After seeing the Google doodle about Paul Otlet I looked him up just out of interest.......just a filing system really but it reminded me of something my late father told me about.
After the war he (my father) had worked for the Timber Research Council and also the Timber Research and Development Agency (TRADA)who are still going today, but one of his jobs was to catalogue a list of timbers and timber classifications that had been compiled by a chap who was held as a POW during the WW2. I think, and forgive me but my memeory plays tricks on me, but I think the chaps name was HE Desh. What brought this to mind was seeing the drawers on the Google doodle as my father told me that they devised a system where you pulled the drawer out and stuck a pin through various holes in the assembled cards to correspond with each part of the cell structure of the tree, colour, shape, size etc eliminating those that were not pertinent and eventually you would end up with one or two cards with a sample on and you could view it through a microscope and decide which species it was. Apparently it was very accurate.
I just thought this may interest you, I'm off now to Google HE Desh.
