We take that for granted nowadays, of course, but few were considering such ideas back then. Otlet joined forces with radical thinkers like Nobel prize winner Henry LaFontaine and architectural genius Le Courbusier to design a global newspaper archive, networked associations and a 150-room museum. Though those ideas remained a pipe dream, at one point they actually provided a service where you could submit a question and get an answer by telegraph (for a fee). Otlet's ultimate goal was a system where "from a distance, everyone will be able to read text, enlarged and limited to the desired subject, projected on an individual screen." That foreshadowed the modern internet, something even Vannevar Bush never saw coming. Unfortunately, Otlet's vision was shattered by the Nazi invasion of Belgium in 1940, and he died soon after. Luckily, he's now getting some credit for those ideas, and his fascinating story is worth a longer read.