"Everyone will become his own editor..." -- Paul Outlet, 1925 #readingToday

Instead of presenting a single, authoritative curatorial view of the collection, the encyclopedia would allow users to customize their own interactions with it. "Everyone will become his own editor," Otlet wrote in one of his unpublished papers, by using a system consisting of three basic functions: (1) a "print layer" allowing for anyone to contribute a piece of work to the collection; (2) microfilm, allowing its contents to be stored efficiently, then reused in the form of lectures, screen display, or reproduced on paper; and (3) the Mundaneum, which would provide a networked repository of documents that could then be indexed, cataloged, and widely distributed— and from which any individual user could put together a collection of material customized around a particular set of interests.

Cataloging the World, Alex James