Der Traum von der Weltbibliothek

Auch die New York Times hat sich bereits mit diesem Topos befasst. Zum Beispiel in diesem Artikel aus dem Jahre 2006: In short, the entire works of humankind, from the beginning of recorded history, in all languages, available to all people, all the time. This is a very big library. But because of digital technology, you'll be able to reach inside it from almost any device that sports a screen. From the days of Sumerian clay tablets till now, humans have "published" at least 32 million books, 750 million articles and essays, 25 million songs, 500 million images, 500,000 movies, 3 million videos, TV shows and short films and 100 billion public Web pages. All this material is currently contained in all the libraries and archives of the world. When fully digitized, the whole lot could be compressed (at current technological rates) onto 50 petabyte hard disks. Today you need a building about the size of a small-t…