Libraries as time machines

Abstract

Libraries are not just book repositories. They are time machines, meaning they can help us travel through time in our imagination and enter worlds we have lost. Partly through their architecture, partly through the texts themselves, they help us evoke the past and wander through it. The history of libraries takes us back to the ambition of gathering all books in one place: this is how the Library of Alexandria came about. But more recent studies show that the history of libraries goes back far beyond Alexandria, practically to the beginning of writing, and its trajectory points to a future marked by the increasing democratization of access to knowledge. Of course, many difficulties make this future seem problematic, but I believe that soon we will have a global digital library freely available to everyone in the world.