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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.

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

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