Knowledge sharing facilitates a peaceful culture: this is the ever-present belief of Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine, founders of the Mundaneum. The Mundaneum hosts the IFLA Satellite that LIBHIST SIG has organized before WLIC 2023, with the title "Preserving our origins: Approaches to the organization, curation, and historiography of the record of national and international organizations in libraries, information, and documentation". Visiting the exhibition and the Mundaneum archive will make us reflect on the message of "Machine to think the world" and how these pioneers were anticipators of Web technology. Jacques Gillen is the Archivist of the Mundaneum and author of books on Otlet and La Fontaine. In this post he introduces the Mundaneum exhibition.
"Mundaneum: Machine to Think the World": A New Permanent Exhibition
by Jacques Gillen
10 May 2023
On 28 April, the Mundaneum inaugurated a new permanent exhibition dedicated to its history and the values that underpinned the utopian project led by Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine.
The end of the 19th century saw unprecedented technological, scientific and ideological progress. Means of communication and transport were developing at great speed, profoundly changing Western society. A new world, one in which anything was possible, had now begun.
The profusion of new ideas spawned the colossal project of collecting the ever-increasing amount of knowledge, classifying it and sharing it with as many people as possible. This universal knowledge, which was accessible to all, would then be the path to world peace.
1895, the "Mundaneum" machine took off. At the root of this humanist and universalist project is the deep conviction that peace in the world is possible thanks to the classification and sharing of knowledge.
Behind these ideas, which embody an unwavering belief in progress and human knowledge, are men and women with incredible but often forgotten destinies: Paul Otlet, recognised as one of the fathers of the internet; Henri La Fontaine, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize; and Léonie La Fontaine, a key figure of Belgian feminism.
Paul Otlet, Henri and Léonie La Fontaine dedicated their lives to this ideal which was embodied in the Mundaneum, truly a “machine for thinking about the world” and a precursor to future developments.
A crazy dream, sustained by the tenacity of these committed pacifists who were ahead of their time, a marvelous utopia that is still meaningful, the Mundaneum fits into this journey through five keys to understanding, which allow for multiple extensions, including the most current.
A veritable laboratory for thinking about the world, the Mundaneum has for decades housed and embodied the dreams of visionaries who devoted their entire lives to knowledge, information and documentation sciences, right down to inventing a real search engine long before the internet. This innovative project paved the way for many of the technologies that are now part of our everyday lives.
What remains today of this extraordinary adventure? A unique archival heritage, strong universal values and a utopian vision of the world that is still relevant and questions all of us as citizens.
As a private archive center and museum space recognised by the Federation Wallonia-Brussels, the Mundaneum preserves and promotes more than 6 km of documents! Recognised by UNESCO's Memory of the World programme and the European Heritage Label, it presents itself as a place of reflection based on the ideological and historical heritage of its founders.
This new permanent exhibition invites you to understand this formidable machine for thinking about the world, which offers timeless insight into our social issues, and invites you to take on a journey through time to better understand the world of tomorrow.
More info: www.mundaneum.org/en
Gillen, Jacques (2013). Henri La Fontaine, Prix Nobel de la paix en 1913. Un Belge épris de justice, Bruxelles: Racine.
Gillen, Jacques (2011). Paul Otlet: Fondateur du Mundaneum (1868-1944); Architecte du savoir, artisan de paix. Bruxelles: Les Impressions nouvelles.
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