On Real and Imaginary Libraries in Relation to the Infinite

Abstract

Libraries as institutions, architectures, collections, symbols and metaphors are crucially determined by the concept of infinity. Forms of infinity may occur in real libraries (in architecture, in classification and arrangement of the collections, content of the materials, symbolism), imaginary libraries (which figure in imaginary places, immune to the laws of familiar time, space or perspective), and invisible libraries (which vary from reader to reader and are not referred to in texts, but can be supplied by the readers themselves and used to populate the places and worlds of the stories). The paper shows how real libraries may be infiltrated, through a creative turn of mind and a sharpened sense of the infinite, by visions of imaginary or even invisible libraries, and thus enriched in manifold ways.