Library of Babel

Borges, Jorge. "The Library of Babel : Jorge Luis Borges : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive." Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine. Web. 16 Oct. 2013.

Source:

http://archive.org/details/TheLibraryOfBabel

This short story titled The Library of Babel, by Jorge Luis Borges was first published in Spanish in 1941 and later translated to English. The science fiction story uses a library as a metaphor for the universe. Like Wells’ World Brain, this story is interesting from the perspective of it being written long before any conception of the Internet or digital libraries. Using first person narrative style, Borges places himself in a story about a universe, describing the universe using familiar physical library attributes, such as books, shelves and hexagon rooms. Using Mathematical terms, symbols, and alphabet characters through out the story, he describes this world with detail. As the plot develops and the problems of all the books of the world together in one place start to emerge, the concept of a special book that holds the key to all the others is introduced.

Wait did we just describe the Internet and Google’s mission to be master of knowledge?