Chapter 4 The Role of Facts in Paul Otlet’s Modernist Project of Documentation

Paul Otlet’s ideas on documentation have attracted considerable scholarly attention since Boyd Rayward’s pioneering work of over 30 years ago (see his 1973; 1975).1 Rayward’s subsequent translation of selections from Otlet’s writings (Otlet 1990) precipitated publications that deal in whole or in part with Otlet’s documentation, including further studies by Rayward (1991; 1994a