Features
The World’s Library of the Future
Sad news to people over here who are interested in the British Royal family. Two of the four most important members of the family were hospitalized this past week: The Princess of Wales faced “serious abdominal surgery” and King Charles III went under the knife for corrective prostrate surgery, both mercifully said to be non-cancer related. Making known health facts of the family is a move to be more public-friendly. Also it is acknowledged that the king making known his condition is a signal to others suffering similar complaints to seek medical attention.
Mentioned is the fact that these two are popular members of the family with the public, and affects most Prince William. Sure he will be rather lost with his wife out of the picture till after Easter and the three children of an obviously happy family left in his care. Of course they are very close with Kate’s family so the royal little three will be looked after very well. Hardworking Princess Anne will take over many of the duties scheduled in her brother’s and nephew’s immediate future lists.
The rather quizzical matter is that the fourth most important is Queen Camilla. Fate works in strange ways; she was so unpopular a while ago. Prince Harry who had to be there taking on responsibilities, absconded following his American wife who had planned these moves, it is said, from the time of their courtship – to live separate from the Royal Family and follow film careers, make money, and socialize with the best known.
Libraries are close to my heart and thus whenever I see the word or its newer names -information centre, resource centre, in print, I read the article. Libraries have evolved vastly from what they traditionally were. Now they are social centres gone electronic and house, or are close to, coffee and snack outlets.
I write today about a very different library, actually one of its kind unless replicated. An article about it– an Al Jazeera feature – was sent me by a librarian: ‘A library of the future. Can it make the world a better place? Greater hope for mankind?’
Sealed and stored
The Library of the Future
is its name. One hundred sealed documents will be its entire collection, starting with one and now having ten since the library came into being in 2014 with the first of its collection, a story titled Scribbler Moon written by Margaret Atwood. The plan is to secure one document per year from a selected well known writer, encase it in a steel box and embed it deep within a ‘tree ring’ hidden behind a glass panel emanating a soft light. Nothing is revealed barring the author’s name and year.
These steel boxes will be placed in the ‘Silent Room’ in Oslo’s public library – the Deichman Bjorvika’s top floor. Then in 2114, a century from the start of the Library of the Future, the documents will be unsealed and published as “a testament to the passage of time, mankind’s endurance and the hope that was imbued in the project by the generations that came before.” Also “to expand people’s perspective of time and their duty to posterity.”
Essays, stories etc will be solicited annually from selected authors of fame. The library has documents from British novelist David Mitchell and Icelandic Vietanmese-American poets, plus Turkish and South Korean authors. The works can be of any length, in any language and style. The seven member trust which includes the two female originators of the project as well as publishers from Norway and the UK, and a US museum director, considers writers based on their creative contributions to literature. “The selection process itself is based on serendipity and gut feeling.”
Paterson and Hovind reached out to Margaret Atwood as a ‘natural fit’ to initiate the writing process. Atwood is considered thus: “The world may have an oracle, known for getting the future eerily correct. In 2010 she wrote an essay ‘Literature and the Environment’ in which she asked ‘Will we ourselves soon be a lost civilization? Will our own books and stories ultimately become time capsules for some future archaeologist or space explorer?… Should we all put our novels into lead-lined boxes and bury them in a hole in the backyard?” When approached to be first contributor, Atwood agreed readily.
Paper is made from the fibres of trees. Thus with the setting up of the library in 2014, a forest of 1,000 spruce was planted in a northern area of Oslo, Norway, the space got on a 100 year lease with Paterson working hard to achieve this part of the project too. The trees are around one meter or 3 feet in height now. They were grown to provide paper for the special collection of books to be published in 2114. Annually, a procession of interested people walk through this forest and share freshly brewed coffee and conversation.
The details of the project are as follows: The project was conceived by Katie Paterson – Scot born in 1981 in Glasgow – and became reality when she was invited to Oslo by Anne Beate Hovind , cultural producer and art curator in 2010 to assist in her project of revamping the old dockyard of Oslo into a cultural centre. Hovind readily agreed to make Paterson’s dream idea a reality and thus the collection of a document a year, starting with Margaret Atwood’s short story, and the growing of a 1,000 trees. The project was inaugurated in the summer of 2014 and managed by the Future Library Trust, supported by the City of Oslo with Hovind its producer.
Critical response
“The Future Library project has been generally met with interest and intrigue by the media, though it has attracted criticism from some for its emphasis on preventing readership between 2014 and 2114.” Yes, it certainly is intriguing and I see no reason to criticize adversely its set policy. A hundred years of writing will surely show how the world has changed. I quote a comment from a write-up I read. “Leap of faith. With the climate catastrophe and the trajectory of our species at the core of the Future Library project, words like ‘trust’, ‘hope’ and ‘optimism’ come up incessantly in discussions around the project.”
We in this poor country may say money could be better used. But that is plebian. A project covering a century has to be taken seriously and commended too. Also it draws attention to many factors: the value of the set down word; the overuse of paper and deforestation; the need to reforest; climate change and how our Earth is endangered by Man through his greed.
Personal comment
I cannot help but comment on our libraries and preservation of resources. In many open to the public libraries, the attitude right from the front gate security guard to library staff was and may still be ‘Don’t bother me. Why are you here?’ Preservation was rotten until UNESCO stepped in and the National Library, National Archives were set up in the 1950s. The latter is geared to preserve documents sans paper.
Say three decade ago and before, researchers were forced to go to the London University’s Oriental Studies Dept (London School of Asian and African Studies) to access our own ancient and not so ancient books and documents. The ola leaf collection in the BL was well preserved while we in this country lost many to dust, termites and negligence.Mercifully conditions have changed and we are up front in information technology (IT) to which libraries are now geared.