*in the UK.
I like his weekly videos, but this one is missing a fairly important qualifier in the title. Still informative and interesting.
Right! It would have been stunning if it tried to aquire every book published in every language… Though I suppose if certain books are imported and sold, then they would show up in this library
It doesn’t even have every book published in the UK, because there are a lot of books, especially at the beginning of the printing press period, which does not exist in any known copies anymore.
Not to mention that the policy of collecting ephemera is a relatively new one, so most older ephemera doesn’t exist in its collections either.
* in the UK and Ireland. For historical reasons every book published in Ireland has to send a copy to the British library.
Similarly, the Trinity College Library in Dublin is entitled to receive a copy of every book published in the UK, on request.
The Library of Babel
We’ve built several over the years. There are Libraries of Babel (wikis) within the Library of Babel (the internet). Alexandria burned, and the Incan accounting system is mostly lost, but they existed.
That said, the pun is a bit misleading. Big libraries are not bad things or “unholy pride” IMO. On the contrary, if god as described by religion hated science, or learning, why is godlike knowledge called “omni_science_”?
Babel. Bible. The many languages of the world probably didn’t start with a tower, but if I was looking for a monument to hubris, it wouldn’t be a library. It would be a temple, whether a literal church that fleeces its followers, or an actual monument to excess and inequality like Burj Khalifa. (Nothing against you if you live in Saudi Arabia, but please stop building skyscrapers out of sea sand and drinkable water in the middle of a desert? Dubai is not a city, it’s an architectural testing ground at best.)
Language is a strange thing. Unfortunately, it’s easy to be misled by people cherry-picking words from a book. Obviously that applies to me too, so feel free to double-check all this.
Borges’ Library of Babel was the size of a planet and had not just every book in every language, but they were interspersed with books full of gibberish and people spend their lives in the library looking for the book that will give them all knowledge but never find it.
Yes, including super rare books that only have one copy remaining.
If this video was in the US.
“This library destroys every book published.”
Yeah, but do they have a copy of Ass Goblins of Auschwitz? I think not.
