MONS, Belgium – In 1934, Paul Otlet sketched out plans for a global network of computers that would allow people to search and browse through millions of interlinked 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.”
1934年，保羅•奧特雷為全球電腦網路勾勒藍圖，人們可以用它來搜尋和瀏覽數百萬筆相互連結的檔案。他描述世人將會如何使用這套設備，彼此互通訊息，分享檔案，甚至在線上社交網路結社聚會。他用法文「réseau」稱呼這套系統，就是「網狀組織」或可以說是「網子」。

Historians typically trace the origins of the World Wide Web through a lineage of Anglo-American inventors like Vannevar Bush, Doug Engelbart and Ted Nelson. But more than half a century before Tim Berners-Lee released the first Web browser in 1991, Otlet (pronounced ot-LAY) described a networked world where “anyone in his armchair would be able to contemplate the whole of creation.”
歷史學家追溯全球資訊網的起源，通常循一脈相承的英美發明家，如（電腦之父）維內瓦•布希，（滑鼠之父）道格•恩格巴特和（超文本之父）泰德•尼爾森。但早在1991年，提姆•伯納斯李發表第一個網頁瀏覽器之前半個多世紀，奧特雷就描述一個網路連結的世界，在那個世界裡，「任何人只要坐在扶手椅裡，就能通觀全宇宙」。

The legacy of Otlet, a forgotten pioneer of technology, is on display at a tiny museum called the Mundaneum, tucked down a narrow street in the northeast corner of this medieval city.
奧特雷這位被遺忘的科技先驅，他的創作遺澤目前正在比利時舊城芒斯東北角一條狹窄的街道上一間叫「曼達紐姆」的小博物館展出。

Although Otlet’s proto-Web relied on a patchwork of analog technologies like index cards and telegraph machines, it nonetheless anticipated the hyperlinked structure of today’s Web.
雖然奧特雷的「原型網」主要由索引卡與電報機等類比科技湊合而成，它仍預啟今日網路的超聯結架構。

Otlet’s vision hinged on the idea of a networked machine that joined documents using symbolic links. While that notion may seem obvious today, in 1934 it marked a conceptual breakthrough. “The hyperlink is one of the most underappreciated inventions of the last century,” said Kevin Kelly, former editor of Wired magazine. “It will go down with radio in the pantheon of great inventions.”
奧特雷的構想是以一套連網機器為樞紐，使用符號連結，把文件串連起來。這概念今天看來似乎毫不稀奇，在1934年卻是了不起的觀念突破。「超聯結是上世紀最未受到應有重視的一項發明，」前「連網」雜誌主編凱文•凱利說。「未來它一定可以和無線電一起入祀偉大發明的封神榜。」

In recent years, a small group of researchers has begun to resurrect Otlet’s reputation, republishing some of his writing and raising money to establish the museum and archive in Mons.
近年來，一小群研究人員開始平反奧特雷的名聲，重新印行他的部分著作，募款在芒斯為他起造博物館和檔案庫。

Although Otlet spent his entire working life in the age before computers, he possessed remarkable foresight into the possibilities of electronic media. In 1895, the 27-year-old Otlet met a kindred spirit in the future Nobel Prize winner Henri La Fontaine, who joined him in planning to create a master bibliography of all the world’s published knowledge. The two men set out to collect data on every book ever published, along with a vast collection of magazine and journal articles, photographs, posters and all kinds of ephemera – like pamphlets – that libraries typically ignored. Using index cards, they went on to create a vast paper database with more than 12 million individual entries.
奧特雷在世時，電腦雖然尚未問世，他卻能洞燭機先，看出電子媒介前途不可限量。1895年，年方27的奧特雷和後來榮獲諾貝爾和平獎的亨利•拉方丹志趣相投，共同計畫為全球已印行的書籍建立一套「總目」。兩人著手蒐集世上刊印過的每一本書，以及當時圖書館經常忽略而數量龐大的雜誌和報紙文章、照片、海報和各式手冊等短期出版品。他們運用索引卡建立龐大的紙上資料庫，條目超過1千200 萬筆。

As the Mundaneum evolved, it began to choke on the sheer volume of paper. Eventually Otlet realized the answer involved eliminating paper altogether.
曼達紐姆規模逐漸擴張，光是紙張的數量就令資料庫窒息。最後奧特雷明白了，解決之道是根本不要紙張。

Since there was no such thing as electronic data storage in the 1920s, Otlet had to invent it. He started writing about the possibility of electronic media storage, culminating in a 1934 book, “Monde,” where he laid out his vision of a “mechanical, collective brain” that would house all the world’s information, made readily accessible over a global telecommunications network.
由於1920年代尚無電子式資料儲存裝置，奧特雷必須自己發明。他開始撰文探討電子媒介儲存資料的可能性，1934年集結成「世界」一書，闡述他對「機械集合式頭腦」的憧憬，這頭腦可以裝進全世界的資訊，透過全球電信網路即時查詢。

Tragically, just as Otlet’s vision began to crystallize, the Mundaneum fell on hard times. In 1934, the Belgian government lost interest in the project, and after financial struggles closed it to the public.
悲劇來了，奧特雷的理想即將實現之際，曼達紐姆陷入困境。1934 年，比利時政府對這項計畫喪失興趣，並在財務難以為繼的情況下，停止對大眾開放。

A few staff members kept working on the project, but the dream ended when the Nazis marched through Belgium in 1940. The Germans cleared out the original Mundaneum site, destroying thousands of boxes filled with index cards. Otlet died in 1944, a broken man.
一些助理繼續推動計畫，但1940年納粹鐵蹄踏入比利時，夢想破滅。德國人清空曼達紐姆原址，摧毀數千個裝滿索引卡的箱子。1944年，奧特雷撒手人寰，身後蕭條。

After Otlet’s death, what survived of the original Mundaneum was left to languish in an old anatomy building of the Free University in the Parc Leopold until 1968, when a young graduate student named W. Boyd Rayward picked up the paper trail. Mr. Rayward has since helped lead a resurgence of interest in Otlet’s work, a movement that eventually fueled enough interest to prompt development of the Mundaneum museum in Mons.
奧特雷死後，曼達紐姆倖存的原件被棄置在利物浦公園的自由大學舊解剖大樓內，任其腐朽，直到1968年，一位名叫波義德•雷瓦德的年輕研究生發現這些紙片的蹤跡。雷瓦德此後扮演協助重燃對奧特雷研究興趣的推手。這項運動終於引來足夠的興趣，在芒斯設立曼達紐姆博物館的計畫得以持續。

The original Mundaneum could never have accommodated the volume of information produced on the Web today.
曼達紐姆的原始規模，絕對容不下今天網路產生的巨量資訊。

“I don’t think it could have scaled up,” Mr. Rayward said of the Mundaneum. “It couldn’t even scale up to meet the demands of the paper-based world he was living in.”
「我不認為它能擴充，」雷瓦德談及曼達紐姆時說。「它連當時紙張世界的需求都無法滿足。」

關鍵字句

這篇文章的大意（ general ideas），是當今的電腦網路（computer networks）問世前，曾有一個幾乎完全一樣（identical），由索引卡（index cards）和電報機（telegraph machines）組成的類比式網路（analogue reseau），只是已為世人遺忘（obsolete/forgot）。

如今，有人企圖回到時光隧道（time tunnel），重建這個類比網路，卻發現它容量（capacity）真的太小了。

文中稱奧特雷這個紙本時代（paper-based world）的網路，為proto-Web，即web prototype（原型網）。有趣的是，現在的World Wide Web有超聯結（hyperlink），奧特雷的作法則是用象徵性的聯結（symbolic links），把文件串起來。我們現在稱電腦或電算機（computer），他則稱「機械集合式頭腦」（a mechanical, collective brain）。

第二段...trace the origins of...through a lineage of...從一脈相承的譜系探索根源，lineage是指血統、門第、家世，a man of good lineage就是家世好。

. . . in the pantheon of great inventions名列英雄榜，pantheon是萬神殿、偉人祠，也就是「名登封神榜」，如in the pantheon of writers（晉身作家之林）。To resurrect one’s reputation重振某人名聲，resurrect復活、復甦、復興，也就是「還他一個歷史公道」。

The world’s published knowledge泛指所有印刷文物，包括書籍、雜誌、圖片、海報及小冊子，運用了修辭學（rhetoric）上的委婉（euphemism） 手法， 同一個句子後面的all kinds of ephemera也一樣；ephemera蜉蝣，指生命短暫之物，暗指上述印刷文物轉眼即化為塵泥，若是the ephemera of fashion則形容時尚變化之快速。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/17/science/17mund.html
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/17/healthscience/17mund.php

2008-07-01/聯合報/G6版/UNITED DAILY NEWS 蔡繼光 原文請見7月1日紐時周報六版右上