Paul Otlet - Grandfather of the World Wide Web



The New York Times published a fascinating article yesterday on the work of Paul Otlet (pronounced Otley), a Belgian bibliophile who in 1934 mapped out and started to produce a card index and telephone prototype of the World Wide Web. This was eleven years before Vannevar Bush published his seminal article "As We May Think" in the Atlantic monthly. An event which is often cited as the germ of the idea which spawned hypertext and then eventually the World Wide Web.

Quote of the day!

US president George Bush in an interview with The Times newspaper:

“I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric.” Phrases such as “bring them on” or “dead or alive... indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace”

I'd like to ask a favour to one of the millions of fans who read this blog who lives or is visiting London soon and is even slightly interested in issues of consciousness and how the brain works. Will you please go to Scoobs book shop, walk along the corridor (past the upright piano on your left) until you reach the end wall. There you will be faced with a shelf of popular science books. On the second or third shelf down from the top you will find a first edition hardback of Gerald Edelman's Bright Air Brilliant Fire. Will you buy it please. It is a brilliant book and it will not disappoint you, probably it will change the way you think about conscious and a whole lot of other things. It depresses the hell out of me that every time I go into scoobs I see the same edition still unsold on the same bloody shelf. Edelman deserves better than this people - as I'm sure you will all agree once you have read him - which I'm sure you will do now on the basis of this recommendation. If you are a bit of a bibliophile, Scoobs is well worth a visit anyway. Scoobs (or Scoob Books), is located at 66 The Brunswick London WC1N 1AE. The entrance to the shop is just off Marchmont Street, which is the street in London for bookshops. You will find it between Russel Square and the British library - nearest tube is Russel Square on the Piccadilly line. Please just go and buy this book now and put me out of my misery.