Paul Otlet

Paul Otlet was a Belgian lawyer, bibliographer and peace activist, born in Brussels in 1868, who is regarded as a key figure in documentation science, a precursor of information science. He earned a law degree in 1890 after studying at the Catholic University of Leuven and the Free University of Brussels, and then devoted his career to organising the world's knowledge. With Henri La Fontaine he created the Central Office of International Associations in 1907, later the Union of International Associations, and the Mundaneum, and he developed the Universal Decimal Classification and the Repertoire Bibliographique Universel. His books include the Traité de Documentation of 1934, and he died in 1944.