At the origins of universal bibliographic control: the contributions of Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine (1895)

Abstract

Giovanni Solimine’s book Controllo bibliografico universale contains a chapter dedicated to the origins of the Universal Bibliographic Control (UBC) program. Following Solimine’s indications in this book, this paper proposes the analysis of Henri La Fontaine and Paul Otlet’s Création d’un répertoire bibliographique universel: note préliminaire, a book that is often cited but rarely discussed in depth, and that was published in Brussels between 1895 and 1896. This article also examines some proposals for bibliographic repertories are then examined which preceded or accompanied the répertoire bibliographique universel by Otlet and La Fontaine. This review, albeit rapid, can help to outline a clearer picture of the evolution of the enumerative bibliography and, more generally, of scientific communication between the end of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the following century. Finally, the paper presents a synthetic reconstruction of the twentieth-century debate on origins of the concept of universal bibliographic control, a project that was launched in the second half of the twentieth century by Unesco and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA).