He built Google with index cards. 🗂️🌍 We investigate the Mundaneum, the "Google of Paper" created by Belgian visionary Paul Otlet. We break down his 1934 blueprint for a global information network that used telegraphs and millions of index cards to answer user queries, predicting hyperlinks ("electric telescopes") and the semantic web 50 years before Tim Berners-Lee.

1. The "Google of Paper": It wasn't digital, but it was online. We analyze the system. We discuss the Universal Decimal Classification (UDC), the language Otlet invented to link concepts rather than just books. We explain how this massive catalog of 12 million cards allowed users to send a query by mail or telegraph and receive a synthesized answer—a human search engine.

2. The Electric Telescope: Predicting the screen. We expose the vision. We discuss Otlet's sketches of a "reseau" (network) where documents would be projected onto screens in people's homes via "electric telescopes." We analyze how he foresaw the Cloud, imagining a central repository of knowledge accessible from anywhere, long before the transistor existed.

3. The Nazi Destruction: Why did we forget him? We explore the tragedy. We discuss how the Nazis invaded Belgium in 1940, viewing the Mundaneum's internationalist goal as a threat. We explain how they destroyed the collection to make room for a Third Reich art exhibit, burying Otlet's legacy until it was rediscovered in a subway station in the 1990s.

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