Bibliograph

The man who wanted to classify the world, by Françoise Levie, Sofidoc Productions

Type

Label

The man who wanted to classify the world, by Françoise Levie, Sofidoc Productions

Language

eng

Characteristic

videorecording

Intended audience

For College; Adult audiences

Main title

The man who wanted to classify the world

Medium

electronic resource

Oclc number

747797405

Responsibility statement

by Françoise Levie, Sofidoc Productions

Runtime

Summary

In 1934, a Belgian visionary named Paul Otlet conceived of a library with no physical books whose contents could be viewed on a screen. His obsession was to classify, encode and unify books and documents published all over the world. Over the years, he and his staff would fill in 12 million index cards. His classification system is regarded today as similar to hypertext, which enables us to navigate the internet. A pacifist and an internationalist, Otlet was one of the driving forcesbehind the League of Nations. He persuaded the architect Le Corbusier to design a World City dedicated to Peace, Knowledge and Fraternity. This beautiful film interweaves a vast fund of recently discovered documents from his archive with autobiographical material to create a fascinating piece of intellectual history

Target audience

general

Contributor