"The environment that Otlet envisioned bears other similarities to the Semantic Web." #readingToday

The environment that Otlet envisioned bears other similarities to the Semantic Web. By predicating its future on ontologies, handcrafted maps of topical relationships, the initiative shares the same spirit of expert knowledge systems that characterized Otlet's work with the Universal Decimal Classification. Van den Heuvel, for one, argues that Otlet's framework not only resembles the hyperlinked structure of the World Wide Web, but also presages some of the more advanced linking strategies of the Semantic Web. 8 Otlet's Monographic Principle provided a framework for breaking down documents and other forms of media into component parts, then recombining them into new formats using the multiple link dimensions afforded by the Universal Decimal Classification. Both systems allowed for the collection and classification of documents, linking them programmatically by exchanging metadata to create pathways of association from one piece of information to another.

Cataloging the World, Alex Wright