World Congress of Universal Documentation

The Congress, held at the Trocadéro{{cite book|last=Richards|first=Pamela Spence|title=Scientific information in wartime: the Allied-German rivalry, 1939-1945|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7FrDdRCVAAIC&pg=PA15|accessdate=11 October 2011|year=1994|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-29062-6|page=15}} under "the auspices" of the Institut International de Bibliographie,{{cite book|last=Barua|first=Brahmanda Pratap|title=National policy on library and information systems and services for India: perspectives and projections|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IBB8drHUz7YC&pg=PA63|accessdate=11 October 2011|year=1992|publisher=Popular Prakashan|isbn=978-81-7154-730-2|page=63}} was "the apotheosis" of a general movement in the 1930s towards the classification of the growing mass of information and the improvement of access to that information.Rayward, W. B.(1981). Evolution of an international library and bibliographic community. Journal of Library History, 16, 449–462.{{cite book|last1=Rabinovitz|first1=Lauren|last2=Geil|first2=Abraham|title=Memory bytes: history, technology, and digital culture|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n3tW158IX8MC&pg=PA81|accessdate=11 October 2011|date=February 2004|publisher=Duke University Press|isbn=978-0-8223-3241-1|page=81}} For the first time in the history of information science, technological means were beginning to catch up with theoretical ends, and the discussions at the conference reflected that fact.{{cite book|last1=Ockenfeld|first1=Marlies|last2=Samulowitz|first2=Hansjoachim|title=The History and Heritage of Scientific and Technological Information Systems|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=76OOQannpBgC&pg=PA314|accessdate=11 October 2011|publisher=Information Today, Inc.|page=314ff|chapter=Libraries and Documentation in Germany: A Long-lasting Conflict|year=2004}} Its participation in the Congress was one of the first projects of the American Documentation Institute (ADI).{{cite book|last=Kent|first=Allen|title=Encyclopedia of library and information science|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o3VxxzNJcfkC&pg=PA15|accessdate=11 October 2011|date=27 February 1985|publisher=CRC Press|isbn=978-0-8247-2038-4|page=15}} Participants in the conference discussed what has been more recently called "a continuously updated hypertext encyclopedia." Joseph Reagle sees many of the ideas considered at the conference as forerunners of some of the key goals and norms of Wikipedia.{{cite book|last1=Reagle|first1=Joseph Michael |last2=Lessig|first2=Lawrence|authorlink2=Lawrence Lessig|title=Good Faith Collaboration: The Culture of Wikipedia|url=https://archive.org/details/goodfaithcol_reag_2010_000_10578531|url-access=registration|accessdate=11 October 2011|date=30 September 2010|publisher=MIT Press|isbn=978-0-262-01447-2|page=[https://archive.org/details/goodfaithcol_reag_2010_000_10578531/page/n43 26]}}

The main resolution adopted by the congress proposed that microfilm be used to make information universally available.{{cite journal|title=The World Congress of Universal Documentation|journal=Science|date=1 October 1937|volume=86|issue=2231|pages=303–304|jstor=1665491|doi=10.1126/science.86.2231.303-a}} Watson Davis, chairman of the American delegation and president of the ADI, stated that the volume of information being produced created difficult problems of access and preservation, but that these could be solved by the use of microfilm.{{cite journal|title=Unpublished Manuscript to Be Accessible to Scholars|journal=The Science News-Letter|date=21 August 1937|volume=32|issue=854|pages=124|jstor=3913966|doi=10.2307/3913966}} In his address to the Congress, Davis said:

Most immediate and practical to put into operation is the microfilming of material in libraries upon demand. It will become fashionable and economical to send a potential book borrower a little strip of microfilm for his permanent possession instead of the book and then badgering him to return it before he has had a chance to use it effectively. I believe that reading machines for microfilm will become as common as typewriters in studies and laboratories. If the principal libraries and information centers of the world will cooperate in such "bibliofilm services," as they are called, if they exchange orders and have essentially uniform methods, forms for ordering, standard microfilm format and production methods and comparable if not uniform prices, the resources of any library will be placed at the disposal of any scholar or scientist anywhere in the world. All the libraries cooperating will merge into one world library without loss of identity or individuality. The world's documentation will become available to even the most isolated and individualistic scholar.{{cite journal|last=Davis|first=Watson|title=How Documentation Promotes Intellectual World Progress|journal=The Science News-Letter|date=9 October 1937|volume=32|issue=861|pages=229–231|jstor=3913336|doi=10.2307/3913336}}

The Congress included two separate exhibits on microfilm. One was of the equipment used at the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the other, coordinated by Herman H. Fussler of the University of Chicago, consisting of "an entire microfilm laboratory," complete with cameras, a darkroom, and various kinds of reading machines.Fussler, Herman H. “American Microphotography at the Paris Exposition.” American Library Association Bulletin 32.2 (1938): 104–106. Emanuel Goldberg presented a paper on an early copying camera he had invented.{{cite book|last=Buckland|first=Michael Keeble|title=Emanuel Goldberg and his knowledge machine: information, invention, and political forces|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QCddw5cVjVgC&pg=PA183|accessdate=11 October 2011|date=April 2006|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-31332-5|page=183ff}}

Other resolutions passed by the Congress concerned uniform standards for the preparation of articles, for classifying books and other documents, for indexing newspapers and periodicals, and for cooperation between libraries.

{{See also|World Brain}}

In his address to the Congress, H. G. Wells said that he thought that his idea of the "world brain" was a precursor to the ideas other delegates were proposing, and explicitly linked the projects being discussed to the work of the encyclopédistes:

I am speaking of a process of mental organization throughout the world which I believe to be as inevitable as anything can be in human affairs. All the distresses and horrors of the present time are fundamentally intellectual. The world has to pull its mind together, and this [Congress] is the beginning of its efforts. Civilization is a Phoenix. It perishes in flames and even as it dies it is born again. This synthesis of knowledge upon which you are working is the necessary beginning of a new world.

It is good to be meeting here in Paris where the first encyclopedia of power was made. It would be impossible to overrate our debt to Diderot and his associates.{{cite journal|last=Wells|first=H.G.|title=Today's Distress and Horrors Basically Intellectual: Wells|journal=The Science News-Letter|date=9 October 1937|volume=32|issue=861|pages=229|jstor=3913335|doi=10.2307/3913335}}

Participants in the Congress included authors, librarians, scholars, archivists, scientists, and editors. Some of the notable people in attendance not mentioned above were:{{cite journal|title=Documentation Congress Step toward Making 'World Brain'|journal=The Science News-Letter|date=9 October 1937|volume=32|issue=861|pages=228–9| jstor=3913334|doi=10.2307/3913334}}

{{Colbegin|colwidth=30em}}

• Suzanne Briet{{cite book|last=Day|first=Ronald E.|title=The Modern Invention of Information: Discourse, History, and Power|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kg1-hoW88nEC&pg=PA21|accessdate=11 October 2011|date=7 February 2008|publisher=SIU Press|isbn=978-0-8093-2848-2|page=21}}
• Julien Cain
• Henri La Fontaine
• Worthington C. Ford
• Herman H. Fussler
• Hilary Jenkinson
• Paul Otlet{{cite book|last=Wedgeworth|first=Robert|title=World Encyclopedia of Library and Information Services|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HSFu99FCJwQC&pg=PA644|accessdate=11 October 2011|date=1 January 1993|publisher=ALA Editions|isbn=978-0-8389-0609-5|page=644}}
• Atherton Seidell
• Douglas Waples

{{Colend}}

• Congress
• Documentation science
• Information science
• {{slink|International Encyclopedia of Unified Science#International Congresses for the Unity of Science}}{{snd}} The Third International Congress for the Unity of Science was held in Paris a few weeks before the World Congress of Universal Documentation

{{Reflist|40em}}

Category:Information science

Category:Encyclopedism

Category:H. G. Wells