http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/science/17mund.html

From the article:
 "In 1934, Otlet sketched out plans for a global network of computers (or “electric telescopes,” as he called them) that would allow people to search and browse through millions of interlinked documents, images, audio and video files. He described how people would use the devices to send messages to one another, share files and even congregate in online social networks. He called the whole thing a “réseau,” which might be translated as “network” — or arguably, “web.”"

40 years before Paul Otlet sketched out those plans, he and his partner Henri La Fontaine began a project to collect data on every book ever published as well as data on newspapers, journals, magazines, basically every piece of published print from all time. The two somehow got the backing of the Belgium government who gave them money, staff, and storage space for their collection of index cards. By the end of the project in the 1930s when WWII erupted, the database numbered 12 million cards!

As the project developed Otlet saw that it becoming buried underneath paper and began envisioning the electronic future. In the article there is a link to a scene from the documentary about Otlet and his Mundaneum. It shows his sketches for what we know as the internet. He envisions a universal archive where a person is hooked into all information right from his desk. Obviously the technology isn't exactly our computers and internet, but it is remarkably close. At the desk a person has a screen and a telephone and some form of audio. When he wants a text he makes a phone call to where it is held and the image is scanned in a way and transmitted. If it is an audio piece, that goes through too. "A City of Knowledge" he called it.

What Otlet really strove for was the creation of the hyperlink. In his vision of a city of knowledge he thought everything would be connected by meaning. In the annotations he made on the index cards he marked the connection between subjects. More so than a hyperlink, which really only connects two separate documents, Otlet wanted a link between ideas and meaning. So rather than just a direct line he wanted a million. He wanted wikipedia in a way.

It's a pretty fascinating story, particularly that the project was funded at all. And almost a century ahead of its time. What Otlet would think of the internet that we know today, I'm not sure, but he wrote a book in 1934 that I might look around for.