Each library confronts us with the infinite and each, in some inexplicable way, contains the universe. Surrounded by books detailing everything from the biology of insects to theories of the cosmos, we feel part of something larger than ourselves. More so in a library than a bookshop since libraries have fewer constraints: the amount of books one can buy is constrained by how much money one has; in a library, there is the tantalising potential of reading everything. “In the stacks of this library (this or any other), I have the distinct impression that its millions of volumes may indeed contain the entirety of human experience: that they make not a model for but a model of the universe.”
There are two distinct meanings of the term ‘Total Library’. The first Borges described as a “subaltern horror” and it’s the library described in his short story, ‘The Library of Babel’. This library’s books contain every possible combination of English orthographic symbols – 26 letters of the Roman alphabet and accompanying symbols of punctuation. For every one book that is readable, there are millions of imperfect copies. Such a library would not be infinitely large: William Bloch calculated that according to the conditions set out in the story, Borges’ Total Library can only contain 251,312,000 books. This library is the Logically Complete Library.
The second meaning of the term is the library that contains everything ever published. Matthew Battles calls this the Universal Library. The Logically Complete Library is a Platonic ideal – a mathematical curiosity – whereas the Universal Library could be real. The Library of Alexandria – said to have started with Plato’s pupil Aristotle’s personal collection of books – was the purest expression of the Universal Library in antiquity. “The Great Library at Alexandria was the first library with a truly comprehensive ambition to gather all the world’s knowledge under one roof.”To its heroic librarians and scholars, the Great Library was “the centre of a circle bound by the knowable world.”
The hidden truth behind this universe may be forever beyond us and the Total Library, like the Tower of Babel, may be a dream beyond our abilities. But while imagination persists, libraries furnish us with places to discover truths of our own: places in which we can be ourselves; places in which we can be other people; places in which we can discover the secrets expressed in words; places to get lost in paradise. Despite the threats to libraries, it should be heartening that there are beautiful, exquisite, and terrifying ideas embodied in books, in collections, and in the mad few who collect and protect them.
Lost in Paradise: the Total Library as mirror of reality
by Simon Barron
Issue 22 – Capita Software and Managed Services
http://www.capita-softwareandmanagedservices.co.uk/software/Documents/libraries-panlibus22.PDF
Each library confronts us with the infinite and each, in some inexplicable way, contains the universe. Surrounded by books detailing everything from the biology of insects to theories of the cosmos, we feel part of something larger than ourselves. More so in a library than a bookshop since libraries have fewer constraints: the amount of books one can buy is constrained by how much money one has; in a library, there is the tantalising potential of reading everything. “In the stacks of this library (this or any other), I have the distinct impression that its millions of volumes may indeed contain the entirety of human experience: that they make not a model for but a model of the universe.”
There are two distinct meanings of the term ‘Total Library’. The first Borges described as a “subaltern horror” and it’s the library described in his short story, ‘The Library of Babel’. This library’s books contain every possible combination of English orthographic symbols – 26 letters of the Roman alphabet and accompanying symbols of punctuation. For every one book that is readable, there are millions of imperfect copies. Such a library would not be infinitely large: William Bloch calculated that according to the conditions set out in the story, Borges’ Total Library can only contain 251,312,000 books (which, while not infinite, is a lot: Bloch goes on to prove that this amount of books could not fit into our universe). [4] This library is the Logically Complete Library. Variations on the concept can be traced from Democritus and Leucippus through to Ramón Llull, Lewis Carroll, and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
The second meaning of the term is the library that contains everything ever published. Matthew Battles calls this the Universal Library. The Logically Complete Library is a Platonic ideal – a mathematical curiosity – whereas the Universal Library could be real. The Library of Alexandria – said to have started with Plato’s pupil Aristotle’s personal collection of books – was the purest expression of the Universal Library in antiquity. “The Great Library at Alexandria was the first library with a truly comprehensive ambition to gather all the world’s knowledge under one roof.”To its heroic librarians and scholars, the Great Library was “the centre of a circle bound by the knowable world.”
The Universal Library contains all there is to know about the universe. It is the research library writ large: instead of a few million books, it contains every book (calculated by Google to be approximately 129,864,880 books [8]). Every word, every fact, every piece of information, every bit of data: all are contained within its walls. It contains everything that we know, everything we have imagined, and everything that we know we don’t know.
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The hidden truth behind this universe may be forever beyond us and the Total Library, like the Tower of Babel, may be a dream beyond our abilities. But while imagination persists, libraries furnish us with places to discover truths of our own: places in which we can be ourselves; places in which we can be other people; places in which we can discover the secrets expressed in words; places to get lost in paradise. Despite the threats to libraries, it should be heartening that there are beautiful, exquisite, and terrifying ideas embodied in books, in collections, and in the mad few who collect and protect them.
Alberto Manguel concludes his meditation on libraries, The Library at Night, with a dedication to the beautiful and futile idealism behind the Total Library which reveals why all libraries have value and why there is no greater mistake than destroying our mirrors of reality. “The suspicion that we and the world are made in the image of something wonderfully and chaotically coherent far beyond our grasp, of which we are also part; the hope that our exploded cosmos and we, its stardust, have an ineffable meaning and method; the delight in retelling the old metaphor of the world as a book we read and in which we too are read; the conceit that what we can know of reality is an imagination made of language – all this finds its material manifestation in that selfportrait we call a library.”
Undaimonia
Musings between mediocrity and destiny.
Life, literature, and librarianship.
http://undaimonia.blogspot.jp/p/my-work.html
My name is Simon Barron. I’m a librarian and writer currently working as Project Analyst on the Qatar Digitisation Project at The British Library in England. I am a Board Member for SLA Europe acting as Co-Chair of the Early Careers Committee and organising the Early Career Conference Awards. In 2012, I won the SLA Europe Early Career Conference Award for the Science-Technology Division. I have campaigned for public libraries as part of Voices for the Library, I write articles and short stories, and I’m interested in universal digital libraries, libraries’ role in academic/scientific research, and new technologies in libraries. For more information, check out my CV.
In my free time, I think about philosophy, I read lots of books, I play video games, I watch science fiction and indie movies, and I go out camping, hiking, and geocaching.
Contact me at simon.barron.19 at gmail.com.