Paul Otlet

Belgian Bibliographer, Paul Otlet (1868-1944) is, with Henri the Fountain, the father of the universal Decimal system (CDU).

Wire of Edouard Otlet, a financier who made fortune in the Tramway S, and of Maria Van Mons, Paul Otlet sees the day with Brussels the August 23rd 1868. He makes studies with the Saint-Michel college in Brussels then with the catholic Université of Leuwen before losing the faith and being registered with the Universit3e libre de Bruxelles. He specializes with Paris.

Paul Otlet is characterized by his work as regards Bibliographie with creation in 1895 from the international Office from bibliography thanks to which it will set up the system of universal Decimal system (CDU) and the standard of 125 out of 75 mm imposed on the abstracts, always into force in the Bibliothèque S from the whole world. Father of the Documentation, Otlet had also, well before the hour, the intuition of Internet: “One can imagine the electric Télescope, allowing to read at home books exposed in the room teleg of the large libraries, in the pages requested in advance. It will be the téléphoté book”.

He writes its first work, the Island of Raising at the fourteen years age. Proclaimed doctor in Right the July 15th 1890, it makes its training course at Edmond Picard (1836-1924), famous lawyer, founder of the Journal of the Courts and the Pandectes and which will be, a few years later, one of the first Senator S Socialiste S of Belgium. In 1891, Otlet publishes with Pierre Blanchemerle, Joseph Cassiers and max Hallet the periodic Synopsis of the reviews of right , tables monthly of all the legal articles published in the Belgian periodicals. It is of this time that date its passion for the bibliography. The following year, it devotes a test to the bibliographical theory.

Starting from 1895, it devotes most clearly of its energy to the Mundaneum and many works which it created around this central project. It passes the Great War in Suisse and France and loses one of its sons, fallen on the Front from Yser. Pacifist in the heart, it starts to work with a project of Société of the Nations which would guarantee the harmony by the arbitration of the conflicts. As of October 1914, it publishes its general Peace treaty , world Charte declaring the rights of humanity and organizing the confederation of the States. In 1916, it governs Lausanne the Congrès of nationalities . In 1917, the construction of the Company of the Nations describes the practical methods of the establishment of the SDN.

During the Inter-war period, it continues its construction project of a world City, in collaboration with Le Corbusier, and tries to keep Mundaneum in activity in spite of many mishaps. The difficulties, the general incomprehension whose its projects are the object, obscure its last years.

In 1934, it publishes its famous Traité documentation , true philosophical Testament. At the end of this great work, Otlet considers several assumptions visionaries for the future of the book and the documentation, of which that where “the work table would not be charged any more with any book. In their place draws up a screen and with range a telephone. Over there with far, in an immense building, are all the books and all the information… From there, one reveals on the screen the page with reading to know the answer to the questions raised by telephone, with or without wire. A screen would be double, quadruple or multiplies by ten if it were a question of multiplying the texts and the documents to be confronted simultaneously; there would be a high speaker if the sight were to be helped by a data hearing, if the vision were to be supplemented by a hearing. Utopia today, because it does not exist yet nowhere, but it could become reality well provided that still our methods and our instrumentation improve. And this improvement could go until making automatic the call of the documents on the screen, automatic also consecutive projection… "
the " Réseau" that it describes is recognized by a growing number of researchers like a prefiguration of Internet.

One can also regard Otlet as one of the conceptual precursors of the encyclopedia Wikipedia. One of the essential tasks of the professional workers was indeed in its eyes to carry out " a universal Encyclopedia and perpétuelle" , having for collaborators " all scientists of all times and all pays".

Paul Otlet dies the December 10th 1944. Its work sinks for a long time in the lapse of memory, before being recently redécouverte. A museum gathering the surviving collections of Mundaneum was recently opened in Mons (Belgium). A film and a biography come from him to be devoted.

External bonds

Site of Mundaneum
Compilation of resources on Paul Otlet

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