100 Ideas that Changed the Web

The idea of the internet was born in Belgium

IDEA N^o 1

THE MUNDANEUM

In 1934, six decades before the birth of the Web, a Belgian bibliophile described his vision for a télé photographie, an electronic telescope which could transmit any document in the world to a television screen.

Paul Otlet, founder of the Mundaneum and creator of the Universal Decimal Classification system.

Paul Otlet loved libraries. In 1891 he met a kindred spirit, fellow Belgian and future Nobel Prize winner, Henri La Fontaine. Together they conceived the Mundaneum, a comprehensive collection of the world’s published knowledge, equal in ambition to the great Library of Alexandria. ...