The Case of Paul Otlet, Pioneer of Information Science, Internationalist, Visionary: Reflection On Biography
Journal of Librarianship and Information Science, (September 1991)Abstract
The author takes as his point of departure his studies of Paul Otlet, co-founder of the present International Federation for Information and Documentation (FID) and The Union of International Associations, developer of the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC), theorist of "Documentation", and pioneer of information science. Drawing on these studies his purpose is to examine aspects of the art and scholarship of biography, of the processes of research and imagination that it involves, especially: recognising an appropriate subject and determining an approach to it, the problem of evidence and the frames of reference within which evidence is deployed, the personal involvement that develops between the subject and the biographer, and biography's final goal of historical and personal understanding.