Multi-dimensional scope |
The UIA initiative endeavours to interrelate
a wide range of specific concerns and approaches variously understood
as important to an integrated understanding of the challenges of society.
Its main bias is effectively to favour comprehensiveness and internationality,
to the point of including marginal perspectives of small constituencies |
International focus |
The focus of the UIA remains international
-- in an effort to identify the initiatives and preoccupations that emerge
from national and local concerns around the world that are articulated
through international and regional bodies. |
Interdisciplinary commitment |
The UIA imitative emerges from the origins
of the systematic preoccupations of documentalists and the concern to
interrelate the range of human interests through a common framework.
Paul Otlet, one of the founders, was a key figure in the development
of the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) system and associated bibliographical
initiatives. |
Intersectoral relationships |
Irrespective of intellectual discipline,
the UIA has a traditional concern with recognizing the interrelationship
between the various modes of human activity, whether physical, faith-based,
academic, interest-based, commercial, or otherwise -- as expressed through
contrasting types of institution (associations, corporations, academia,
professional bodies, governmental institutions, etc) |
The UIA endeavours to adapt its initiatives
to take account of the variety of languages, cultures and epistemological
frameworks, whether or not these are equally expressed through international
bodies. |
|
Multi-lingual access |
Considerable attention has been given to
the multi-lingual challenge and to automatic translation procedures.
Emphasis is placed on multi-lingual keyword access from a variety of
languages, even when data is only available in English. Organization
descriptions have been translated into French, for example, with ACCT
support. |
Complexity of all fields of human activity |
As implied above, the UIA seeks to re-present
any field of human activity as expressed through international bodies
-- or articulated in their perceptions of world problems, or strategies
in response to them. It is especially interested in discovering ways
to show the formal and systemic relationships between these seemingly
disparate preoccupations. |