Mundaneum, Archive museum in Mons, Belgium.
The Mundaneum is an archive museum in Mons housing six kilometers of systematically arranged documents and presenting knowledge through exhibitions archives and research materials. The collection shows different methods of information organization and documents the evolution of data handling over decades.
Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine founded this institution in 1910 with the goal of gathering universal knowledge and creating a global information center. The institution experienced several relocations and changes before finding its current location in Mons.
The name derives from the Latin word for world and reflects the attempt to gather all fields of knowledge under one roof. Visitors today see numerous card boxes and catalogues that show how people structured information before the digital age.
The archives and exhibitions can be visited from Tuesday to Friday between 13:00 and 17:00 and during weekends from 13:00 until 18:00. Access is through the main entrance and the rooms are distributed across several floors.
The center received the European Heritage Label in 2015 for its role in developing modern principles of information organization and documentation science. This recognition highlights the importance of the classification systems developed here for today's information technologies.
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