page_title: Paul Otlet
section_title: The Universal Bibliographic Repertory
hierarchical_section_title: Paul Otlet / The Universal Bibliographic Repertory
caption_attribution_description: Lëtzebuergesch: Tiräng mat bibliographesche Karteikaarte vum Paul Otlet sengem "Système Bibliographique Universel", am Mundaneum zu Mons (Belsch). English: Drawers with bibliographic index cards of Paul Otlet's "Universal Bibligraphical System", part of the Mundaneum, today in Mons, Belgium. Français&#160;: Tiroirs contenant des fiches bibliographiques du Système Bibliographique Universel de Paul Otlet, faisant partie du Mundaneum, situé aujourd'hui à Mons, Belgique.
context_page_description: Paul Marie Ghislain Otlet was a Belgian author, entrepreneur, visionary, lawyer and peace activist; he is one of several people who have been considered the father of information science, a field he called "documentation". Otlet created the Universal Decimal Classification, one of the most prominent examples of faceted classification. Otlet was responsible for the widespread adoption in Europe of the standard American 3x5 inch index card used until recently in most library catalogs around the world. Otlet wrote numerous essays on how to collect and organize the world's knowledge, culminating in two books, the Traité de Documentation and Monde: Essai d'universalisme.
  In 1907, following a huge international conference, Otlet and Henri La Fontaine created the Central Office of International Associations, which was renamed to the Union of International Associations in 1910, and which is still located in Brussels. They also created a great international center called at first Palais Mondial, later, the Mundaneum to house the collections and activities of their various organizations and institutes.
context_section_description: In 1895, Otlet and La Fontaine also began the creation of a collection of index cards, meant to catalog facts, that came to be known as the "Repertoire Bibliographique Universel" (RBU), or the "Universal Bibliographic Repertory". By the end of 1895 it had grown to 400,000 entries; later it would reach more than 15 million entries.
  In 1896, Otlet set up a fee-based service to answer questions by mail, by sending the requesters copies of the relevant index cards for each query; scholar Charles van den Heuvel has referred to the service as an "analog search engine". By 1912, this service responded to over 1,500 queries a year. Users of this service were even warned if their query was likely to produce more than 50 results per search.
  Otlet envisioned a copy of the RBU in each major city around the world, with Brussels holding the master copy. At various times between 1900 and 1914, attempts were made to send full copies of the RBU to cities such as Paris, Washington, D.C. and Rio de Janeiro; however, difficulties in copying and transportation meant that no city received more than a few hundred thousand cards.
caption: Répertoire Bibliographique Universel
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