Saw this movie in class tonight about Paul Otlet, who, among other things, invented an international classification scheme called Universal Decimal Classification used for books, photographs and other documents, microfilm, and the index card catalog system used in most libraries. Hugely prolific, he also attempted to develop a peaceful, international super city where everyone from around the world holds hands, skips down the street singing “Kum-Ba-Yah”. Seriously. But it never happened. Obviously. I’m not sure that his world view expanded beyond that of Europe and the USA, but he certainly made some significant contributions and tried really hard.
In his later years (around 1930′s) he basically invented the World Wide Web and modern day computing, at least in theory. I think the film is worth a watch. Here’s a snippet:
[New Post] The Man Who Wanted to Classify the World – via #twitoaster http://kitlas.com/2010/08/the-man-who-wa...