Educational Media Reviews Online

Paul Otlet was a visionary who developed many technologies still in existence today. This documentary film details his life from a child growing up in Brussels to a knowledgeable, inventor whom was disempowered during World War II. Growing up in a wealthy family had its advantages for Paul Otlet, which included the freedom to study subjects that interested him. Through his independent studies in high school, Otlet discovered the value of a classification system when he was appointed librarian at age 15. From this point, Mr. Otlet developed an arrangement theory, which he incorporated with the already famous Dewey Classification to create the Universal Decimal Classification system. In addition, he fashioned 3”x 5” index cards resulting in the card catalog.

This is a good documentary that focuses on Paul Otlet and his visions into numerous fields. Details of his thoughts are left in his writings, but none more remarkable than his early concept of the Internet. This shared information system or “network” as he referred to in the 1930’s, would display on a television, coined by him as a “televised book”. Not to be eclipsed by his classification project was his concept of a divine city or Utopia and the League of Nations, to keep the peace of the world.

This is a fine documentary that incorporates original footage from micro reels, which provides authentic pictures for the viewer to covey the information. However, the unique footage, closed captioning and the translations used in the video result in average audio and video quality.

The Man Who Wanted to Classify the World offers important information for various fields and provides the viewer with insightful observations. Furthermore, this documentary is recommended for individuals with a keen focus in areas such as education, information science, computer science, library science and history.