The Mundaneum is a universal bibliographical system of grading imagined by Henri the Fountain and Paul Otlet at the 19th century. Some see there the first steps which will less support the advent of Internet than one hundred years later.

Cultural place

Mundaneum was created on the initiative of Paul Otlet and Henri the Fountain. The purpose of this project was to join together in the same place all knowledge of the world and this in all its forms (books, posters, presses coming from the whole world,…). However, in front of the extent of the task, they had to privilege certain fields (primarily international documentation).

Mundaneum, otherwise known under the name of “paper Internet”, comprises funds and vast collections such as the International Museum of the Press, the Universal Iconographic Repertory (posters, postcards, plates glasss, photographs), the Universal Repertory of Documentation, papers of Henri the Fountain and Paul Otlet, the collections Féminisme and Anarchisme and them files of the Friends of the World Palate.

Mundaneum is recognized like Center Files of the French Communauté of Belgium. It can be visited with Mons in Belgium.

External bond

• Site of Mundaneum
• LEVIE (Francoise), the man who wanted to classify the world. Paul Otlet and Mundaneum, Brussels, Impressions New, 2006. (ISBN 2-87449-022-9)
• some photographs on Flickr.

Random links:

The Double decker bus | Zorro | Tubize | Canton of Calais-Is | Sexual conflict