ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Paul Otlet

Paul Otlet was a very smart man who lived a long time ago. He was born in Belgium in 1868. When he was a young boy, he loved to read books and learn new things. He grew up to become a very important person in the world of libraries.

When Paul Otlet was a young man, he noticed that it was really hard to find information in books. He thought that there must be a better way to organize all the knowledge in the world. So, he came up with an idea! He wanted to create a big database of all the information in the world. This would make it easier for people to find the information they needed.

Paul Otlet called his big database the "Mundaneum." It was like a giant encyclopedia that had information about everything from history to science to art. He started collecting books, magazines, newspapers, and even postcards to put in the Mundaneum.

In order to organize all the information, Paul Otlet came up with a system of index cards. Each card had a number and a description of the information on it. That way, people could easily find the information they needed by looking up the right number.

Paul Otlet's idea was really important because it helped people share knowledge and learn new things. Today, we still use many of his ideas in libraries and on the internet. And, even though Paul Otlet lived a long time ago, we still remember him as a very important person in the world of libraries and information.