The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries, with vast air shafts between, surrounded by very low railings …
Thus begins Jorge Luis Borges’s fable The Library of Babel, which conjures up an image not unlike the World Wide Web. He gives a surreal description of the Library, which includes spiral staircases that “sink abysmally and soar upwards to remote distances” and mirrors that lead the inhabitants to conjecture whether or not the Library is infinite (“… I prefer to dream that their polished surfaces represent and promise the infinite,” declares Borges’s anonymous narrator). Next he tells of the life of its inhabitants, who live ...
Get Web Dragons now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
