The will of Paul Otlet

Abstract

Paul Otlet’s will, made up of 67 versions written across nearly a thirty-year time span, with numerous annotations, additions and revisions, represents an essential document in order to be able to retrace, from an intimate and personal point of view, both the life and thought of the Belgian bibliographer and his personal archive, which he identifies as his true spiritual legacy. Considered right from the outset as an inseparable whole and clearly distinguishable from the rest of his library, the order and preservation criteria and the destination and use of the individual parts are described. The backlash of the two wars he witnessed, the devastation of the Mundaneum as well as the removal of the collections, the loss of collaborators and personal doubts are intersected with philosophical and technical notations in an unquestionably fascinating text.