5.4.1 The universe (which others call Library) is composed of an indefinite, perhaps infinite, number of hexagonal galleries, with enormous ventilation shafts in the middle, encircled by low railings. From any hexagon the upper and lower stories are visible, interminably. The distribution of galleries is invariable. (Borges, 1962, pg. 79)

5.4.2 Borges's Library of Babel is often summoned when describing the endlessly evolving World Wide Web and our state of information overload. The underlying history of "information overload" arrives with the introduction of the printing press and the resultant need and first efforts during the Renaissance to organise knowledge and collections. Organisation of the sudden proliferation and distribution of books into library systems happened in tandem with categorisation systems of collections being established by museums. Excellent examples in this respect are the curiosity inscriptions of Samuel Quiccheberg, considered the first museological treatise, and Guillio Camillo's Memory Theatre of the 1530's. Quiccheberg's treatise offered a plan for organising all possible natural objects and artefacts, which he accomplished by creating five classes and dividing each into ten or eleven inscriptions. This treatise allows for explorations today of the institutional origins of the museum. Camillo, on the other hand, created a theatre that could house all knowledge, meant to give the privileged who accessed this space actual power over all of creation. The structure took the form of an amphitheatre and was composed of a viewer on stage facing seven tiers of seven rows-not of seats but drawers and cabinets containing text and objects. [3]

5.4.3 Current cataloguing systems generally fall into two types: those treating the item as a physical object and giving it a number or code encapsulating data about its acquisition and storage, and those that communicate the intellectual content of a work and locate it within a system of such classifications. This former type of cataloguing, which begins with Diderot and D'Alembert's Encyclopedie (1751-1772), codifies and systematically delineates the relationships of all branches of knowledge. The latter goes back at least as far as the Library of Alexandria (circa 100 BC), which was organised by the writer's discipline (e.g., history or philosophy) and subdivided by literary genres.

5.4.4 Libraries and museums have continuously intersected and impacted one another throughout their respective histories. For instance, the initial organisational system of museum collections was recorded by a librarian, Quiccheberg. Museums are essentially "object oriented" keepers of visual memory much in the way that libraries are keepers of textual memory. However, the architectures of museums determine the size and even type of collections they will accommodate, which necessarily limits their inclusiveness; rarely, for example, do museums accommodate art that involves ephemeral media. Libraries, on the other hand, accommodate the documentation of all printed matter produced by museums as well as have a close relationship to the inclusive research paradigm of academia. [4]

5.4.5 Digital technology is fast eroding established categories by making it possible to store all of the objects traditionally separated by media or form as bits, a continuous stream of data. As such, this technology endangers the institutions that have been established to store specific types of data and indeed the way knowledge is passed on at universities. It is becoming more and more difficult for academics to work effectively within the established departmental and specialised categories and structures of print libraries. The World Wide Web challenges the primacy of word over image by collapsing them, and further, it functions to erode the boundaries between museums and libraries, which is true of its impact on many other institutional frames as well.

5.4.6 Many of our current practices of cataloguing and archiving knowledge in museums and libraries are rooted in a continuous push toward specialisation and the division of the arts and humanities from the sciences. The introduction of computers, computer networks, and the consequent World Wide Web, however, has created a whole new paradigm. The organisational systems established by libraries and museums are not adequate for the vast amount of digital data in contemporary culture; consequently, new ways of thinking about information access and retrieval must be considered. [top]