Dissertation Information for Warden Boyd Rayward NAME: - Warden Boyd Rayward
DEGREE:
- Ph.D.
DISCIPLINE:
- Library and Information Science
SCHOOL:
- University of Chicago (USA) (1973)
ADVISORS: - Leon Carnovsky
COMMITTEE MEMBERS: - Howard W. Winger - Herman Fussler
MPACT Status: Fully Complete
Title: PAUL OTLET, INTERNATIONALIST AND BIBLIOGRAPHER
Abstract: This is the study of a man and his life's work. Paul Otlet began life as the hopeful son of a wealthy family. His career was to have been the law. This dissatisfied him. He met Henri La Fontaine and became involved in the problems of bibliographic organization. He discovered the Dewey Decimal Classification, received permission from Melvil Dewey to develop this in Europe, and began a career as a bibliographer. He and La Fontaine called an International Conference of Bibliography in 1895 in Brussels. This conference agreed to adopt and develop the Decimal Classification as a tool for constructing a classified Universal Bibliographic Repertory. An international organization, the International Institute of Bibliography, was founded at this Conference. A local secretariat for it, the International Office of Bibliography, was set up after the Conference by Royal Decree by the Belgian government. The work of the International Office and Institute of Bibliography is described in this study. It traces the development of the Universal Bibliographic Repertory and of the Brussels version of the Dewey Decimal Classification, known today as the Universal Decimal Classification. It examines the expansion of the Office of Bibliography in various ways before the first world war, especially as a National Office of Bibliography for Belgium and as an international source 6f standardized bibliographic materials. After a period of consolidation, a number of developments took place in the work of the Office. Otlet's increasing importance and involvement in affairs in Belgium is described, together with the development of his ideas about bibliography and documentation which led to the formation of a number of subsidiary organizations. Among the most important of these was a Collective Library of . International Associations located in Brussels. It was formally set up in 1907 but the basis for it had been laid a number of years earlier. By this time Otlet had become interested in general international organization at the source of which he saw documentation and the organization of knowledge. A Central Office of International Associations was created in 1907 and became the foundation of the Union of International Associations. The Congresses of this Union in 1910 and 1913 are described and evaluated. All of the organizations created by Otlet and La Fontaine were seen by them as closely interconnected. The War interrupted this work, the scope of which had broadened so widely since its beginning in bibliography in 1895. During the War, Otlet campaigned vigorously for the establishment of the League of Nations. After the War he attempted to enlist its support in the center for unofficial international organization he and La Fontaine had created in the Union of International Associations and its headquarters, the Palais Mondial, the name he gave to locations provided for it by the Belgian government in the Palais du Cinquantenaire. He saw this as a necessary complement to the political, official organization represented by the League of Nations. The fortunes of the Palais Mondial are traced through the 1920's both in connection with the League of Nations and the Belgian Government. After some trouble the Palais Mondial was closed twice, first in 1924 and then, finally, in 1934, though it was opened again in a new form in 1939. The attempts to remove the International Institute of Bibliography from the
Palais Mondial after its first closure in 1924 and to breathe new life into it are studied up to the point where it was securely established in the Hague with a new organizational structure and with Donker Duyvis prominent in its affairs. This withdrawal from Brussels and from domination by Otlet is traced in some detail, but essentially does not go beyond 1933, though some reference is made to developments up to the point marked by the creation of the International Federation for Documentation in 1937. Otlet's last years in the international center in Brussels, renamed the Mundaneum, are briefly described and the relationship of that Center to the Institute of Bibliography clarified. The study closes with Otlet's death in 1944. The study is based almost entirely on extensive, hitherto completely unused records still remaining in the Mundaneum which is maintained in Brussels by Otlet's colleagues Georges Lorphevre and Andre Colet with the support of les Amis du Palais Mondia1. Some recourse has been had to relevant Belgian and French archival material, but much of the former has been destroyed by fire. No attempt has been made to complement these sources by separate access to the records of the League of Nations, the International Institute for Intellectual Cooperation or those relating to Melvil Dewey maintained at the Lake Placid Club and elsewhere in America.
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MPACT Scores for Warden Boyd Rayward A = 3
C = 10
A+C = 13
T = 3
G = 1
W = 3
TD = 3
TA = 0
calculated 2010-03-16 15:06:01
Advisors and Advisees Graph
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