These are nothing but accounts and studies published with the hope of preserving from decay the remembrance of what men and women have done, and of preserving the great, wonderful and weird actions of librarians, archivists, pariahs and the likes from losing their due meed of glory; and withal to put on record what were their grounds of feuds, passions and fears. Such interests bled from minds exhausted –and by their very nature, lurking constantly in the dark burrows of history.

“The Library exists ab aeterno. This truth, whose immediate corollary is the future eternity of the world, cannot be placed in doubt by any reasonable mind. Man, the imperfect librarian, may be the product of chance or of malevolent demiurgi; the universe, with its elegant endowment of shelves, of enigmatic volumes, of inexhaustible stairways for the traveler and latrines for the seated librarian, can only be the work of a god.”

Jorge Luis Borges
Library of Babel [1941]