Mundaneum

The Mundaneum is the building in which the (IIB ) Museum was founded in 1898 by Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine in Brussels under the name Institut International de Bibliographie was home. Its objective was to cover the whole literature of the world.

Headquarters of the Institute was the first Palais Mondial called building that was built for a world exhibition at the Palais de Cinquantenaire and renamed in Mundaneum little later. In Mundaneum next to the bibliographic institute and library special collections and a museum were located, there had also claim to offer a representative cross-section of world culture. In 1934 the Mundaneum was closed in its old form.

The name Mundaneum is continued today by the Centre d' Archives de la Communauté française de Belgique in Mons, Belgium

Falsely Mundaneum is often only considered as the name of the museum or used as a synonym for the Universal Library.