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Footnote

Rez. in: KO 33(2006) no.2, S. 120-121 (S. Ducheyne): "To the readers of this journal the founding founder of bibliography and information science, the Belgian Paul Otlet (1868-1944), ground-layer of the Universal Decimal Classification, anticipator of multimedia, virtual libraries, and the Internet, and co-inventor of the microfilm or, as it was originally called, "le Bibliophote" (p. 107) (an achievement he shares together with Robert Goldschmidt), scarcely needs introduction. Françoise Levie's new biography of Otlet embodies the research she has started with the production of the documentary of the same name (Sofidoc, 2002, 60 min.). It is impossible to give a chapter-bychapter overview of this informatively dense and beautifully illustrated book, which consists of twenty chapters, a concluding piece by Benoît Peeters, a very useful list and description of the pivotal figures in Otlet's life, and a list containing the locations of the sources consulted (an index is, unfortunately, not provided). I will therefore restrict myself by pointing to Levie's innovative contributions to our knowledge of Otlet and to topics that are of genuine interest to the readers of this journal. Levie's book is the result of a fascinating, worldwide quest into the remains of Otlet's work and his international connections. Ever since W Boyd Rayward's monumental 1975 The Universe of Information: The Work of Paul Otlet for Documentation and International Organization (Moscow: VINITI), this book is the second systematic survey of the Collections of the Mundaneum (now, after various peregrinations, preserved at Bergen/Mons, Belgium) (cf. pp. 339-340), which contains Otlet's private documents, the "Otletaneum". Sixty-eight unopened banana boxes were the main source of inspirations for Levie's research. Of special interest in this respect is Levie's discovery of Otlet's 1916 diary "le Cahier Blue". As these boxes were, at the time Levie conducted her research, not classified and as they were thereafter re-divided and re-classified, precise references to this collection are not provided and the text is simply quoted during the course of the book (p. 339). While this is perfectly understandable, I would have welcomed exact references to Otlet's main works such as, for instance, Traité de documentation and Monde, Essai d'universalisme which are also quoted without supplying further details.
(pp. 267-277). In chapter 5 (pp. 75-89), Levie discusses Otlet's interest in urbanism (also see, p. 147 ff) and recounts how in Westende he built from scratch a complete coastal village, a kind of miniutopia, in close collaboration with the architects Octave Van Rysselberghe and Henry Van de Velde (unfortunately, it was destroyed in 1914). In close connection to their pacifist ideals, Otlet and his Nobelprize winning co-worker Lafontaine sought to realize a World City and in 1911 saw their ambitions shared by the joint work of the French architect Ernest Hébrard and the American-Norwegian sculptor Hendrik Anderson (pp. 128-141). Later, in the late 1920s, Otlet joined forces with Le Corbusier to establish such a world-centre (pp. 229-247, a 1930 letter of Le Corbusier to Otlet on this matter is reproduced on pages 234-235). In his later moments of desperation, Otlet called on virtually every major political leader, including Mussolini, Franco, and Hitler to achieve this goal (pp. 217-218, p. 294). In these chapters related to architecture, Levie draws extensively on previously unstudied correspondence and adds much detail to our knowledge of Otlet's explorations in this area. In several other chapters, Levie documents in great detail the less unknown rise and downfall of Otlet's "Mondial Palace" (which was inaugurated in 1919) (chapters 12-14 and 16). Looking back on Otlet's endeavours it is not difficult to realize that many of his "utopian" ideas were realized in the course of history. Levie's unique work represents a most welcome update of our knowledge of Otlet. It bears direct relevance for historians of information science and bibliography and historians of architecture, but will, no doubt, attract many scholars from other disciplines, as it places Otlet against the background of several important historical trends and as it is very accessibly written. I take it that publishers are already preparing an English edition of this work - or else, they should be. I wholeheartedly agree with Levie's conclusion that we haven't finished discovering Otlet's work (p. 318)."

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Abstract

What do primordial bacteria, medieval alchemists, and the World Wide Web have to do with each other? This fascinating exploration of how information systems emerge takes readers on a provocative journey through the history of the information age. Today's "information explosion" may seem like an acutely modern phenomenon, but we are not the first generation - nor even the first species - to wrestle with the problem of information overload. Long before the advent of computers, human beings were collecting, storing, and organizing information: from Ice Age taxonomies to Sumerian archives, Greek libraries to Dark Age monasteries. Today, we stand at a precipice, as our old systems struggle to cope with what designer Richard Saul Wurman called a "tsunami of data."With some historical perspective, however, we can begin to understand our predicament not just as the result of technological change, but as the latest chapter in an ancient story that we are only beginning to understand. Spanning disciplines from evolutionary theory and cultural anthropology to the history of books, libraries, and computer science, writer and information architect Alex Wright weaves an intriguing narrative that connects such seemingly far-flung topics as insect colonies, Stone Age jewelry, medieval monasteries, Renaissance encyclopedias, early computer networks, and the World Wide Web. Finally, he pulls these threads together to reach a surprising conclusion, suggesting that the future of the information age may lie deep in our cultural past. To counter the billions of pixels that have been spent on the rise of the seemingly unique World Wide Web, journalist and information architect Wright delivers a fascinating tour of the many ways that humans have collected, organized and shared information for more than 100,000 years to show how the information age started long before microchips or movable type. A self-described generalist who displays an easy familiarity with evolutionary biology and cultural anthropology as well as computer science and technology, Wright explores the many and varied roots of the Web, including how the structure of family relationships from Greek times, among others, has exerted a profound influence on the shape and structure of human information systems. He discusses how the violent history of libraries is the best lesson in how hierarchical systems collapse and give rise to new systems, and how the new technology of the book introduced the notion of random access to information. And he focuses on the work of many now obscure information-gathering pioneers such as John Wilkins and his Universal Categories and Paul Otlet, the Internet's forgotten forefather, who anticipated many of the problems bedeviling the Web today. (Publishers Weekly)

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Imprint

Westport, Conn. : Libraries Unlimited