Secret Libraries

Timothea Haider

The future library is a project started in Norway which won’t reach fruition for one hundred years. It starts with a plot of a hundred trees planted in 2014 which, once they’ve grown, will become paper for a series of a hundred books. A manuscript from one of the most influential writers is chosen once a year to be sealed and left unread until the year 2114.

This idea of slowing down the insemination of information to match the growth of the trees used to distribute them puts into question the modern ideals of mass acceleration and asks us to consider consumption and creation on a wider scale. The books written for this library will not be read in the lifetimes of authors, many of the people currently following the progress of the project or even the original creators of the project. In a time where the future of books, trees and civilized society are not guaranteed, this website and a hundred saplings in Norway has people considering a brighter future even though they might not be able to see it themselves.

While this library is considered the most secretive library, most of that title is earned because it simply doesn’t exist yet. The Archivum Secretum Apostolicum Vaticanum might possibly be the most secretive library which currently exists. Being the private archives of the Vatican, the secrecy surrounding them is greatly exaggerated by conspiracy theorists but not entirely unfounded. Much of the archives are private, aren’t properly indexed and are technically only fully available to the pope, there are reading rooms available to visiting scholars and guided tours for visitors. The process for accessing the archives are rather difficult to navigate. Only accredited researchers are allowed to read anything from the archives and even they are only three articles which they must read under supervision and a time limit. The archives are said to contain over 75,000 codices from over twelves centuries.

Though some libraries are held secret by those who are either concerned by conservation or are waiting until the right moment, others are simply lost and rediscovered. The Dunhuang library on the edge of the gobi desert had been sitting in a cave for possibly over 900 years when it was discovered in the 1900’s. It holds paintings and manuscripts from over seventeen languages, many of which are now rare or entirely lost. Currently, the British museum is executing the International Dunhuang Project to digitally archive the entire collection, making the ancient scripts available to scholars and linguists worldwide.

https://www.futurelibrary.no/
 
http://www.archiviosegretovaticano.va/content/archiviosegretovaticano/en/l_archivio.html
 
http://idp.bl.uk/pages/collections_en.a4d