In 1895, Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine, two Belgian lawyers, established the Repertoire Bibliographique Universel (RBU).
Their goal: To develop a master bibliography of the world’s accumulated knowledge.
They designed a classification system called the Universal Decimal Classification
After seeing what systems were out there, like the Dewey Decimal and the British Museum systems, Otley realized that their weakness was their inability to go any further than getting the reader the one book they were looking for. He was thinking Hypertext.
For the 1910 World’s Fair in Brussels the pair created an installation entitled The Mundaneum. A “city of the intellect” that was to be the centerpiece of a utopian city that housed the world’s nations.
Its function: to collect all of the world’s knowledge on neatly organized 3″ x 5″ index cards!
It was to be a “tool of knowledge for peace”
It’s next incarnation was that of a “Universal Book” or a World City which was to be designed Le Corbusier.
Various outside forces kept these revolutionary concepts from achieving their aim during Otlet’s lifetime.
From Otlet’s last book Monde:
“Everything in the universe, and everything of man, would be registered at a distance as it was produced…From a distance, everyone will be able to read text, enlarged and limited to the desired subject, projected on an individual screen. In this way, everyone from his armchair will be able to contemplate creation, as a whole or in certain of its parts.”
The Mundaneum. Site in French. Have one of the search engines translate for you.
On Boxes and Arrows. Alex Wright, has a great article from the information architecture angle
Internet Archive has a 23 minute documentary on Otlet
1975 biography of Otlet by W. Boyd Rayward
“Visions of Xanadu” an article by Rayward on Otley and Hypertext
Thanks to Proceedings of The Athanasius Kircher Society for the lead