Library Of Babel

<h2>The Library of Babel</h2> This is a game about libraries and reading. When I first started making adventure games with <a target="_blank" href="http://twinery.org/">Twine</a> I realised they were not quite the adventures of my youth described in <a target="_blank" href="http://www.getlamp.com/">the marvelous Get Lamp documentary</a> but a bit like the **choose-your-own-adventures** I read as a kid and in many ways these evoked the very early days of the internet, essentially a kind of //hyper-text//. Reading about the history of //hyper-text// led me to the //'Garden Of Forking Paths'// by <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borges">Jorge Luis Borgés</a> often regarded as some kind of pre-cursor of hypertext. It turns out it's not exactly: but it does echo **text adventures**, many constructs in gaming culture and even the <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many-worlds_interpretation">many worlds interpretation</a> with the protagonist becoming aware of all the infinite possible twists and wrong turns and possiblities in his story and that following a certain path will give him the outcome he both desires and fears. It's a very odd form of speculative philosophical fiction with elements of the story folding in on itself. This path led me to his story about the Library of Babel a fantastical universe of a library that contains **every** possible book //ever//; not only all the books ever written, but all the books that could possibly be written, every combination of every character in the alphabet including the unimaginable billions that make no sense. As a librarian and an influential writer who lived for books yet wrote surprisingly little, this makes sense but the complex philosophical imagination going on was way ahead of it's time. It truly represents Borges' love for libraries and the mulititudes of possibilities they contain. Both stories foresee strange futures for both libraries and the nature of reading and storytelling: **the internet:** billions of billions of interconnected stories and repositories of writing and information to get lost in; a //universal// library. This game and the games we will make for our <a target="_blank" href="https://github.com/cheapjack/ForkingLibraries">workshop</a> is about making reading and libraries not //easier// but **stranger**. Then as I searched online with <a target="_blank" href="https://duckduckgo.com/">Duck Duck Go</a> to find the text of Borgés' Library [[I discovered some people had actually built it.|madeit]]

(if: $firstcheckin is not 1)[ (set: $books to (a:)) (set: $books to $books + (a: (prompt: "Your book, please:"))) Great now this library has something readable called (print: $books) ](else-if: $firstcheckin is 1)[ (set: $books to $books + (a: (prompt: "Your book, please:"))) You've done this before! You can see these books on the shelves, (print: $books.join(", ")) ] (set: $firstcheckin to 1)  [[back|Library]]

And because this is Twine and thanks to the ''hyper-text'' **markup language** we can drop in the interface for searching for a string of text in such a library. Mind-boggingly, that's over 10<sup>105076</sup> books and when your string has been //found// the location of it can only be represented as a //base-36// number. Luckily you can bookmark the stuff you find. For example I found the first 3200 characters of the story itself in <a target="_blank" href="https://libraryofbabel.info/bookmark.cgi?mylibraryofbabel">Volume 28</a> on Shelf 2 of Wall 4 of [[this Hexagon|myhexagon]] Enjoy! [[back|Library]] <object data="https://libraryofbabel.info/search.html" width="800" height="400"> Error: Embedded data could not be displayed. </object>

//"The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries, with vast air shafts between, surrounded by very low railings. From any of the hexagons one can see, interminably, the upper and lower floors. The distribution of the galleries is invariable. The arrangement of the galleries is always the same: Twenty bookshelves, five to each side, line four of the hexagon's six sides; the height of the bookshelves, floor to ceiling, is hardly greater than the height of a normal librarian. One of the hexagon's free sides opens onto a narrow sort of vestibule, which in turn opens onto another gallery, identical to the first-identical in fact to all."// <a target="_blank" href="https://libraryofbabel.info/">The Library of Babel</a> is an online representation of the implications of Borges' story. What if a Library like the one Borges' describes //could// exist? Thanks to the internet, probably the closest thing mankind //has// to a universal library, someone has **actually built it literally**, //as a service//. Through a combination of math and design, programmer <a target="_blank" href="https://twitter.com/JonotrainEB">Jonathan Basile</a> has managed to let you search for any text string inside a virtual Library Of Babel using some pseudo-random numbers, modular arithmetic and bit-shifting operations. If you want something close to an explanation go <a target="_blank" href="https://libraryofbabel.info/theory4.html">here</a>. [[Playing in Libraries|Playing]]

The internet already is a library of sorts but it's not always indexed very well unlike *actual* libraries. In his background to the site a tribute to how reading a story by a long dead writer can take you on a strange journey of learning, the author says something I think we could muse on" //"The Library of Babel is a place for scholars to do research, for artists and writers to seek inspiration, for anyone with curiosity or a sense of humor to reflect on the weirdness of existence - in short, it’s just like any other library."// I think libraries could use tools like Twine to make spaces that extend the possibilities for reading not just for finding something to read; **Digital tools** and the internet will not replace a library and that's something we all at <a target=_blank href="http://goscl.com/cracking-the-code-november/">Cracking the Code</a> understand but maybe people who are making them close, won't want to hear. Imagine if you thought of all the paths to the things you know were a story? How would you tell it? Yes you could list the books you have read, but how about <a target=_blank href="https://github.com/brett-lempereur/icra">all the bits of the internet you used</a>; how would that make sense? I think Twine helps you link up your own writing with bits of the internet and a super engaging game format that is actually one of the oldest game genres. When you've built it, Twine spits out an <code>.html</code> file you can publish anywhere. And if you've seen some of DomesticScience's recent work that could be anywhere not just on the internet but on smaller pop-up networks on a tiny tablet or phone or triggered by a tiny beacon inside a book. Lets play a quick game which uses the Library Of Babel service/website and another amazing game <a target="_blank" href="http://100r.co/projects/babelium/index.html">Babelium</a> by <a target="_blank" href="http://wiki.xxiivv.com">xxiivv</a> with Twine to build your own interactive [[library simulator|Library]] I wrote about <a target="_blank" href="http://cheapjack.github.io/2015/09/01/loads-of-midnight">my history with text adventures</a> and my friend <a target="_blank" href="http://www.textadventuretime.co.uk/2015/10/13/get-lamp/">Dave Mee wrote about the games here</a>.

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You are in the <a style="background-color: rgb(10, 255, 74); padding: 0.5%; color: rgb(255,255,255);">Library of Babel</a> By this art you may contemplate the variation of the 23 letters. The Anatomy of Melancholy, part 2, sect. II, mem. IV You are in a Hexagonal room, surrounded by four walls of books. In the middle of the room is a staircase and next to it is a desk with a touchscreen terminal. You could [[descend the staircase|babelium]]. The terminal screen says: (background: black)[(colour: green)[ Welcome, reader. From here you can [[Add a book to the library|checkin]] or [[Search across the Library|search]] for a word or passage. Perhaps one day you will find it. [[Find the books you submitted|mybooks]] ]]

(if: $firstcheckin is not 1)[ You have not submitted anything ](else-if: $firstcheckin is 1)[ You can see these books on the shelves: (print: $books.join(", ")) ] [[back|Library]]

Use the cursor keys to play the game. **g** is a guide, the rest is text and everything ever written. [[back|Library]] <object data="http://100r.co/projects/babelium/index.html" width="800" height="800"> Error: Embedded data could not be displayed. </object>