The.Total.Library

Editorial Design ❘ Hybrid Publication

In the short story The Library of Babel (1941) Jorge Luis Borges describes a metaphorical replica of the universe in the form of an endless library. This library is filled with books containing all possible combinations of letters; everything that could possibly ever be said, written or thought. The library symbolizes a universe without a beginning, without an end, without a centre and without borders.

To capture this library’s essence I created totallibrary.net. By collecting all tweets about Borges or the Library of Babel this online platform generates an endless live feed of text. A button labeled print.volume spits out the library’s latest volume into the real world, much like a print-on-demand service.

The unveiling of the platform was accompanied by The.Total.Library Volume.One containing the first 410 pages of text – much like the books described by Borges which were all uniform in size and always exactly 410 pages long.

 www.totallibrary.net

Nominated for the WdKA Treshold Award 2016