Ostwald, Wilhelm (1853-1932)
Wilhelm Ostwald received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1909.
"Ostwald discussed problems of information management with Paul Otlet, co-founder of the International Institute for Bibliography in Brussels, in 1910. He used most of his Nobel Prize money to finance a similar organization, Die Bruecke ("The Bridge"), an "international institute for the organizing of intellectual work," which he founded in Munich with Karl Wilhelm Buehrer and Adolf Saager in June 1911. The manifesto of the Bridge, entitled, the "The Organizing of Intellectual Work" was published in German and in Esperanto ("everybody's second language") in 1911.
They advocated "the monographic principle" (hypertext), technical standards, the use of the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC), and the idea of a World Brain. The Bridge ended in 1913 after publishing numerous pamphlets. Ostwald died in 1932. One lasting legacy of his work is the international standard for paper sizes (A4 etc.)." (Buckland, 1998).
Ostwald had the idea on an Atlas of Science ) (Ostwald, 1919) and (according to Bottle, 1997, p. 213), he was an early example of a distinct genre in Information Science: "Probably the first distinct information science literature type was the literature guide. An early example was W. Ostwald's Die chemische Literatur und die Organisation der Wissenschaft (Leipzig, 1919)".
Literature:
Bottle, R. T. (1997). Information science. In J. Feather, & P. Sturges (Eds.), International encyclopedia of library and information science (pp. 212214). London & New York: Routledge.
Oswald, W. (1916). The system of the sciences. IN: The book of the opening (v. 3, pp. 788-867).
Ostwald, W. (1919). Die chemische Literatur und die Organisation der Wissenschaft IN: Handbuch der allgemeinen Chemie; Bd. 1. Hrsg von W. Ostwald & C. Drucker. Leipzig, p. 92-.
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Buckland. M. K. (1998). Wilhelm Ostwald and The Bridge. http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~buckland/ponto.html
Generic group: Information science, biography
Birger Hjørland
Last revised: 28-10-2006