Don’t miss yesterday’s New York Times article in the Science Times section on “the legacy of one of technology’s lost pioneers: Paul Otlet,” arguably the first to imagine the Internet.  Otlet’s work in the 1930s “described a networked world where ‘anyone in his armchair would be able to contemplate the whole of creation’”:

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.”

The article, “The Web Time Forgot,” includes terrific visuals available via the link above, focuses on Otlet’s Mundaneum and links to a documentary on his story.  But as with my earlier post on a similar case, where the novel lies not in the facts of the story but in the story behind the facts, the tale here circles around the destruction of Orlet’s work:

Today, Otlet and his work have been largely forgotten, even in his native Belgium. Although Otlet enjoyed considerable fame during his lifetime, his legacy fell victim to a series of historical misfortunes — not least of which involved the Nazis marching into Belgium and destroying much of his life’s work.

An alternate history, perhaps?  One involving the Nazis capitalizing on rather than destroying Otlet’s work or, jumping ahead to 1945 and assuming Otlet survived the war instead of dying in 1944, the Americans and Soviets racing each other to grab Otlet and his colleagues rather than Von Braun and his?  What if the web had preceded the race to the moon?  Would it have mattered?