The International Federation for Information and Documentation (FID) was an international organization that was created to promote universal access to all recorded knowledge through the creation of an international classification system. FID stands for the original French Fédération internationale de documentation.

Historical Background of FID

FID was established on 12 September 1895, in

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

, as the International Institute of Bibliography (originally ''Institut International de Bibliographie'', or IIB) by two Belgian lawyers,

Paul Otlet Paul Marie Ghislain Otlet (; ; 23 August 1868 – 10 December 1944) was a Belgian author, lawyer and peace activist; who was a foundational figure in documentalism, a precursory discipline to information science. Otlet created the Universal D ...

(1868–1944) and Henri La Fontaine (1854–1943). It was popularly known as the Brussels Institute. Its headquarters was changed to

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

after 1934. It had gone through a number of changes in name that reflect changes of conceptualization of the field in which it operates. The changes in names and years are : *1931 – The International Institute for Documentation (Institut International de Documentation, IID) *1937 – The International Federation for Documentation (Fédération Internationale de Documentation, FID) *1988 – The International Federation for Information and Documentation (Fédération Internationale d'Information et de Documentation, FID) The Institute was one of the sponsors of the first World Congress of Universal Documentation, held in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

in 1937. FID was dissolved in 2002.

Publications

One of the publications of FID was ''FID Communications''.

References

W. Boyd Rayward

*Keenan, S. (2003). FID (Federation Internationale de Documentation). ''In'
International Encyclopedia of Information and Library Science.
2nd ed. Ed. by John Feather & Paul Sturges. , London: Routledge (pp. 196–198) Organizations established in 1895 Organizations disestablished in 2002 Non-profit organisations based in Belgium History organisations based in the Netherlands Organisations based in The Hague Archivist associations 1895 establishments in Belgium {{int-org-stub