The Immortal Library: Information, Resilience and the Benefit of Turmoil

In this episode I take a look at the sordid history of the library. The library has been a beacon of knowledge, and a marker of civilization for hundreds of years. But the library’s journey from the scriptoriums of medieval monasteries to massive cultural institutions like The Library of Congress has been perilous. 

This is a journey that touches on many modern concerns we have around information, including propaganda, censorship, access, elitism and the conquests of both political leaders and rich industrialists. 

To own the information society is exposed to is to own society itself, to control what people think, and believe. The library has always been caught in the middle, between the power struggles of the elites, and a public hungry for knowledge (and the opportunities such knowledge brings).

In this episode we will use the library’s history to showcase fundamental patterns related to unification, censorship, critical thresholds, growth and variation, replication and scale, growth and destruction, crossover opportunities, resiliency and simultaneous discovery.

And you thought a talk on libraries was going to be boring. Let’s get started.

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