In 1895, Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine built a paper internet with 18MM index cards affectionately referred to as the Mundaneum. They sought to catalog the world’s information (much like Google) but quickly ran into the physical limitations of such a thing. As more information was added, they realized the 15,000 drawers needed to hold all those index cards was never going to be enough.
Read A Short History of the Index Card from Popular Mechanics.
See also:
- While Otlet and Fontaine sought to catalog all information, this is a great example that building it was an expression of knowledge, not knowledge itself
- Maybe this was a precursor to the memex device proposed in 1945 by Vannevar Bush and a multi-player Zettelkasten
- The internet is a disjointed memex
- Tools for networked thought
- Humans are still the great interop layer