ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the impact of aspects of the social networks of the protagonists of the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) as developed from Melvil Dewey's Decimal Classification (DC) by Paul Otlet and his colleagues in Belgium and the protagonists in the US of the Decimal System itself. Melvil Dewey had given permission to Paul Otlet to translate the Decimal Classification into French and other European languages in June 1895 and he and Paul Otlet were on good personal terms with each other. The conflict lasted for years with the secretary of the Decimal Classification and the editor of the Universal Classification Decimal both mobilizing their networks. Achieving concordance between the Decimal Classification and the UDC in the inter-War period seemed even more remote than during the crisis in the relationships between the Americans and the Belgians before World War I. Duyvis's importance in all matters concerning the International Institute of Bibliography and the UDC, would soon become paramount.
