Pitch to associates or family the thought of a visit to Mons, Belgium to visit the Mundaneum, and chances are you’ll be met with a less-than-enthusiastic reception. That’s unfortunate, since such an experience might enjoyabledamalestally change the way in which they regard technology they use day-after-day. Although its identify could seem to vow unrelieved uninterestingness right this moment, the Mundaneum arose out of enormous high-tech ambitions. The thought behind it, as conceived by Belgian legal professionals Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine, was to gather, classify, centralize, and make universally availin a position all human knowledge. This may increasingly sound familiar to anyone who’s used the interinternet, nevertheless it was a moderately daringer proposition on the flip of the twentieth century.
Otlet and La Fontaine’s “metropolis of knowledge” could not have been fully actualizin a position at the moment, however technology had made it imaginin a position. The Dewey Decimal System, with its standardized card catalogs, had been round since 1876. Begining in 1895, Otlet adapted that primary device to a far larger mission: the Mundaneum took form as an unlimited paper archive. Millions of index playing cards, every documenting bibliographic particulars a couple of single e-book, article, or document, had been filed away in row upon row of catalog drawers. (See picture beneath.)
“Otlet made this card central to his system,” writes Sidney Perkowitz at JSTOR. “Purposeing to capture each e-book ever published, the Mundaneum saved bibliographic information for books beneath the UDC [Universal Decimal Classification], together with magazineazine articles, photos, and extra on over 15 million playing cards crammed into catalog drawers.” Originally housed in Brussels’ Cinquantenaire Palace, the Mundaneum was meant to get its personal constructing designed by the forward-thinking Le Corbusier by the top of the 9teen-twenties. Alas, it was never constructed, and after the Nazi invasion of 1940, the Mundaneum was scrapped for a Third Reich artwork exhibition.
Discussions of the Mundaneum in our time usually excessivegentle what Otlet (1868–1944), regardless of the professionalject’s many tribulations, eventually envisioned as “a global ‘réseau’ or internetwork of ‘electric telescopes.’ These early workstations had been to be linked to the Mundaneum by teletelephone and the brand new technology of television. A person would telephone in a question, and the reply in a e-book or other supply would seem disperformed on a personal display screen, which might be break up to point out multiple outcomes.” Convinced that every one houses would eventually have entry to the webwork, he considered even the possibility of “information sharing and social interactions amongst its customers.” This dream of the interinternet avant la technologie is now enshrined on the Mundaneum museum, which is open 5 days every week. Alternatively, you possibly can level your electric telescope to its on-line catalog any time.
Picture by Zinneke, by way of Wikimedia Commons
Related Content:
The Rise and Fall of the Nice Library of Alexandria: An Animated Introduction
The First Music Streaming Service Was Invented in 1881: Discover the Théâtrotelephone
Meet the Syntopicon: The Ambitious Index That Tried to Organize All of Western Thought (1952)
Do All Roads Result in Philosophy on Wikipedia?: They Do About 97.3% of the Time
Primarily based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. He’s the writer of the newsletter Books on Cities in addition to the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Summarizing Korea) and Korean Newtro. Follow him on the social internetwork formerly referred to as Twitter at @colinmarshall.
