The story of the library is the story of arranging knowledge: what becomes visible and accessible, and what is not. Information was always a key part in gaining and retaining political power and libraries exercised the control of the hegemonic narrative throughout history. The modern library, the public library, switched its role from knowledge custodial to a social hub, being the librarian a key figure in the public relationship with personalized content, and the catalogue, an instrument of its discovery.
Nowadays, even if someone is lucky enough to be born in a city with a substantial public library, the convenience makes the Internet the de facto world public library and search engines the librarians. Although almost all recorded knowledge rests on its library shelves, or datacenters, the search engines interfaces are less than perfect. The most used one, Google, monetizes on information access and conceals the logic by which the “digital librarian” suggest content to its users.
More than the new Alexandria I see Google as Borges’ “Library of Babel”. A universe that contains all the possible iterations of knowledge, but whose access is mediated by the prevailing gibberish.
Thanks, Liliana! Lots of people have argued that Google has usurped the library, but as many of our readings for today attempt to demonstrate, the library’s function extends well beyond providing *access* to information — even in places of information surplus. I hope our field trip and discussion tomorrow will help us to think more about how libraries and search engines and databases are *not* synonymous, but perhaps complementary. And re: Library of Babel: you might be interested in this: https://punctumbooks.com/titles/tar-for-mortar/