P. Otlet's Mundaneum and the International Perspective in the History of Documentation and Information Science

According to Paul Otlet, in order to face the worldwide interdependence which was evidenced in the First World War, we need an international center for the storage and dissemination of knowledge: The Mundaneum (1928). To study this utopian project is to study how positivism, centralism, and monumentalism have determined Otlet’s international perspective. His project of a colossal Bibliopolis contrasts very much with the position of Georges Bataille (a French writer who was librarian at the Bibliotheque Nationale from 1922 to 1942) who denounced the totalitarian threat of centralized monumental structures. But we show that, in spite of his centralism and his monumentalism, Paul Otlet foresaw our world-wide networked environment and that his three-dimensional conception of information can be still useful for developing Computer Assisted Palaces of Memory connected to International Virtual Libraries.