Presentation given during the 2018 Annual Meeting of the Document Academy (DOCAM). We present the current results of a study on Paul Otlet's Traité de documentation (1934), as part of the bigger HyperOtlet project. Beginning with a 6-level deep table of contents, we extract fragments from the book and compute linear lists, two-dimensional tables, circular diagrams and multi-dimensional tables expressed in code. We show what a visual approach brings to the hermeneutics of the book, with lexicometry and data visualization methods applied to these fragments.

1. THE ARCHITEXT OF BIBLION
Digital Echoes of Paul Otlet
Arthur Perret
MICA (Université Bordeaux Montaigne)
ANR HyperOtlet
DOCAM 2018

2. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
Paul Otlet, the architect of Babel…
1895 Institut international de bibliographie;
1895 Universal Bibliographic Repertory;
1905 Universal Decimal Classification;
1920 the Mundaneum;
1934 Traité de documentation;
1937 International Federation for Information and
Documentation (FID).
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3. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
… 2018: HyperOtlet
Team project Designing hyperdocuments today.
PhD Otlet’s intellectual legacy.
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4. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
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5. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
Problem How can we grasp what this massive document is about?
Approach Build a coherent framework. Draw from the science of writing,
with concepts, text analysis and data visualization.
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6. 1. TEXT, HYPERTEXT, ARCHITEXT
“We now need not just bibliography, the description of books, but bibliology,
which is a general science and technique of the document.”
(Otlet, 1934, p. 9)

7. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
In his preface to the 1989 edition, Robert Estivals writes:
“The Traité de documentation contains two sections, unequal in size. The
longest one is a systematic description of the book and the document […] The
shortest section is dedicated to bibliology and it is of the utmost importance for
this field of study.”
(Estivals, 1987, p. 13)
Can we test this with contemporary techniques, raise new questions?
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8. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
The Traité grew from index cards: no manuscript, but documentation
assembled over 30 years.
Otlet theorized how information could take a more flexible form, beyond the
book (Robert, 2015):
biblion “the intellectual, abstract unit […] defined in the manner of the
atom” (Otlet, 1934, p. 43) ;
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9. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
Biblion in practice: from text…
– 431 pages
– 350 000 words
– in-4° (26cm length)
– 2-column layout
– 2 facsimile editions
(1989 et 2015)
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10. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
… to hypertext
– folkscanomy
– collaborative editing
– hypertext, hypermedia
– HTML to PDF or EPUB
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11. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
architext the architecture which marks out text and governs its
enunciation (Jeanneret and Souchier, 1999).
Markup is not a 20th century invention but editing software and programming
languages give it much more potential for text analysis.
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12. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
List
(TXT)
Table
(CSV)
Table
(JSON)
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13. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
With this in mind, we build a simple experiment around the Traité:
visualization transcribe the table of contents as tabular data and build
structural representations (RAW Graphs).
statistics encode the book as a corpus and do some light lexicometry
(Iramuteq);
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14. 2. VISUALIZING TEXT

15. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
Schematization is fundamental to Otlet’s approach. His archives contain
many representations of networks, circles, radiant and arborescent structures.
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16. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
Figure 1 – Circular dendrogram (level 1)Arthur Perret The Architext of Biblion
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17. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
Figure 2 – Circular dendrogram (level 2)Arthur Perret The Architext of Biblion
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18. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
Figure 3 – Circular dendrogram (level 3)Arthur Perret The Architext of Biblion
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19. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
Figure 4 – Circular dendrogram (level 4)Arthur Perret The Architext of Biblion
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20. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
Figure 5 – Circular dendrogram (level 6)Arthur Perret The Architext of Biblion
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21. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
Figure 6 – Circular dendrogram (level 6)Arthur Perret The Architext of Biblion
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22. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
Figure 7 – Treemap of the TraitéArthur Perret The Architext of Biblion
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23. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
Figure 8 – Treemap (adjusted with word count)Arthur Perret The Architext of Biblion
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24. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
Figure 9 – Word cloud (entire book)Arthur Perret The Architext of Biblion
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25. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
Figure 10 – Similarities analysisArthur Perret The Architext of Biblion
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26. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
Figure 11 – Lexicométrie (texte intégral)Arthur Perret The Architext of Biblion
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27. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
Figure 12 – Lexicometry (parts 0, 1 & 5) Figure 13 – Correlations (parts 0, 1 & 5)
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28. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
Figure 14 – Lexicometry (parts 2, 3 & 4) Figure 15 – Correlations (parts 2, 3 & 4)
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29. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
Figure 16 – Treemap (adjusted with word count)Arthur Perret The Architext of Biblion
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30. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
Figure 17 – Circular diagram
Figure 18 – Circular diagram (adjusted with word count)
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31. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
This gets challenging:
technique e.g. different software implementations affect results;
perception e.g. angles and coordinates are not equal in our eyes;
interpretation e.g. color can clarify or obfuscate;
argumentation e.g. work-in-progress and image-as-proof have different
roles in scientific work.
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32. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
hermeneutics articulating interpretation and the science of writing
(bibliology & documentology);
heuristics visualization is not simply a technique but a methodology
for testing assumptions and explore sources.
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33. THE FUTURE OF THE BOOK
“To be everywhere, to see, hear and know everything […] All of this, nothing
less, maybe even more, is the potential of the Book!”
(Otlet, 1934, p. 431)

34. Introduction 1. Text, hypertext, architext 2. Visualizing text Conclusion
The HyperOtlet project is building:
a platform: an authoritative, innovative web edition of the Traité de
documentation for everyone to engage with;
a network: fostering cooperation between scholars, students,
librarians and engineers across Europe.
So let’s talk!
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35. Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Arthur Perret
Institution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . MICA (UBM) / ANR HyperOtlet
Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RAWGraphs, IRaMuTeQ, LATEX
License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CC-BY-NC-SA
Contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . arthur.perret@u-bordeaux-montaigne.fr
References:
Dagognet, François (1999). Les outils de la réflexion : épistémologie. Les empêcheurs de penser en rond. Le
Plessis-Robinson: Institut Synthélabo pour le progrès de la connaissance.
Eco, Umberto (2010). De l’arbre au labyrinthe. Études historiques sur le signe et l’interprétation. Paris: Grasset.
Estivals, Robert (1987). La bibliologie. Que sais-je? 2374. Paris: Pr. Univ. de France.
Jeanneret, Yves and Emmanuël Souchier (1999). “Pour une poétique de « l’écrit d’écran »”. In: Xoana 6/7.
Otlet, Paul (1934). Traité de documentation: le livre sur le livre : théorie et pratique. Bruxelles: Palais Mondial.
Pédauque, Roger T. (2007). La redocumentarisation du monde. Toulouse: Cépaduès-Éd.
Robert, Pascal (2015). “Le biblion et les substituts du livre. Théorie et pratique du dépassement du livre chez Paul
Otlet”. In: Communication & langages 2015.184, pp. 3–23.