English, all the Belgians). 

I have sojourned for several months in Holland and Switzerland looking up old 
friends with whom I used to work. I was able to ascertain the real state of mind of highly 
placed neutrals and observed how inadequate was our propaganda to our allies. The latest 
official slogans, which I have just repeated, simple not very specific war cries, are not 
able by themselves to elicit the interest of the neutrals. 4 Such persons do not themselves 
live in that climate of tension that surrounds us. This war is not their war and they take a 
more "panoramic" view of the situation than we. In their eyes the Allies do not form the 
bloc they do for us. Of France, which has always fought for liberty and progress, they are 
certain - of Belgium, too, on the same grounds. In England's case they have reservations. 
The Boer war is not forgotten, nor the methods of conquest that have prevailed in former 
times in England, the mistress of the seas and of her dominions. As for Russia, the 
neutrals are not only sceptical, they are indignant at the Galician incidents and, in the 
face of the German invasion, at the scorched earth policy to which whole nations are 
sacrificed. 5 These recent affirmations of an autocratic mysticism are hardly of a kind to 
engender world enthusiasm. Precisely because we form a coalition, we should champion 
our cause before the neutrals with special arguments rather than waiting for results, or for 



132 Paul Otlet 

the isolated official declarations given above which are only useful for internal 
consumption. 

In fact, the neutrals can be useful in three ways: morally, economically and 
militarily. There are three levels of support, and to hope for what is so often impossible, 
military support, we risk losing the other two kinds, which, already important today, will 
become supremely so tomorrow. Now, what concerns the neutrals is really not so much 
the war itself as what is to follow it; that is, the war's objectives and future plans for 
Europe and therefore the world. If we, the allies, had said very clearly and precisely what 
our programme was instead of being tied to generalities, if we had included the neutrals 
in this programme, our position with respect to them would have been much stronger. 
Instead of this, we have announced to anyone willing to listen that, at the conclusion of 
the war, the neutrals will be treated as negligible quantities. Our Press, speaking out 
beyond its bounds, has declared that "no one today has the right either by formal 
agreements or by hidden disclaimers, to establish the political outcomes that allied 
military effort will achieve. Peace will be whatever is won by the bravery of our soldiers, 
and it would be a serious fault to lay down conditions about it beforehand in the heat of 
the passions of the moment rather than according to the requirements of an actual 
situation which cannot yet be known clearly" (Le Temps). Reading this, the neutrals infer 
that the Allies will in no way be content to restore violated rights, to chastise the German 
aggressor, to make it impossible for him to do harm in the future, but rather that they 
hope to gain the maximum profit for themselves from their victory - in other words, to 
continue the old political game. Thus we do not have the means of making the neutrals 
understand in a way that they can accept, what the differences will be in their situation 
after our victory as compared with that of our enemies. This would not be so if they 
could see the place and role reserved for them in a well-organised League of Nations. 

Such are the serious gaps in what we are doing abroad (America) 6 and with 
respect to the Western European neutrals, to say nothing about what has earned us 
setbacks in the Balkans, 7 namely, a policy insufficiently illuminated by "principles" (the 
principle of nations threatened by Italo-Serbian rivalry, 8 the principle of freedom of the 
seas threatened by the Russian proposal to occupy Constantinople 9 ). 

The events of the war have therefore confirmed me in my internationalist 
opinions. They provide me with an explanation for the war; they make me understand the 
noble objective that we must hold in our minds; they allow me to see clearly what are the 
motives of the neutrals towards us. 

These opinions are also in profound agreement with my patriotic faith, for the 
interests of Belgium are linked to the final triumph of these principles. For its liberty, for 
the honour of its given word, for rights transgressed, my country has resigned itself to 
martyrdom (King Albeit, his Ministers, all of the Belgians). For it my two sons, my only 
children, have gone out to battle. The youngest, who enlisted voluntarily with my 
consent, has been reported missing in the battle of the Yser. 10 If this war does not end in 
the creation of a stable League of Nations, all of our sacrifices will have been in vain. 
And, if the fault is ours, our dead will renounce us. The League of Nations alone, 
representing justice and security organised and assured to all, can give a real meaning to 
the words that are our battle cries and which can do us harm only if it is possible to 
suspect equivocation in them. Even so, this new order, impossible if we do not win, 



Note for Prefect of Police, 1915 133 

cannot be created by itself on the morrow of victory unless by study, discussion and 
explanation to leading groups, we have prepared the way for it first 

Believing that such preparatory work should be undertaken, without risk to 
anyone, by those who have given pledges of the depth of their attachment to their 
national cause and who continue to fight the enemy by the spoken word and by the pen, 
being too old to do otherwise, I have adopted such a course of action. 



Editor's Notes 

1. This is headed "Paul Otlet, Note remise a M. Durand Preffct de Police a Paris, le 21 
Decembre 1915." Above this is a faint penciled note in Otlet's handwriting: "Note 
remise a Prefet de Police, M. Durand?" This document was found in one of the 
baskets of the Otletaneum in the old Mundane urn, Pare Leopold. 

Otlet was right to query the name of the Prefect of Police. In 1915, he was M.E. 
Laurent and seems to have had a reputation for a certain strictness compared with his 
successor who took office in 1917 (Abel Hermant, La Vie a Paris: une annie de 
guerre: 1917 yp. 139-141). 

Otlet's internationalist activities during the War were not popular in certain 
quarters. He was attacked as a pacifist and traitor to the Allied cause both in the 
French press and by a number of Belgians in exile. At one stage he was refused entry 
to France, though this interdiction was soon lifted after an enquiry and the 
intervention of French friends and colleagues. In July 1916, Otlet made a vigorous 
statement against his detractors to the Geneva branch of the patriotic society, Beiges 
Partout, Beiges Toujours, the organisation of which he had instigated. 

2. Otlet uses the term "Soci&e' des nations" and, in his Problimes Internationaux et la 
guerre of 1916, explains that the use of the term to designate a supranational 
community was sanctioned in the resolutions of the 1907 Peace Conference at the 
Hague. In his view such a "society" would need moral and legal personality and 
political sovereignty. Based on a declaration of fundamental human rights, its 
functions would be divided between four powers and institutions; a legislative power 
exercised through a congress or parliament; a judicial power exercised through one 
or more courts; an executive power exercised by an International Diplomatic 
Council; and a police power exercised through an international army. (See Editor's 
Note 2 in the following paper, "The Organisation of a Society of Nations"). 

Given the interest developing world-wide by the time Otlet wrote to MJLaurent 
in what in English came to be known as The League of Nations (but which in French 
is Socidte des Nations), and Otlet's passionate espousal of it, at least initially, it 
seems best to translate the French name as League of Nations, save where the 
parallel of a national and international society is needed. 

3. Aristide Briand, 1862-1932, was French foreign minister when war broke out He 
headed an all-party government, known a the Union sacree, from October 1915 to 
March 1917, but also continued to hold the Foreign Affairs portfolio. 



134 Paul Otlet 

4. The neutral European powers in the First World War were Switzerland, Holland, 
Spain and the Scandinavian countries. Greece did not formally enter The War until 
1917; she did so on the side of the Entente or Allied powers. It was not until 1916 
and then with increasing frequency that formal public statements of war aims were 
made by the political leaders of the various belligerent powers. 

5. In April 1916 the German army launched a major attack on Russian positions in 
Galicia forcing the Russian army to retreat. Its Commander, Grand Duke Nicholas 
"resolved to effect the defense of Russia by repeating, at ten times the scale, the 
military tragedy of a hundred years before. The campaign of 1915 cost the Russian 
Empire 15 percent of its territories, 10 percent of its railways; 30 percent of its 
industries. Of its population 20 percent were dispersed or passed under Austro- 
German rule. The Russian army lost 2,400,000 men... the retreat was everywhere 
marked by devastation. Homesteads were razed, crops burned, cattle slaughtered. In 
the towns the public services, the power stations, the waterworks and the factories 
were demolished... And, as if the army's passage was not enough, the country was 
afflicted by an exodus of refugees. Some of them fled voluntarily... others were 
ejected by force. Whole communities, especially Jewish, were turned out of their 
holdings collectively." The numbers involved in the forced migrations have been 
estimated to be 10,000,000 of whom only a quarter survived (Frank P. Chambers, 
The War Behind the War, p. 104). 

6. America held aloof from the European War until 19 17. 

7. The Balkan States, still smouldering among themselves after the Balkan wars of 
1912 and 1913, were neutral at the outbreak of War and were "an open field for 
diplomatic and counter-diplomatic by-play that was at once somewhat sordid and 
wanting in results" (Frank P. Chambers, The War Behind the War x p. 71). 

In February 1915, Allied ships began the bombardment of the outer ports of the 
Turkish-held straits of the Dardanelles initiating the Gallipoli campaign. This 
devastating and unsuccessful encounter - a setback if ever there was one - ended 10 
months later with the withdrawal of British, Imperial, and French troops. 

There were other Balkan difficulties for the allies. In 1915 Rumania almost 
followed Italy into the War on the Allied side but held back until 1916. Montenegro 
having supported Serbia at the outbreak of War, submitted to Austria in 1915. Prime 
Minister Venizelos of Greece sanctioned a landing of Allied troops at Salonika to 
help Greece fulfil treaty obligations to Serbia. This action was repudiated by King 
Constantine of Greece, though the troops began to land in August 1915. Bulgaria 
mobilized on the side of the Central Powers in September 1915. In October the 
Austro-German forces, with Bulgarian help, invaded the Balkans to subdue Serbia. 
Greece stood by. Serbia was overtaken and King Constantine appealed to his 
brother-in-law, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, to stop further^ penetration into 
Macedonia. 

8. Otlet's reference to Italy and Serbia is presumably to the provision of the agreement 
creating the Triple Alliance between Italy, Austro-Hungary and Germany that was in 
force at the outbreak of the war. According to one of these provisions, if either Italy 
or Austro-Hungary upset the status quo in the Balkans the other side could demand 



Note for Prefect of Police, 1915 135 

recompense. With the outbreak of War, Italy invoked this provision and began 
haggling with Austria for territorial concessions, especially in the Italian-speaking 
areas of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and in Albania. At the same time, Italy was 
also vigorously being courted by the Allied Powers, and, following the secret Treaty 
of London in April 1915, she entered the War on the side of the Allies in May. 

9. Russia had for centuries claimed Constantinople. A warm- water port, it gave access 
through the Sea of Mamora and the Dardanelles straits to the Aegean and 
Mediterranean seas. During 1914 and 1915, especially after the Dardanelles 
campaign began, Russian diplomacy actively pursued the goal of acquiring 
Constantinople and the Dardanelles straits. A direct request that they be given her 
was eventually agreed to in March 1915 by the Allies and a secret treaty to that 
effect was concluded between them and Russia. 

10. In September 1914, Otlet's older son, Marcel, was taken prisoner at Antwerp and 
was eventually interned in Switzerland. In October, Jean (born 1894) was reported 
missing in The Battle of the Yser. Otlet himself is said to have searched the 
battlefield for the boy's body (Lorphevre, "Otlet, Paul" Biographie nationale) 

In a collection of speeches and articles from The War period, Henri Carton de 
Wiart, Belgian Minister of Justice in exile and, incidentally, colleague of Otlet's, 
described the importance of this battle in which so many had been lost: 

"At the moment when we were gathered by the Yser, on the 11th October, the left 
wing of the French was still at La Brassee. Our infantry, to the number of 48,000, 
supported by 6,000 French Marine Fusiliers, had not had a moment's rest since the 
beginninjg of the campaign. Broken with fatigue, anxiety and lack of clothing, they 
seemed incapable of any further effort. First of all they were required to hold fast 
during 48 hours, unaided, upon a line of 40 kilometres, against the countless 
Germans who, from north and east, were moving against Calais. They stood their 
ground through fifteen days, in spite of their uniforms in rags, their failing limbs, 
their empty stomachs and in spite of the shells and the machine guns, the rain and 
the mud.... (Henri Carton de Wiat, The Way of Honour, p.68). 



11. THE ORGANISATION OF THE SOCIETY OF NATIONS 1 



An examination of the factors and conditions of the life of nations stimulates 
this general observation: as their national life has developed, nations have created an 
international life which has become more and more active, extensive, and varied. 

Great social forces are at work outside national frontiers as well as inside them. 
Ethnic forces bring nationalities into conflict with the imperialist, oppressive, maiming, 
annexionist State. Economic forces have stirred up rivalries in food supply and trade 
outlets. Intellectual and moral forces have led to conflicts between languages, religions, 
customs, and particular ideologies. Political forces oppose, and have led to collisions 
with, the absolute sovereignty of States. These antagonisms which accumulate, merge 
and separate all at the same time, have given this titanic battle, the World War, its own 
unique character. 

But while the nations fight each other in every territory, seeming to leave 
opportunity only for domination or destruction, new directions and developments have 
everywhere become apparent. It appears that national antagonisms can achieve some 
relative reconciliation in higher forms of life that are based on interdependence instead of 
isolation, cooperation instead of conflict, liberty instead of oppression and coercion, 
order and organisation instead of disorder and anarchy. The existence and rights of an 
orderly international life are now being stressed alongside of, and as a prolongation of, 
national life. Everywhere social structures are increasing in size, are being erected on the 
basis of a recognition of general ideals and interests that are common to all, that are truly 
universal and human. They are also based on the subordination to these general ideals 
and interests of those that are national, just as the latter necessitated the subordination of 
the particular interests of factions, parties, regions and localities. 

The Society of Nations is the accepted term for designating this supemational 
community [l]. We must now examine its definitive creation, the culmination of efforts 
over a long period. 

Until now [in this book, International Problems and the War], we have been on 
the solid ground of fact We have been speaking above all of what is, and our task has 
been mainly one of analysis and exposition. We will now move to the shifting ground of 
concepts, for we must now speak of what will emerge in the near future or of what, 
rationally, ought to be. We offer simultaneously a synthesis and a proposed plan for 
considered, voluntary action. It is still possible to deal mostly in facts and to link 
tomorrow to today in some fashion. All that is necessary is to show that the proposed 
reforms have their point of departure in preliminary existing organisations. Doubtless 
these represent timid and isolated initiatives, but it will be useful and possible to develop, 



[1J This expression has been sanctioned by the 1907 Hague Conference in its final resolution. 2 

136 



Organisation of the Society of Nations 137 

improve, and coordinate them. All the same, it is not a matter of proposing a programme 
that must be carried out immediately. What is needed is to show with some exactness the 
direction in which events and the more elevated aspirations of our times have been 
evolving. 

We must limit ourselves, especially after what we have previously discussed, to 
a simple outline filled in here and there. This outline will be confined to the organisation 
of international public life leaving aside all that deals with private or corporate life. Of 
course these two kinds of life complete, sustain, and interpenetrate each other. But, 
ignoring the fact that international relations between individuals and associations have 
already largely been organised, as we have seen, it is the relations between States which 
now urgently need to be stabilised and organised [2]. 

A General Conceptualisation of the Society of Nations 

1. Proposed Organisation. The organisation proposed may be defined in the 
following manner: (1) the establishment between the States of a juridical union based on 
the autonomy and independence of each; (2) the institution above them of a super- 
national authority endowed with moral and legal personality and political sovereignty. 
The jurisdiction of this super-national authority to extend to the great world interests 
with the two-fold object of, a) on the one hand preventing anything that might harm 
them, especially international insecurity, and b) on the other hand encouraging what 
would be useful to them; (3) a positive and detailed declaration of fundamental rights, 
internationally guaranteed, of individuals, associations, nationalities, and States, all 
considered as persons and members of the human community. 

The functions attributed to the super-national authority would be divided 
between four great organs or institutions; (1) a Legislative Power - a Congress or 
Parliament - composed of delegates from the National Parliaments in which the great 
economic and intellectual interests and functions incorporated in International Unions 
would also be represented; (2) a Judicial Power, exercising the functions of mediation, 
arbitration, judgment, and conciliation. To this Judicial Power all the States would be 
party, and recourse to it would be obligatory, its decisions being supported by effective 
sanctions; (3) an Executive Power exercised by an International Diplomatic Council 
authorised to direct and administer world interests within the limits of the law and world 
justice, having for this purpose administrative and financial resources and the necessary 
powers of sanction; and finally, (4) a Sanctioning Power, an international army formed 
from contingents provided by the national armies and directed by a central general staff. 
The goal of its operations would be to impose on opponents by lawful force the 
judgements promulgated by the International Council. 



[2] Because a draft can only achieve the necessary precision if its text is concrete and capable of being 
transformed into resolutions, laws and treaties, we have presented a draft world constitution intended to 
promote preliminary discussions and counter proposals in our book Fin de la guerre. During the War, 
with the cooperation of the Union of International Associations among others, the Organisation Centrale 
Pour Une Paix Durable [Central Organisation for a Durable Peace] was set up in the Hague and in Berne. 
Dealing only with research, but directing this towards immediately practical goals, it has entrusted to 
"National-General" and "International-Special" commissions the preparation of reports, accompanied by 
preliminary drafts of world conventions, on the nine points of a minimum programme which in fact bears 
on the foundations of the "Society of Nations." This organisation's work, which we believed that we must 
support personally, has been developed very energetically .^ 



138 Paul Otlet 

This super-national authority would act throughout the whole world. On the one 
hand, in territories belonging to the States, it would act indirectly through them or 
through a special organisation as intermediary. On the other hand, it would act directly in 
the case of the seas, the air, and certain territories declared to lie in the international 
domain. The organisation thus defined will be set down in a World-Charter, a higher 
constitution that would take precedence over all national constitutions. This Charter 
would be promulgated by a great Congress of all the Powers assembled immediately at 
the close of the war after the settlement of issues specific to the Belligerents, a Congress 
which would sit as a true Constituent Assembly for the world. 

2. Possible Systems of International Politics. Hitherto the world has known only 
three international political systems, three principles controlling the relations between 
States: hegemony, equilibrium, and the Christian system of the Middle Ages. The last 
implied a moral order founded upon religious authority - the Popes theoretically holding 
the balance. But the Reformation weakened the Papacy, while moral authority, because 
of the work of jurists and theoreticians of national law, grew increasingly important and 
the modern State was formed. This system disappeared at the Peace of Westphalia, which 
recognised the Protestant States. 4 

Hegemony, the preponderance of one individual, leads in its extreme form to 
universal Empire. This policy, practised in modern times by the Hapsburgs, the House of 
Spain and the France of Louis XIV and Napoleon, has always collapsed in ruins. This 
ancient dream of domination has haunted Germany in its turn, and now we have the War, 
still unfinished, that already suggests the fate reserved for her by the nations united to 
resist her. 

With regard to equilibrium, this consists in establishing a balance between the 
powers and in forming combinations which act in counterbalance. The corollary of this 
policy is a system of alliances, compensations, and also "tips". It has twice found an 
expression that at the time was thought perfect - in the treaties of Westphalia and 
Vienna. 5 But with the introduction into world life of a large number of new States and 
with the rapid growth of certain of the elements making up the States, such as population, 
commerce and education, achieving equilibrium is a "puzzle" (sic). The least disturbance 
upsets the whole system. The proposed new system, the Society of Nations or the Union 
of States, on a basis of equality and independence provides for States what civil society 
provides for individuals. Rights in it are equal and guaranteed to all, whether strong or 
weak, rich or poor. 

3. The Union is Federative. The proposed organisation represents the extension 
to all the States of a true federation involving a minimum tie. Thus it will be the 
culmination of the federative trend and the trend towards alliances. Special agreements 
and groupings between various States will be able to continue to exist provided that they 
did not run counter to the principles of the Union. 

4. The Union is Juridical. The Union can only exist as a juridical system. The 
Society of Nations is above all else a society based upon law, implying rights and related 
obligations of as precise and obligatory a nature as those which derive from the society 
of individuals in a civilized State. The existence of such a society involving the States 
has been officially recognized at the two Hague Conferences without measures having 
been taken to ensure that it functioned properly. 6 



Organisation of the Society of Nations 139 

5. The Union is World Wide. The Union must extend to all the States equally, 
and to all their possessions, colonies, and protectorates. To limit it to certain States 
would be to fail in obtaining the desired objectives. The United States and Japan, 
although American and Asiatic States, have been recognized as great Powers. Previously 
Turkey, though a non-Christian State, had been accepted as part of the European 
Concert. To wish to create a Union of European States (United States of Europe) is to 
misunderstand the real state of world relations in which the interests existing between the 
Americas and certain countries of Western Europe are far greater than the interests that 
exist between these countries and those of Southern or Eastern Europe. The great 
problems of the future will be extra-European, those in which North and South America 
and Japan will be concerned. At the present time Japan is already one of the Belligerents, 
and the United States finds it difficult to keep out of the struggle. Almost all the States 
were represented at the second Hague Conference. 

6. The Union Limits Sovereignty. The Union implies surrender of certain 
extreme rights that the States claim with regard to one another. It limits their sovereignty. 
The States must choose either to keep their absolute sovereignty and expose themselves 
to death-struggles with all the consequences these struggles imply in modern war, or to 
renounce the absoluteness of this sovereignty and accept the honourable but secure 
settlement of a world-wide pact. In fact, in the present political situation, the choice is yet 
more circumscribed since it is simply a question of renouncing the special alliances 
which for a long time have already limited the sovereignty of almost all the Great 
Powers, that is of renouncing a precarious and unstable alliance with some in favour of a 
permanent and stable alliance with all. Interdependence and solidarity lie at the 
foundation of the life of States. All the Union does is to secure recognition of these 
conditions, to organise them, and to derive from them all their positive consequences. 

7. The Union is Practical. The Society of Nations is not "Utopian," for it is 
conceived in the image of the most advanced national societies. It has a purpose, 
members (a population), organs, a sphere of action (territories). It therefore makes no 
innovation on these points but continues and extends what already exists following the 
fundamental idea that international relations are only the extension beyond frontiers of 
national relations. The advent of the Society of Nations thus falls into line with general 
sociological evolution which reveals the successive appearance of increasingly large 
structures embracing first the City, then the County and the Duchy, then the State. There 
is nothing to suggest that this latest stage should be considered as final. On the contrary, 
the possibility of an organised community involving higher national and human interests 
is now being explored by the best minds. 

8. The Union Must be Created as a Whole. The establishment at one and the 
same time of international institutions forming a complete system also follows 
precedents, which, though less far-reaching than the work now to be done, nonetheless 
provide convincing evidence. In our modern societies institutions no longer arise from 
immemorial usage, slowly developing in unknown directions. Almost all the States 
possess a written Constitution, which was the work of sensitive and thoughtful minds 
before becoming the compulsory law of a whole people. These Constitutions created a 
system of necessary institutions in one piece without waiting for them to emerge of their 
own accord following who knows what pre-existing harmony between unconscious 
individual actions. The four fundamental institutions proposed - the legislature, the 



140 Paul Otlet 

judiciary, the executive, and the armed forces - are those which have always been 
produced by the organising action of societies. To want for simplicity's sake, to be 
limited to a single authoritative institution possessing all of these powers is to invite 
inevitable confusion. It would lose the advantages of an appropriate division of functions 
and would result in having to do in several stages what is the necessary consequence of a 
first step in this direction. The explicit is always better than the implicit 

9. The Union, Super national Authority. The union of all the States into an 
organised League of Nations would certainly not put an end to struggles and conflicts. 
They are the very essence of life itself. But they would be transformed, as internal 
conflicts have been. A super-national authority, a visible and effective representation of 
what is common and best in all States, will be more than a simple cumulation of national 
authorities, in the same way that a State is more than an association of townships. There 
is a difference of degree, almost of nature. In the disorder of the Middle Ages and the 
first years of the modern period when the feudatories and petty princes knew no other 
way of life than war and exploitation of the weakness of those beneath them, there 
emerged the national authority of the King and Emperor. Present circumstances being 
analogous, a super-national authority must now appear. 

10. The Union Cannot be Avoided. Can an international order be set up in one, 
two, or several stages? No one can say because of the extreme complexity of the 
circumstances. There is little doubt, however, that the direction of events tends towards 
the first outcome which will lead to enormous economy of social effort, will prevent new 
wars and revolutions as well as taking advantage of the present general dislocation in 
order to achieve a single radical solution. 

Different, less complete, and less radical proposals have been put forward. 
Certain people think that a rigime of opinion supported by Parliamentary control in each 
country would give sufficient moral authority to political agreements for governments to 
respect them in the way that individuals respect their own engagements. Others consider 
that the world Concert of the Great Powers, as the latest organisation that the Society of 
Nations had created before the war, should be taken as the basis of any reorganisation. 
Consequently they propose to reinforce the eight Great Powers with four smaller ones, 
chosen freely by their peers, and to consider that the body of twelve thus formed 
represents closely enough not only the wisdom and judgment but also the power of the 
civilized world. This body would have the right to call on its own forces and on those of 
all the others as an international police force [3]. Yet others believe that a League of 
Peace, which they have not yet defined in detail, will do for all present needs [4]. 

All of these schemes agree in recognising that a new function has arisen - that 
of securing peace - and that consequently, by virtue of the division of social labour, a 
new organ must be created. This organ can only be a supernational authority 



[3] J. Lawrence, The Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes. "It is necessary never to lose sight of the 
fact that the origin and centre of all absolute governments lies in an executive power that absorbs into 
itself the entire legislative and judicial powers. These are detached from it only slowly and incompletely. 
The Executive in all countries remains the centre of the customs and traditions of the old regime and has a 
natural tendency to defend its absolutist prerogative. To leave the conduct of international affairs to an 
executive power will allow them fatally to be conducted by it like the absolutism of the States." 

[4] A number of people have anticipated an immediate federation of allies in which there will be a place for 
the neutral countries and a place reserved for enemies at such time as they adopt its principles. 



Organisation of the Society of Nations 141 

approximating more or less to the model for which we present a few details in the 
following pages [omitted here] [51. 

The Future Congress. The International Constituent. 

1. It is easy to imagine that at the close of hostilities there will be various ideas 
about how the consequences of the present war will have to be dealt with. 

(a) the war will end without a Congress. That is to say, the conquerors will impose 
their conditions on the conquered without discussion, issues of concern being adjusted 
among themselves diplomatically. 

(b) there will be a Congress of the belligerent powers from which, however, the 
neutrals will be excluded, to settle the questions raised by the war. 

(c) a Congress will be held by the belligerents only, who, having decided their own 
terms of settlement, will then summon a third Hague Conference to deal with questions 
affecting all the nations. 

(d) there will be a Congress of both belligerents and neutrals sitting as an 
international Constitutional Convention which will give a rational organisation to the 
League of Nations by promulgating a World-Charter. 

2. Of all these ideas, that of the Constitutional Convention is the most rational 
for these reasons: 

(a) It is necessary that all the States should take part in the meetings that are to 
regulate the fate of Europe and of the world and to consider how a repetition of the 
present disaster can be avoided. Neutrals are as much interested as belligerents in the 
solution of the numerous economic, ethnic, juridical, and political matters that have to be 
settled. Not having experienced all the passions of war, the neutrals - especially those far 
distant from the theatre of operations - have fewer pre-conceived ideas on many issues 
and are more likely to take into account the general interests of Humanity. 

(b) An objection: "the neutrals have shown their weakness or indifference by not 
taking part in the struggle. Even after the violation of Belgian neutrality and the clear 
violations of the Conventions of 1907, 8 they had continued to maintain relations with 
Germany and Austro-Hungary. They would not have, therefore, any authority to enforce 
the clauses of any treaty that they would draw up". This objection loses its force in the 
face of the arguments stated above. The composition of the Congress clearly depends on 
what has to be done at it An international juridical order cannot be created without the 
participation of all of the States and their acceptance of the decisions relative to it. After 
all, the neutrals have suffered very considerably from the war, and they too are in the 
necessary frame of mind to achieve serious reforms. 

(c) Large general Congresses have been held at all the great periods of modern 
history. There were the Congresses of Westphalia in 1648, that of Vienna in 1815 (where 
there were as many as 216 heads of mission), 9 those of Paris in 1856, 10 Berlin in 1878, 11 
Berlin again in 1884 (about Africa), 12 Algeciras (about Morocco), 13 to say nothing of the 
Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907. 14 



[5] 



Bibliography Related to the Union of States|has been removed to form Appendix 1 of this paper, only an 
excerpt of it given] * 



142 Paul Otlet 

(d) It will be necessary, moreover, when peace comes to settle many individual 
matters with the neutrals. With Greece, the consequences of its occupation; 15 with 
Holland, the status of the governance of the Scheldt; 16 with Switzerland, the abolition of 
the neutral zone of Savoy and free access to the sea; 17 with China, the recent convention 
imposed upon her by Japan; 18 with the United States, joined with the Southern Republics 
in a Pan-American Union, the regulation of the sea and of war at sea. 19 

(e) If it is objected that there will be no time to consider the problems of a World 
Charter when peace is declared, we would reply that the preliminaries of peace must be 
distinguished from the peace-treaty itself, and the work of the Belligerents from that of 
the general Congress. The deliberations concerning the Peace of Westphalia, the Peace of 
Vienna, and the Peace of Paris lasted for months. The peace of Frankfurt was only 
finalised 120 days after the armistice. 20 

(f) Even in the absence of a treaty, the agreements of the Belligerents will have to 
deal with fundamental issues of every kind. Would it be too much to ask that they be 
expressed explicitly and fully. Moreover, how can one claim that it would be easier to 
settle peace by individual rather than general arrangements when eight belligerents are 
involved on one side and four on the other, who because of their possessions and 
influence, comprise almost all the major nations of the old continent 21 Because of this 
surely the result would be a Charter in fact. If certain points have to be negotiated in 
addition with neutrals, would this not necessarily lead to a whole as complicated as, but 
less clear than, a World Charter? 

(g) A large Congress could very well act in sections or hold special meetings 
concurrently with general meetings. This was the case at Munster and Osnabriick (Treaty 
of Westphalia). So again in 1815. Distinctions could be made between military and 
special territorial matters affecting the Belligerents only; special questions concerning 
particular neutrals and particular Belligerents; matters concerning the neutrals 
themselves; and the major subjects of general organisation. 

3. A general Congress is therefore essential. The views expressed in the course 
of this work suggest how important from the outset is a suitable composition of 
delegates. The system recommended and the suggestions made for the composition of an 
International Parliament could - with various modifications - be applied to the 
composition of the Constituent Assembly. But it is especially important that the spirit of 
diplomacy should not rule supreme. Politicians, jurists, scholars and business men must 
also introduce their points of view. The nationalities whose fate is being decided must be 
able to make their voices heard, and the great international associations must be 
represented at least as observers. 

During the whole of the Congress's sittings, the National Parliaments must 
control, support and direct the work of their national delegates. In the city where the 
meetings are to be held, the organised forces of international public opinion should have 
permanent representation and hold meetings and discussions. For the Congress, far from 
working in an atmosphere of isolation must, on the contrary, feel churning around it all 
the great passions, all the great ideas summoned forth by the war. Something of the soul 
of the nations must enter it so that it can truly bring into being the great work expected of 
it 

4. Let us repeat that the work of the Congress must consist above all in giving a 
rational and stable organisation to international relations by founding the League of 



Organisation of the Society of Nations 143 

Nations and endowing it with the institutions necessary for its normal working on the 
basis, both possible and practical, that we have been examining in this book. If it is to 
impress both the mind and the will, all of the Congress's work must be directed towards 
establishing a World Charter. 

5. But such a Congress cannot be improvised. It must be prepared for now. 

(a) It is an official task. The Chancelleries of the belligerents, although occupied 
with the regular work of daily business, are concerned with it already. In all countries 
governments should now appoint official committees to study the basis of the future 
treaty and simultaneously to define the objectives of the war. 

(b) The responsibility of preparation also falls on the neutral States, who must come 
to some mutual understanding for this purpose. 

(c) Apart from official action, there is a considerable body of research, of genuinely 
scholarly work to be undertaken in drawing up the working papers of the Congress. This 
task will fall to specialists. The international associations also have an important role to 
play because most of the issues were studied by them before the war. They will have to 
revise their previous work to take account of new developments. Among the associations 
there are some more directly interested than others in future solutions: those of the 
jurists, economists, socialists, workers, business men, and the Churches. 

(d) Public opinion must be prepared. It is not a question of establishing the how and 
when of peace, but what it actually means. Basically the people know little about how 
they have been led to fight each other or what the objectives of victory are. What is 
required is the creation in the masses of an attitude of mind, a clear understanding of the 
process that has caught them up, of the machinery in which they have functioned as 
parts. We can hope for the best only if we can rely upon a body of opinion ready to 
accept the great transformations that are necessary [6]. 



Appendices 

1. Bibliography Related to the Union of States 

-Umano, Essai de constitution 'Internationale. Traduction du manuscrit dditc par L. Pichot, 1907. 

-W. Taft, Experiments in Federation; ch. IV of the United Slates and Peace, 1914. 

-Paul Cohn et Alfred Weiss, Das Neue Europa. Zurich. 

-Fr. Maniecke, Weltbiirgertum u. Nationalstaat, III Ed., Munchen, Oldenbourg. 

-Anarcharsis Clootz, Projet de ripublique universelle, organisation politique unitaire de toute la planite. 

-H.-J De Tange, Theorie en praktijk der Internationale organisation; uitgave van het Comite "De Europeesche 

Statenbond". 

-Rodrigo Octavio, L'Union juridique des nations-confederations. 

-Lorimer, Sur la Communauti inter nationale, 

-Merignhac, he ProbUme final du droit international. (L'Etat international, no 164. Communauti 

Internationale). 

-Ettore Ponti, La guerra dei popoli e la futura Confederazione europea, secondo un metodo analogico storico, 

1915. 

-Hamilton, Plan for a League of Peace put forward in the "Independent". 

-Boyle, L. Honuner, History of Peace (compiled from governmental records official reports, treaties, 

conventions, peace conferences and arbitration). 



[6] [The bibliography listed in this footnote has been removed to form Appendix 2 of this paper] 



144 Paul Otlet 

-International Federation for the Maintenance of Peace. House Committee on Foreign affaires of U.S. Congress, 
David J. Foster, Chairman (Hearing of May 7, 1910). On joint resolution to authorize the appointment of a 
commission to draft articles of international federation and for other purposes .... 

In addition the following have supported a federation in the past: Drysdale, Westerkamp, Fiore, Barthold, 
Calden, Amaud, Duplessis, Deloncler, etc. MC. Butler has presented a "Project for United States of Europe" 
Mr. Lepert has presented in 1907, a new plan in 48 articles for international justice, legislative power and the 
transformation of military forces. At Lugano in Switzerland, draft "Ligue des neutres" (Bignami). President 
Roosevelt has proposed an international police force in The Independent* Mr. Hyndman, the leader of the 
British socialist party, has supported the federation. The "Woman's Movement for Constructive Peace" 
(London) has supported the same idea proposed by MM. Pethwick and Lawrence.... 

-The Periodical "Les Etats-Unis d' Europe" published by la Ligue intemationale de la Paix et de la Liberte. 

-F.Wrangel, Internationale Anarchie oder Verfassung. 

Parliament of Man, Federation of the World. 

-Wells, La guerre qui mettrafin aux guerres; La Paix du monde; Demain. 

-Wolf, An international Authority and the Prevention of War. The New Statesman, London, July, 10 and 17, 

1915. 

-P.Bonfarte, Vers la Confederation europienne. 

"Scientia", LJO, 1915 

-Ramsay Muir, The problem of the future Peace, "Scientia", T.XTTT, 1915 

Earlier proposals for the organisation of pacifists: Pierre Dubios, 1321; Podliebrad, 1462; Erasmus 1514; Henri 
IV, 1533; Emeric Cruce, 1623; Grotius, 1648; Puffendorf, 1671; William Penn, 1693; Abbe de SLPierre, 1712; 
Gondart, 1751; Galliard, 1777; Bentham, 1788; Condorcet, 1790; A.Clootz, 1793; Kant, 1795; Zacharie, 1802; 
Jean Paul, 1809. 

Among earlier proposals special mention should be made of the following: (a) The Plan of Henry IV given in 
the Memoirs of Sully for the creation of a European Federation: Coalition against the House of Austria, the 
creation of 15 nearly equal states or dominions, partition of the Christian Republic, a General Council or Senate, 
a single currency, eventually the creation of a common army against the Turks, (b) The project of Leibnitz who 
dreamed of a European federation with the Pope and the Emperor jointly at its head; (c) The project for 
perpetual peace of the Abbe St Pierre following the problems he had observed at the Congress of Utrecht, 1712; 
(d) Project of Kant (perpetual peace); (e) Project of Bentham (Essay on international law proposing the meeting 
of a general Diet). 
Resolutions of the Peace Congress: Paris, 1849: London 1890; Hamburg, 1897; Munich, 1907; London, 1908. 

2. Bibliography on the Peace Conference 

- Ernest Fayle, The great settlement. Preface by Lord Esher, 1915. 

- G. Martin, Problimes de la Paix. 

- Ch. Dumas, La paix que nous voulons, 1915. 

- D. Triesch, Die Welt nach dem Kriege, Berlin, Puttkammer. 

- Moneta, Les pacifistes dans le mouvement historique actuel. Comment rendre durable la paix prochaine, "La 
vita Internazionale", Milan, 5 and 20 avril, 5 mai, 1915. 

- E. Soulier, Pas de paix hors de la justice. 

H.-G. Wells, La guerre qui tuera la guerre; Demain? (an attempt at prophecy). 

- Dr. Ch. Eliot, Le chemin qui mine a la paix. 

- Colonel Biollot, L'Europe qu'il nous faut fair e. 

- Eugenio Rignano (directeur de "Scientia"), Les facteurs de la guerre et le problime de la paix (conclusions 
d'une enquete intemationale). 

- "Demain", direct H. Guilbeaux. 

World Peace Foundation, series of pamphlets, avril 1915: article by Lord Dickinson: Sur les bases d adopter 
pour la creation d'une Ligue pour la Paix, with appendices on the plan for a congress of neutrals proposed by 
the Pan-American Union and the organisation of an International Commission of Enquiry. 

- International Law Association (report on the future of the war). 

- Raymond Unwin, The War and What after? 

- See also the publications of the Organisation centrale pour la Paix durable, and the work during the War of 
pacifist groups that can be found listed in French in La Paix par le Droit. 

- Henry Lyonnel, Quelle sera la durie de la guerre? Comment la guerre doit-elle finir? 

- XXX, Ce que sera la paix de demain. 

- Ponteville, Apres la guerre: L'Allemagne, la France, la Belgique et la Hollande. 

- Abbe Wetterle, Si nous voulons une paix durable. Etude documentee dans "j'ai vu" . 

- A. Aulard, La paix future d 'apres la Revolution francaise et Kant. 

- XXX, La paix que nous devonsfaire. Le remaniement de I'Europe. 

- Commandant Esperandieu, Le Rhinfrancais, 1915. 

- Onesime Reclus, L'Allemagne en morceaux (paix draconienne). Annexion de la rive gauche. Sa moraliti, sa 
necessity, ses avantages. Le portage de VAllemagne, 1915. 

- Camille Jullian, Le Rhin gaulois. 1915. 

- Lieutenant-colonel R. De D., Le portage de VAllemagne, I'ichiance de demain. 



Organisation of the Society of Nations 145 

- Probus, La plus grandt France, les clauses de la paix, les fruits de la victoire. 

- Frank Chauveau, La paix el la front iere du Rhin. 

- A. Sommerfeld, Le portage de la France. 



Editor's Notes 

1. These pages are taken from Part 3, "L'Organistion de la Soci6te* des nations," of 
Otlet's Les Problimes internationaux et la guerre. (Geneva: Librairie Kundig and 
Paris: Rousseau et Cie, 1916), pp All-All and 482-485. 

2. It is possible that Otlet is mistaken in this. The parallel French and English text of 
the "Final Act of the Second Peace Conference held at the Hague in 1907" (British 
Parliamentary Papers Miscellaneous, no. 6 (1908) Cd 4175) does not use the phrase, 
"Soci^te" des Nations." 

3. The Central Organisation for a Durable Peace that Otlet mentions in his footnote 
was set up in the Hague in 1915. Forty nations were represented in this organisation 
which adopted and revised "The Minimum Programme" published in November 
1914 by the Dutch Anti-War Council. It was one of the most important European 
peace proposals. Otlet was a member of the Central Organisation's Executive 
Committee and in 1916 Nijhoff published on its behalf his Mesures concertos 
prises entre les Stats: L'Executif international in which he examined the feasibility 
of the recommendations contained in Article 3 Item 3 of the Minimum Programme. 

4. The Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty Years War. Two treaties were concluded 
at neighbouring towns in Westphalia: one at Minister between the Bourbon and 
Hapsburg Dynasties; the other at Osnabruck between Sweden and the Holy Roman 
Empire. Negotiations began in 1641, but the treaties were not signed until 1648. 
They recognized the independence of the German states and so marked the demise 
of the Holy Roman Empire. 

5. For the Treaty of Westphalia see note 4 above. The Congress of Vienna met in 1814 
and again in 1815 to settle the European peace after the Napoleonic wars. The 
negotiations are of interest because of the relationship of the great powers and the 
smaller ones, and the emergence through the Concert of Europe of a balance of 
power in Europe maintained by means of a subtle and shifting system of alliances. 
The Provisions of the final Congress Act and related Treaties remained in force for 
more than 40 years and helped keep the general peace intact until the outbreak of the 
First World War. 

6. The first International Peace Conference at the Hague was called in 1899 on the 
initiative of the Tsar of Russia. His aim was to find a way of reducing the burden of 
increasing levels of armaments throughout Europe. Representatives of twenty-six 
States attended from May 18 to July 29 1899. Three conventions were adopted: the 
first set up an International Court of Arbitration for the Pacific Settlement of 
International Disputes; the second dealt with the Laws and Customs of War on 
Land; and the third dealt with the regulation of maritime warfare. The second 
conference, in 1907, was attended by representatives of 44 powers and adopted 13 
conventions regulating the conduct of war. Both Otlet and La Fontaine were 
observers at the 1907 Conference and Otlet's assessment of it is presented in his Loi 



146 Paul Otlet 

d'ampliation et internationalisme (Bruxelles; Imprimerie Polleunis et Ceuterick, 
1908). This is the text of a long paper for the Belgian Sociological Society. 

7. Only a portion of the bibliography presented in sketchy detail by Otlet and as an 
undifferentiated block of a footnote is given in the appendix. The footnote of which 
it is an "excerpt" is odd. In the middle of the bibliographical enumeration, Otlet lists 
names of those who have declared themselves in favour of a world federation. The 
bibliographical listing then continues in the same form as before. At the end of the 
footnote Otlet lists past schemes for pacifist organisations beginning with Pierre 
Dubois in 1321 and concluding with Jean Paul in 1809. He then singles out for brief 
discussion several of these. The footnote concludes without grammatical connection 
with a list of Peace Congresses. 

8. Otlet's reference here is presumably to the Convention Respecting the Rights and 
Duties of Neutral Powers and Persons in Case of War on Land which was drawn up 
at the 1907 Hague Conference. 

9. For the Congress of Westphalia see Note 4 above and for the Congress of Vienna, 
see Note 5 above. 

10. The Congress of Paris, February 25th to April 16th 1856, ended the Crimean War in 
which Great Britain and France defended Turkey against Russia. 

11. The Congress of Berlin met June 13 to July 13 1878 in order to settle the affairs of 
Russia and Turkey in the Balkans. Russia had declared war on Turkey in April 1877. 
Modern Bulgaria was in effect created by the Treaty of Berlin though it remained 
nominally under the vassalage of Turkey. Several of the other Balkan states received 
territorial adjustments that inflamed their dissatisfaction, the ambitions of Russia for 
Constantinople were checked and the presence of Turkey in Europe, though 
curtailed, was maintained. 

12. The Conference of Berlin met from October 1884 to February 1885 to define the 
principles on which the various European interests in the Congo basin in central 
Africa should be regulated. The treaty created a huge free trade area and the 
existence of the Congo Free State, which almost immediately became the personal 
domain of Leopold II, King of the Belgians, was recognised. This was of lifelong 
interest to Otlet. See his Afrique aux noirs 1888 and "Leopold II et nos villes", 1928. 

13. The Conference of Algeciras met from January 16 to April 17 1906, to deal with 
German claims to interests in Morocco which, through agreements between Britain, 
France and Spain had come principally under the protection of France. 

14. For the Hague Peace Conferences see Note 6 above. 

15. The allies had landed troops at Salonika in late 1915 to help Greece fulfil her treaty 
obligations to Serbia at the invitation of Prime Minister Venizelos, and against the 
opposition of King Constantine. Allied troops remained there until the end of the 
War. In 1916, a revolution against the pro-German King and Royalist forces led to 
an allied blockade and to allied and Venizelist Greek troops occupying Athens and 
taking control of the Greek fleet and the railways. 

16. In a background paper on Belgium for the Paris Peace Conference, Charles A. 
Haskins writes: "the Scheldt is the great commercial highway of Belgium and her 
chief means of communication with the outside world, yet the sovereignty over the 



Organisation of the Society of Nations 147 

lower course of the river, for forty-five miles, is exercised by Holland in such a way 
as to limit Belgium in time of peace and to close the river to all navigation in time of 
war. Holland's policy has been essentially negative and selfish injuring Antwerp, for 
benefit of Rotterdam." (David Hunter Miller, My Diary of the Conference of Paris 
with Documents Vol. 5, p.3). 

17. During the war there had been discussion of connecting the Rhone and the Rhine by 
canal, thus giving Switzerland via the Rh6ne access to the Mediterranean. The 
Savoy zone, which embraces the Rhdne, and abuts Geneva, was one of several zones 
recognised by the Congress of Vienna as "free" or militarily neutral. These zones 
also had "economic servitudes" imposed on them to facilitate commerce between 
them and the Canton of Geneva. French customs officers began to appear in the 
region, officially French, during the war. Towards the end of the war there was talk 
of abrogating the neutrality of the zones (this in fact occurred and was written into 
the Treaty of Versailles). 

18. Otlet refers to the famous Twenty-One Demands made by Japan of China on January 
18th, 1915. China accepted them on 8th May and a treaty was signed 25th May. This 
gave Japan effective control of Shantung, Southern Manchuria and parts of Eastern 
Mongolia. 

19. The U.S.'s victories in the Spanish-American war of 1898 resulted in the acquisition 
of Pacific and Caribbean territories requiring the maintenance of U.S. naval power. 
After 1898, the U.S. developed a strong expansionist naval policy, although its navy 
remained inferior in size both to that of Great Britain and Germany. In 1904 the U.S. 
promulgated the "Roosevelt Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine. This asserted a 
police-keeping responsibility for the U.S. in Latin America to protect lives and to 
enforce treaty rights. The Pan-American Union had been created as the International 
Union of American Republics by an International Conference in 1890, which met 
again in 1901, 1906 and 1910. It took the name Pan American Union in 1910 and 
became the Organisation of American States in 1948, though its permanent body in 
Washington, D.C., has kept the earlier name. 

The reference to the U.S.'s concern about naval warfare no doubt is to its objection 
to the 1915 German submarine blockade of Great Britain and Ireland as a violation 
of the freedom of the high seas and of the rights of neutral states. The US made 
strong protests to Germany over various incidents involving US citizens and 
commercial interests in 1915 and 1916; eventually the introduction of unrestricted 
submarine warfare by Germany helped lead the United States into the war on the 
side of the Allies. 

20. The armistice ending the Franco-Prussian war was signed January 28th, 1871. A 
Preliminary Peace Treaty was signed at Versailles February 26th and the Final 
Treaty at Frankfurt on May 10th, a period rather less than 120 days. 

21. At the time Otlet was writing those fighting on the side of the Allied or Entente 
powers were Great Britain, Russia, France, Italy, Montenegro, Serbia, 
Portugal(entered the War March 1916) and Romania (entered the War August 17th, 
1916). Japan had declared war against Germany August 23rd 1914 and against 
Austria-Hungary August 25th. Depending on when Otlet's work was published in 
1916 he may be referring either to Portugal or Romania as one of the eight On the 
side the Central Powers were Austro-Hungary, Germany, Turkey and Bulgaria. 



12. TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL APPARATUS OF 

THE SCIENCES 1 

Repertory - Classification - Office of Documentation 



1. Because of its length, its extension to all countries, the profound harm that it 
has created in everyone's life, the War has had, and will continue to have, repercussions 
for scientific productivity. The hour for the revision of the old order is about to strike. 
Forced by the need for economies of men and money, and by the necessity of greater 
productivity in order to hold out against all the competition, we are going to have to 
introduce reforms into each of the branches of the organisation of science: scientific 
research, the preservation of its results, and their wide diffusion. 

Everything happens simultaneously and the distinctions that we will introduce 
here are only to facilitate our thinking. Always adjacent areas, or even those that are very 
distant, exert an influence on each other. This is why we should recognize the impetus, 
growing each day even greater in the organisation of science, of the three great trends of 
our times: the power of associations, technological progress and the democratic 
orientation of institutions. We would like here to draw attention to some of their 
consequences for the book in its capacity as an instrument for recording what has been 
discovered and as a necessary means for stimulating new discoveries. 

The Book, the Library in which it is preserved, and the Catalogue which lists it, 
have seemed for a long time as if they had achieved their heights of perfection or at least 
were so satisfactory that serious changes need not be contemplated. This may have been 
so up to the end of the last century. But for a score of years great changes have been 
occurring before our very eyes. The increasing production of books and periodicals has 
revealed the inadequacy of older methods. The increasing internationalisation of science 
has required workers to extend the range of their bibliographic investigations. As a result, 
a movement has occurred in all countries, especially Germany, the United States and 
England, for the expansion and improvement of libraries and for an increase in their 
numbers. Publishers have been searching for new, more flexible, better-illustrated, and 
cheaper forms of publication that are better-coordinated with each other. Cataloguing 
enterprises on a vast scale have been carried out, such as the International Catalogue of 
Scientific Literature and the Universal Bibliographic Repertory. 2 

Three facts, three ideas, especially merit study for they represent something 
really new which in the future can give us direction in this area. They are: The Repertory, 
Classification and the Office of Documentation. 



148 



Bibliographical Apparatus of the Sciences 149 



2. The Repertory, like the book, has gradually been increasing in size, and 
improvements in it suggest the emergence of something new which will radically modify 
our traditional ideas. 

From the point of view of form, a book can be defined as a group of pages cut to 
the same format and gathered together in such a way as to form a whole. It was not 
always so. For a long time the Book was a roll, a volumen. The substances which then 
took the place of paper - papyrus and parchment - were written on continuously from 
beginning to end. Reading required unrolling. This was certainly not very practical for 
the consultation of particular passages or for writing on the verso. The codex, which was 
introduced in the first centuries of the modern era and which is the basis of our present 
book, removed these inconveniences. But its faults are numerous. It constitutes 
something completed, finished, not susceptible of addition. The Periodical with its 
successive issues has given science a continuous means of concentrating its results. But, 
in its turn, the collections that it forms runs into the obstacle of disorder. It is impossible 
to link similar or connected items; they are added to one another pell-mell, and research 
requires handling great masses of heavy paper. Of course indexes are a help and have led 
to progress - subject indexes, sometimes arranged systematically, sometimes 
analytically, and indexes of names of persons and places. These annual indexes are 
preceded by monthly abstracts and are followed by general indexes cumulated every five, 
ten or twenty-five years. This is progress, but the Repertory constitutes much greater 
progress, 

The aim of the Repertory is to detach what the book amalgamates, to reduce all 
that is complex to its elements and to devote a page to each. Pages, here, are leaves or 
cards according to the format adopted. This is the "monographic" principle pushed to its 
ultimate conclusion. No more binding or, if it continues to exist, it will become movable, 
that is to say, at any moment the cards held fast by a pin or a connecting rod or any other 
method of conjunction can be released. New cards can then be intercalated, replacing old 
ones, and a new arrangement made. 

The Repertory was born of the Catalogue. In such a work, the necessity for 
intercalations was clear. Nor was there any doubt as to the unitary or monographic 
notion: one work, one title; one title, one card. As a result, registers which listed the same 
collections of books for each library but which had constantly to be re-done as the 
collections expanded, have gradually been discarded. This was practical and justified by 
experience. But upon reflection one wonders whether the new techniques might not be 
more generally applied. 

What is a book, in fact, if not a single continuous line which has initially been 
cut to the length of a page and then cut again to the size of a justified line? Now, this 
cutting up, this division, is purely mechanical; it does not correspond to any division of 
ideas. The Repertory provides a practical means of physically dividing the book 
according to the intellectual division of ideas. 

Thus, the manuscript library catalogue on cards has been quickly followed by 
catalogues printed on cards (American Library Bureau, the Catalogue or the Library of 
Congress in Washington) 3 ; then by bibliographies printed on cards (International 
Institute of Bibliography, Concilium BibliographiGum) 4 ; next, indices of species have 
been published on cards (Index Speciorum) 5 . We have moved from the small card to the 



150 Paul Otlet 

large card, the leaf, and have witnessed compendia abandoning the old form for the new 
(Jurisclasseur, or legal digests in card form). Even the idea of the encyclopedia has taken 
this form (Nelson Perpetual Cyclopedia 6 ). 

Theoretically and technically, we now have in the Repertory a new instrument 
for analytically or monographically recording data, ideas, information. The system has 
been improved by divisionary cards of various shapes and colours, placed in such a way 
that they express externally the outline of the classification being used and reduce search 
time to a minimum. It has been improved further by the possibility of using, by cutting 
and pasting, materials that have been printed on large leaves or even books that have 
been published without any thought of repertories. Two copies, the first providing the 
recto, the second the verso, can supply all that is necessary. One has gone even further 
still and, from the example of statistical machines like those in use at the Census of 
Washington (sic) 1 , extrapolated the principle of "selection machines" which perform 
mechanical searches in enormous masses of materials, the machines retaining from the 
thousands of cards processed by them only those related to the question asked. 



3. But such a development, like the Repertory before it, presupposes a 
classification. This leads us to examine the second practical idea that is bringing about 
the transformation of the book. 

Classification plays an enormous role in scientific thought. If one could say that 
a science was a well-made language, one could equally assert that it is a completed 
classification. Science is made up of verified facts which are organised in a structure of 
systems, hypotheses, theories, laws. If there is a certain order in things, it is necessary to 
have it also in science which reflects and explains nature. That is why, since the time of 
Greek thought until the present, constant efforts have been made to improve 
classification. These have taken three principal directions: classification studied as an 
activity of the mind; the general classification and sequence of the sciences; the 
systematization appropriate to each discipline. The idea of order, class, genus and species 
has been studied since Aristotle, in passing by Porphyrus, by the scholastic philosophers 
and by modern logicians. The classification of knowledge goes back to the Greeks and 
owes much to the contributions of Bacon and the Renaissance. It was posed as a distinct 
and separate problem by D'Alembert and the Encyclopedic, and by Ampere, Comte, and 
Spencer. The recent work of Manouvrier, Durand de Cros, Goblot, Naville, de la 
Grasserie, has focussed on various aspects of it. 8 As to systematics, one can say that this 
has become the very basis of the organisation of knowledge as a body of science. When 
one has demonstrated the existence of 28 million stars, a million chemical compounds, 
300,000 vegetable species, 200,000 animal species, etc., it is necessary to have a means, 
an Ariadne's thread, of finding one's way through the labyrinth formed by all these 
objects of study. Because there are sciences of beings as well as sciences of phenomena, 
and because they intersect with each other as we better understand the whole of reality, it 
is necessary that this means be used to retrieve both. The state of development of a 
science is reflected at any given time by its systematics, just as the general classification 
of the sciences reflects the state of development of the encyclopedia, of the philosophy of 
knowledge. 



Bibliographical Apparatus of the Sciences 151 

The need has been felt, however, for a practical instrument of classification. The 
classifications of which we have just spoken are constantly changing, at least in their 
detail if not in broad outline. In practice, such instability, such variability which is 
dependent on the moment, on schools of thought and individuals, is not acceptable. Just 
as the Repertory had its origin in the catalogue, so practical classification originated in 
the Library. Books represent knowledge and it is necessary to arrange them in 
collections. Schemes for this have been devised since the Middle Ages. The elaboration 
of grand systems occurred in the 17th and 18th centuries and some new ones were added 
in the 19th century. But when bibliography began to emerge as an autonomous field of 
study, it soon began to develop along the lines of the catalogue of an ideal library 
comprising the totality of what had been published. From this to drawing on library 
classifications was but a step, and it was taken under certain conditions which must be 
stressed. 

Up to the present time, 170 different classifications have been identified. Now, 
no cooperation is possible if everyone stays shut up in his own system. It has been 
necessary, therefore, to choose a universal classification and to recommend it as such in 
the same way that the French Convention recognized the necessity of a universal system 
of weights and measures. In 1895 the first International Conference of Bibliography 
chose the Decimal Classification and adopted a complete plan for its development. In 
1904, the edition of the expanded tables appeared. A new edition was being prepared 
when the war broke out Brussels, headquarters of the International Institute of 
Bibliography, which was doing this work, was part of the invaded territory. 

In its latest state, the Decimal Classification has become an instrument of great 
precision which can meet many needs. The printed tables contain 33,000 divisions and 
they have an alphabetical index consisting of about 38,000 words. Learning is here 
represented in its entire sweep: the encyclopedia of knowledge. Its principle is very 
simple. The empiricism of an alphabetical classification by subject-heading cannot meet 
the need for organising and systematizing knowledge. There is scattering; there is also 
the difficulty of dealing with the complex expressions which one finds in the modern 
terminology of disciplines like medicine, technology, and the social sciences. Above all, 
it is impossible to achieve any international cooperation on such a national basis as 
language. The Decimal Classification is a vast systematization of knowledge, "the table 
of contents of the tables of contents" of all treatises. But, as it would be impossible to 
find a particular subject's relative place by reference to another subject, a system of 
numbering is needed. This is decimal, which an example will make clear. Optical 
Physiology would be classified thus: 

5 th Class Natural Sciences 

3rd Group Physics 

5th Division Optics 

7th Sub-division Optical Physiology 



or 535.7 



This number 535.7 is called decimal because all knowledge is taken as one of which each 
science is a fraction and each individual subject is a decimal subdivided to a lesser or 



152 Paul Otlet 

greater degree. For the sake of abbreviation, the zero of the complete number, which 
would be 0.5357, has been suppressed because the zero would be repeated in front of 
each number. The numbers 5, 3, 5, 7 (which one could call five hundred and thirty-five 
point seven and which could be arranged in blocks of three as for the telephone, or in 
groups of twos) form a single number when the implied words, "class, group, division 
and subdivision," are uttered. 

The classification is also called decimal because all subjects are divided into ten 
classes, then each of these into at least ten groups, and each group into at least ten 
divisions. All that is needed for the number 535.7 always to have the same meaning is to 
translate the tables into all languages. All that is needed to deal with future scientific 
developments in optical physiology in all of its ramifications is to subdivide this number 
by further decimal numbers corresponding to the subdivisions of the subject Finally, all 
that is needed to ensure that any document or item pertaining to optical physiology finds 
its place within the sum total of scientific subjects is to write this number on it In the 
alphabetic index to the tables references are made from each word to the classification 
number just as the index of a book refers to page numbers. 

This first remarkable principle of the decimal classification is generally 
understood. Its second, which has been introduced more recently, is less well known: the 
combination of various classification numbers whenever there is some utility in 
expressing a compound or complex heading. In the social sciences, statistics is 31 and 
salaries, 331.2. By a convention these numbers can be joined by the simple sign : and 
one may write 31:331.2 statistics of salaries [l]. 

This indicates a general relationship, but a subject also has its place in space and 
time. The subject may be salaries in France limited to a period such as the 18th century 
(that is to say, from 1700 to 1799). The sign that characterises division by place being the 
parenthesis and that by time quotation marks or double parentheses, one can write: 

33:331.2 (44) 17 statistics - of salaries - in France - in the 17th century 

or ten figures and three signs to indicate, in terms of the universe of knowledge, four 
subordinated headings comprising 42 letters. And all of these numbers are reversible and 
can be used for geographic or chronologic classification as well as for subject 
classification: 

(44) 31:331.2 17 France - Statistics - Salaries - 17th Century 

17 (44) 31:331.2 17th Century - France - Statistics - Salaries 

The subdivisions of relation and location explained here, are completed by 
documentary subdivisions for the form and the language of the document (for example, 



[1] The first ten divisions are: Generalities, 1 Philosophy, 2 Religion, 3 Social Sciences, 4 Philology, 
Language, 5 Pure Sciences, 6 Applied Science, Medicine, 7 Fine Arts, 8 Literature, 9 History and 
Geography. The Index number 31 is derived from: 3rd class social sciences, 1st group statistics. The 
Index number 331.2 is derived from 3rd class social sciences, 3rd group political economy, 1st division 
topics about work, 2nd subdivision salaries. 



Bibliographical Apparatus of the Sciences 153 

periodical, in Italian), and by functional subdivisions (for example, in zoology all the 
divisions by species of animal being subdivided by biological aspects). It follows by 
virtue of the law of permutations and combinations that the present tables of the 
classification permit the formulation at will of millions of classification numbers. Just as 
arithmetic does not give us all the numbers ready-made but rather a means of forming 
them as we need them, so the classification gives us the means of creating classification 
numbers insofar as we have compound headings that must be translated into a notation of 
numbers. 

Like chemistry, mathematics and music, bibliography thus has its own 
extremely simple notations: numbers. Immediately and without confusion, it allows us to 
find a place for each idea, for each thing and consequently for each book, article, or 
document and even for each part of a book or document Thus it allows us to take our 
bearings in the midst of the sources of knowledge, just as the system of geographic 
coordinates allows us to take our bearings on land or sea. 

One may well imagine the usefulness of such a classification to the Repertory. It 
has rid us of the difficulty of not having continuous pagination. Cards to be intercalated 
can be placed according to their class number and the numbering is that of tables drawn 
up in advance, once and for all, and maintained with an unvarying meaning. As the 
classification has a very general use, it constitutes a true documentary classification 
which can be used in various kinds of repertories: bibliographic repertories; catalogue- 
like repertories of objects, persons, phenomena; and documentary repertories of files 
made up of written or printed materials of all kinds. The possibility can be envisaged of 
encyclopedic repertories in which are registered and integrated the diverse data of a 
scientific field and which draw for this purpose on materials published in periodicals. Let 
each article, each report, each item of news henceforth carry a classification number and, 
automatically, by clipping, encyclopedias on cards can be created in which all the results 
of international scientific cooperation are brought together at the same number. This 
constitutes a profound change in the technology of the Book, since the repertory thus 
formed is simultaneously a constantly up-dated book and a cooperative book in which 
are found printed elements produced in all locations. 



4. If we can realize the third idea, the Office of Documentation, then reform will 
be complete. Such an office is the old library, but adapted to a new function. Hitherto the 
library has been a museum of books. Works were preserved in libraries because they 
were precious objects. Librarians were keepers. Such establishments were not organised 
primarily for the use of documents. Moreover, their outmoded regulations if they did not 
exclude the most modern forms of publication at least did not admit them. They have 
poor collections of journals; collections of newspapers are nearly nonexistent; 
photographs, films, phonograph discs have no place in them, nor do film negatives, 
microscopic slides and many other "documents." The subject catalogue is considered 
secondary in the library so long as there is a good register for administrative purposes. 
Thus there is little possibility of developing repertories in the library, that is to say of 
taking publications to pieces and redistributing them in a more directly and quickly 



154 Paul Otlet 

accessible form. For want of personnel to arrange them, there has not even been a place 
for the cards that are received already printed. 

The Office of Documentation, on the contrary, is conceived of in such a way as 
to achieve all that is lacking in the library. Collections of books are the necessary basis 
for it, but books, far from being considered as finished products, are simply materials 
which must be developed more fully. This development consists in establishing the 
connections each individual book has with all of the other books and forming from them 
all what might be called The Universal Book. It is for this that we use repertories: 
bibliographic repertories; repertories of documentary dossiers gathering pamphlets and 
extracts together by subject; catalogues; chronological repertories of facts or alphabetical 
ones of names; encyclopedic repertories of scientific data, of laws, of patents, of physical 
and technical constants, of statistics, etc. All of these repertories will be set up according 
to the method described above and arranged by the same universal classification. As 
soon as an organisation to contain these repertories is created, the Office of 
Documentation, one may be sure that what happened to the book when libraries first 
opened - scientific publication was regularised and intensified - will happen to them. 
Then there will be good reason for producing in bibliographies, catalogues, and above all 
in books and periodicals themselves, the rational changes which technology and the 
creative imagination suggest. What is still an exception today will be common tomorrow. 
New possibilities will exist for cooperative work and for the more effective organisation 
of science. 



5. Repertory, Classification, Office of Documentation are therefore the three 
related elements of a single reform in our methods of registering scientific discoveries 
and making them available to the greatest number of people. Already one must speak less 
of experiments and uncertain trials than of the beginning of serious achievement. The 
International Institute of Bibliography in Brussels constitutes a vast intellectual 
cooperative whose members are becoming more numerous each day. Associations, 
scientific establishments, periodical publications, scientific and technical workers of 
every kind are affiliating with it. Its repertories contain millions of cards. There are 
sections in several countries [2]. But this was before the War. Since its outbreak, a 
movement in France, England and the United States has been emerging everywhere to 
improve the organisation of the Book. The Office of Documentation has been suggested 
as the solution for the requirements that have been discussed. 

It