The Soul of a Library
Clear and sweet and savory emotion did not run in a rippling stream in my personal world- more pity to it! But in stories and poems I found passion unfettered, and healthy.
Support me: / jacobgeller
Follow me: / yacobg42
Additional Voices-
Simone de Rochefort: / doomquasar
Zac Frazier: / zc_frzr
99% Invisible- Weeding is Fundamental: 99percentinvisible.org/episod...
Library of Congress Info: www.loc.gov/about/general-inf...
The Macabre of Bookbinding: Anthropodermic Bibliopegy: bookbindersmuseum.org/the-mac...
The Torching of the Digital Library of Alexandria: www.theatlantic.com/technolog...
The Library of Babel 3D by Keiwan- keiwan.itch.io/library-of-bab...
The Library: An Illustrated History- Stuart Murray (2009)
The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts- Joshua Hammer (2017)
The Library of Babel- Jorge Luis Borges (1941)
The Library: A Catalogue of Wonders- Stuart Kells (2017)
Video credits:
IBJA- Abdel Kader Haidara: • Abdel Kader Haidara
CAD5150- Big Hat Logan: • Big Hat Logan Questlin...
FightinCowboy- Dark Souls Walkthrough: • Dark Souls Remastered ...
Werner de Klerk- Bamako Niger River: • Bamako Niger River
The ancient manuscripts at the "Ahmed Baba Institute:" • Timbuctu - The ancient...
Lost Libraries of Timbuktu- BBC: • Lost Libraries Of Timb...
All geographical footage from Google Earth
Thumbnail Credit: HotCyder- / hotcyder
Additional Footage: Jesse Guarascia
Footage Used: Bloodborne, Dark Souls, Library of Babel 3D, Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Assassin's Creed: Origins
Music Used: Bayonetta (The Angels Descend, God’s Hymns,), Bioshock (Cohen’s Masterpiece), Bloodborne (Micolash, Nightmare Host), Chrono Cross (Another Voyage), Dark Souls (Daughters of Chaos), Disco Elysium (Evrart), Firewatch (Camp Approach), Gris (Karasu, In Your Hands), Nier Automata (Pascal (Instrumental), Voice of No Return), Octopath Traveler (On a Knife’s Edge), To the Moon (For River- Johnny’s Version)
Description Credit: Mary Oliver- Staying Alive
I'll be releasing a full-length video "Director's Commentary" on my patreon for this vid, including lots of ideas that didn't make it in the final cut AND many ramblings on Animorphs. www.patreon.com/JacobGeller
You should definitely check out Adam neelys New video, it relates to this one very much
I do have a copy of Megamorphs 2 but you can't have it
I want to watch this video so much. Please understand how inaccessible you are making your videos when you put music in the background. For example, I cannot process speech over music and subtitles don't help because the problem is the music intruding on my..... auditory processing channel, so to speak, and subs just add another layer of processing requirements. I'm not the only one affected. A lot of people like me are being shut out of leftist KZhead by this problem. Maybe it would help if the music is quieter. But please, please consider just not using it.
@@PanEtRosa Hi there! Music is super important to my creative process, so I'm probably not going to stop using it in the videos-proper, but I'd love to give you a copy of the script if that'd be an okay alternative.
I don't know if you came across this project in your research but there exists a website created that attempts at the infinity of the Library of Babel. It contains 10^4677 books. libraryofbabel.info/ Thank you for your always fantastic content.
Another point I’d like to make: you can go to a public library with no intention of checking out a book, you can go without a library card, you can just go there and read as much as you want, and it’s free. You can use that service or just use the space without any guilt or judgement and without paying a penny. I can’t think of another public space in the modern day where it’s acceptable to simply exist without spending money.
For curiosity, are you American?
Church?
@@sidlukkassen9687 Definitely not. All churches implicitly expect to convert you if you're spending time there.
@@BinaryShad0 Maybe, but if you peer into the soul of European Christianity, then one will reverberate with the sign of the times; that is that secretly, Christianity has given up, and acknowledges its existence as a historical, art-culural or even touristic phenomenon, entirely different and alien from the vibrant lively consciousness of Islam. When you sit on a church bench during those quiet moments - when the sun sets and tranquility fills the space and the soul - there you can hear the very fundaments of the building whisper, that its pretence to conversion has become comical.
Many double as art museums
One of the most interesting things to me about libraries is just how inspiring the aesthetic of them is. In college, I would go to the library to study, write, and read, but I don't think I ever once actually checked out a book from my college library. I just liked sitting at the desks in the dimly lit room, surrounded by more books than I could feasibly count. It felt cozy and infinite. The kind of place that you'd want to stay for hundreds of years because of the promise of knowledge. In regards to the Library of Babel, that place would drive me insane because there would be millions of versions of my scripts that are written better than the ones I made. A true nightmare.
Think of it this way: there would also be millions of versions of those scripts that are worse written, full of typos, and/or left unfinished. There's also the argument to be made that finding and recognizing the better versions in the Library of Babel is nearly equivalent to actually writing them yourself.
A way to plagiarize without teachers catches on
Hey Razz! 👋
There's actually a word for the wistfulness and coziness of a used book store: vellichor. It's one of those beautiful words that you'd scarcely find yourself using, but captures a little bit of the sensory detail that can be attributed to an emotion. It's like petrichor or Incandescence, all of which I like to attribute to the still memories of hazy summer nights, or quiet rainy days of just pure blissful boredom. It's ineffable. Btw, big fan, Razz.
the stacks are the best place to study in any academic library or archive
I love how every single video essay ever made by anyone ever eventually morphs into a dark souls video
The Library of Babel is the Dark Souls of archives :D
Everything is Souls
vaati is the sam hyde of youtube
Don't you mean Animorphs into a dark souls video?
Hahahahahahahahaha exactly
A recent version of a burning up the scale of Alexandria - but as a total burnout -, while not a library, is the burning of Brazil's National Museum. Which housed 200 years worth of Brazil's history. It burned because there was no more budget for the maintenance of the hydrants, so it was a victim of Brazil's long term austerity politics. While the whole thing is disastrous for everybody, the museum also housed many objects which were once stolen from Brazil's indigenious peoples, including cultures which are no longer around. There were also audio recordings of indigenious languages which are no longer in use, as writings and physical remains. Basically: we lost 200 years of cultural memory of a country that is only ~500 years old, and the proof of existence, culture and languages of peoples that have been made extinct through colonialism.
That's insane
don't worry, we have it all saved in libraryofbabel.info/, all you need to do is find it
@@ChrisJones-rd4wb that is insane, not only is this conversation in the book of Babel but every possible variation of this conversation which means it is useless.
WHAAAAAAAAAAAT?!?!!?! THAT'S AWFUL OH MY GOSH!!!!! I feel horrified!!!!
I knew about the artifacts but not about the linguistic evidence and recordings! So now I'm mourning all over again
The absolute density of this man's beard is truly distracting
Hahaha! It's true. Good job the content of his videos is so good.
It's so unnaturally _rich_
D E N S E
Like fresh mown grass.
It really is. I'm not sure I've seen a single beard like this my entire life. It's really incredible.
when my anxiety first got really bad, the thing that blew me away about libraries the most was that... they don't have any loitering rules. it's the only public place where you are allowed to exist without serving a purpose, spending money, being a customer, etc. for someone who was convinced that they could not serve a purpose, that's the most comforting concept in the world.
Some people like to say that everyone has a purpose. But I say that whether we do or do not have a purpose it does not matter, we all deserve life and joy all the same. I wish you much happiness enjoy my friend.
loitering rules are such a weird concept to me, i live in eastern Europe and i never in my life encounter such puzzling concept i think the only time in my life i came across is when i visited a fancy shop and i was looking at stuff and the shopkeeper give me the most ugly look i seen in my life
@@antonioalbul00 yeah, loitering laws just seem inherently anti-homeless, and anti-communal
This is utterly pathetic. You think someone that thinks they don't have a purpose will be comforted by the fact that somewhere doesn't have loitering rules? I am just baffled you even made this comment, because it reaches a level of such stupidity as to be utterly baffling
@@JOSH-uk5fdEven worse actually. I'm pretty sure they stem from the post civil war era. Created as an arbitrary way to imprison the newly freed slaves.
One of my favorite quotes: "When my father died, it was as if an entire library burned down." - Laurie Anderson, live in concert, circa 1990 This quote has changed the way I think about death.
That was how I felt when my grandfather died. He was a chemist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory for many years, and did a lot regarding the Mass Spectrometry machines that were there for some time. He wrote down some of his experiences in a binder, but there are some questions I'll never get to ask, some stories I will never get to hear.
That’s why I love asking people questions about their life and experiences, especially if they’re old. So many events and experiences and thoughts that simply disappear. It’s terrifying
Librarian here- Thank you, so, so much. This needs to be said, shouted, screamed from the heavens, and with your audience, I pray someone will hear it.
@LollyBliz OwO Those of us who love books hold a special place in our hearts for skilled librarians. So much so that our hearts sink when we walk in and see that they're not there. Perhaps it's better to turn around and come back when they've returned...
I heard, and I appreciate your choice of profession. Being a librarian is truly an underappreciated and noble artform. Know there is at least one more person in the world who sees you and your work with the deep and beautiful value it deserve.
I was lucky enough to live within a mile of a Copyright Library for a few years - a facility which seeks to have a copy of every book published in that country. It wasn't a normal library - you could get a tour, but to read a book, you had to request it and then wait around for about 45 mins for it to be retrieved from the vast stacks. Then you have to read the book there - you can't take it away. Obviously, this was massively useful for certain things - research, old maps, art, you name it. Once however, I really did get them to retrieve a trashy sci-fi novel that I wanted to read but couldn't find elsewhere. The professional archivist who handed it to me laughed with joy that someone was using the Library for such things.
that's super cool
I'm at a uni with a copyright library at the minute, and it's a constant wonder and joy
+PavarottiAardvark I am very intrigued by this concept. I have never heard of these before. I did a quick Google search and came up with nothing. Are they called something else besides "Copyright Library"? Also, on a side note, you a Pavarotti fan?
Níłch’i naalkidí ᛏᛖᛚᛖᚹᛁᛋᛁᛟᚾ दूरदर्शन التلفاز possibly an archive. If it’s not, an archive is still going to be a dope place to find the old books that are MUSTY. which I just love. I’ve got a 1970s Texas almanac, my hometown is barely a footnote, but it’s also got information I didn’t know
+Let's see how it goes That's a start I guess. I am looking for specific antique / vintage books, which is why this peaked my curiosity. Old books are a joy of mine as well friend. An almanac sounds interesting; I admit I have never read one. :( I have an old edition of "The World We Live In" by LIFE magazine, circa 1955. The information in it is not new by any means, although some of it is probably forgotten, or not widely known, however that being said I would be hard pressed to find that exact information in any modern day school textbook. But what do I know, eh? :)
I can confirm our library system does indeed have Animorphs In the Time of Dinosaurs Part 2
HELL YEAH
we do too. we have 1. out of 100 something libraries we have 1 but by golly do we have it
Are you xcodeh brother
@@xjack9955x Lol I just looked him up and I can see the similarity
"The attack was predictable, at least to one man named Abdel Kader Haidara; pictured here wearing a Legend of Zelda scarf like the absolute boss that he is."
In the 70's-90's my grandma was an author. All her books are out of print now, but she has well over 30 different novels. You can't find them in libraries or in bookstores; only on ebay listings which are few and far between. She gifted me copies of most of them, which I wish I had been more careful with over the years since many I'll be unlikely to find again. It's crazy to me that this story isn't even that uncommon. So many books, out of print, never popular enough to be reinstated. Sometimes I read goodreads reviews of the books for fun, just happy to think that some stranger out there decades ago bought something my grandma wrote for 20 cents as a paperback at a thrift store and had that become a huge part of their life. And I'll never meet them and they'll probably never know I exist.
What are the books called?😊
@@heulwenrhosyn9625 my favorite and probably the most popular of her books was called step on a crack, ive at least found listings for that one online. She also had a couple different books about the lives of animals living in Manhattan. (She’s a New York native so all of her books are set there)
That was beautiful. This is something I struggle with all the time, in different forms. Thanks for sharing.
18:10 my man rocking the zelda scarf
holy shit how did I not notice that
I wonder if he got it because hes a zelda fan, or he just thought it looked cool. Either way is awesome.
@@hexeddecimals I can't help but wonder if there is a nonzelda reason he is wearing it. Like, maybe the triforce and bird are a thing outside of zelda or something. I mean it is totally legend of zelda symbols but it just seems so weird to me that he would choose to wear the zelda scarf to an interview about his dangerous book rescue mission (that is way more dismissive sounding than I meant for it to sound).
rocking for sure
LMAO HOW DID I NOT NOTICE THAT
"Bloodborne 2" Wait, what. "Bloodborne too..." Oh...
I immediately stopped the video to Google bc I was like when did that come out?!? And yeah...me too buddy lol
Am I crying over the efforts of people trying to save very old books? Yes, most certainly. Being a classicist, saving very old text is quite touching. Literally any old text.
I am a library employee and I approve this message. ^-^ The only reason I didn't get laid off was because I learned how to repair and preserve old books at my job. This allowed me to take them home to work on when the shelter in place orders started. If I had lost my job, I wouldn't be able to afford my medications. In other words, a library saved my life.
That's why I am so fascinated by archives. They are absurd structures in many ways. They are bound to grow indefinitely to conserve every single trace of our pasts. Most of those documents will never see the light of the day again (because it would be armful for them.). And most of those are MUSTY by definition. It's the closest we have to a Library of Babel in real life.
I knew I knew that voice. Simone over here in the infinite library searching endlessly for the auto-generated future works of Hemingway
Suspecting I heard her voice, checking, and confirming it was her was a total "What? Hell yeah! What!?" moment
You forgot the best fictional library, and perhaps the one with one of the best messages: Wan Shi Tong's library from Avatar the Last Airbender
I thought that one would get a mention too because of the hoarded knowledge and a crazy person (spirit) guarding it. I guess not. Still not a disappointing video though.
I WAS THINKING THAT
Yes!!! AVATAR FOR LIFE!
I can't believe he didn't at least mention this, Wan Shi Tong is my favorite one off character from atla
I came to comment the same thing but wanted to check if it had been said already 😅
I'm so glad you talked about Google scanning all of those books, more people need to know about this. Yes, what Google did was illegal, and they also scanned recent books without the author or publishers permission, but I don't think what Google were doing was completely corrupt. Scanning all the books in every library in the world, and putting all that knowledge onto the internet where everyone can access it, allowing the knowledge to live on forever... even if all we got were old and out of print releases, I'd have loved to see this be a reality, allowing old works to live on with easy access to what those pages hold. Perhaps some things are worth breaking the law for.
Copyright law is obscene in the U.S. There should be some kind of provision for public sharing of any book written more than 20 years earlier. The author can still retain the rights to printing more physical copies or selling film rights, but it should be viewable in the public domain.
Knowledge needs to be preserved, by any means necessary, even. And that's a rarity.
@@carterf3585 Companies found that it's bad for business if one does not need to pay to read it
I think we need to abolish capitalism and the need to work to live for this to be a viable option. I think we can do that, I think enough people *want* to work without any benefits to themselves for doing so that we could have a system without any coercion to work. I think that if losing your job was not a threat to your comfort or happiness, then we could automate, either fully or to an extent where labor required is reduced, without any negative side-effects. And once we get there, copyright becomes obsolete, no author would object to having their work preserved, publicly available for free, cause it wouldn't harm them financially. Unlimited free art for everyone forever.
My Boy!!!!!!! The best narrator in the game!!!!!! The KING of video essays
^
It is a great tragedy that to this day, no scented candle has been able to accurately mimic the smell of a full library. Perhaps our sense of smell is more complex than to be easily fooled by any attempts to recreate the profound feeling of comfort that one experiences when surrounded on all sides by the wisdom of people we will never meet. Even more perplexing is that this smell, that I find such comfort in, is the smell of decay. Unstoppable, looming, death. It's as if the library is reminding us that nothing is truly infinite while comforting us, whispering 'The end is ok.' Anyway, dope video, you're a true champion of video essays. Also, I think the It's Always Sunny Title sequence will be studied by philosophers and comedy scholars for how well it delivers a joke while having no components that are inherently funny on their own.
It just smells of ink and air conditioning to me.
I don’t know if you’ll ever see this comment (fitting for this video) but this was one of the most striking things I’ve ever read, especially in a KZhead comment section. Thank you.
@@hunterbassler8644 well luckily my KZhead notifications are no Library of Alexandria so you are definitely seen and thank you for the kind reply. If you like my pontificating here in the comment section then you might like my Video essays (shameless plug on someone else’s channel, I’m so sorry Jacob).
No! I will use plastic books! Then carbon nanotubes! Then neutron decay resistant particles. The exotic particles!Then suspended exotic particles! I will store them in my non decaying entropy proof you don’t have a sense of scale sized holographic simulation computer containing infinite two dimensional three d+1+2 universes, and they’ll be called brains and so knowledge and sentient will endure forever and so will live as a living, finite and yet uniformity construct of a past that existed a scaleless time ago.
This is so beautifully written. I can only imagine you as some kind of eternal being who misses the good old days of ancient libraries
I live in a small town in Tennessee and our poor little library isn’t much bigger than the Subway inside of my closest Walmart, but that building is so stoic. It’s been there almost as long as the town has been founded and I remember going past and wondering about all that was inside since I was just a wee lad. I’m much more familiar with the library at my college, where I serve as a library ambassador, and have spent many long hours staring at lines and lines of code for whatever project/s I’ve been working on inside of that huge place. I sometimes wonder if those around me grasp where they are, and the architectural design of the place. High ceilings, wide open space, a large collection of books and an absolutely enormous digital database, and most of all the stillness of it. You can hear someone drop their pencil or phone from the other side of a building that is wider than my house is long. It’s utterly breathtaking. It was my birthday two days ago and you uploading is a real treat. Your videos make me think and more often than not bring me to tears, so thank you truly for all the hard work that goes into each and every one of them. Also sir you have an exceptional beard.
Ach, I love this so much, thank you.
You Dixie fucks cant read, thats why
@@SuperRat420 At least we can comprehend a greeting from someone we don’t know without our brains exploding.
@@SuperRat420 kinda poor choice to insult a group with a method you know they can't understand
An amazing essay!! Also Megamorphs 2 isn't the best Megamorphs, you gotta go with 3, where they debate about whether or not they should kill alternate timeline Hitler
They did what
@@benjaminshields9421 They debated about whether or not they should kill the alternate timeline Hitler that they met, please keep up, Benjamin
@@snorlax42 this is the best thing ive ever read my whole life lead up to me reading this
Megamorphs 3 is much better than 2 but I question your choice of putting their debate over killing Hitler (and then doing it by accident) over the Megamorphs 2 decision of two protagonists going behind everyone else's back to commit genocide on a planetary scale.
I forget which of the books it's in, but I always loved the thing about dogs being engineered by aliens to be our friends. It was very sweet.
This was an excellent video! I was hooked basically from the idea of the Library of Babel right at the start and it just never stopped being fasinating after that. The Library of Babel almost seems to take the concepts of Law and Chaos and just tie them together into a colossal knot, a infinitely ordered honeycomb of absolute literary disorder. A disorder so extreme and all-encompassing that it starts to imitate order and structure again. And then there's the rest of the video too! I loved the Duke's Archives section, gave me new reason to appreciate the zone, and it's equivilent in Dark Souls 3 too. I'm almost surprised you didn't go more into the architecture of libraries in the video, but I can see how that might have been a tangent too far in a clearly very focused work. In short, I really liked it, and am glad you were willing to do something outside of your 'normal' areas of essay-ing for this cos it absolutely paid off for me. :D
How is this comment 15.5 hours older than the video?
@@Geo07ism ~Patreon Magic~
@@subprogram32 Ah I see, thank you
You think that's fascinating? Here's an even more mind-bending fact for you to consider. The Library of Babel, in it's original state, contains literally zero information. _Literally._ And it's only by selectively _culling_ books that information is _added._
The architecture of libraries isn't really that much to talk about, anyway; particularly since many will simply be installed in re-purposed buildings.
While watching your essays I never fail to rediscover a lost feeling of awe for some aspect of existence, and I am so damn thankful for these moments!
You're so right! It also inspires in me a feeling of awe for the videos themselves. Jacob is truly one of the best on KZhead.
@@Enzaio So true
There's something almost surreal about standing amongst the stacks of a library or used book store. For me the intensity of the feeling is directly proportional to the age of the books and chaotic energy of the space. Every cover, every spine wishes to be gently held, to be seen once more by curious and caring eyes. I . . . I bought three books at the second hand book store when I simply intended to poke my head in.
While I was writing my Ph. D. thesis on a book from 1520 someone found another copy. It's so weird to think some treasures in libraries are just lying there but no one has noticed. (It's even stranger considering the book is kinda huge and heavy.)
The true best feeling of grant research is digging for a source in the library network and ordering in a book and then cracking OPEN that book to see that you're the first person to check it out in 15, 20, 25 years
This started and I went "Oh, this is gonna be about Borges.." and IMMEDIATELY after you went "Jorge Luis Borges was a....". The comic timing was wonderful.
Im gonna "Book" A flight to my Local Library now
noplesnono why would you have to fly to the library
@@dougoyama yeah, he said it was local, wtf, it must not be local then
Sounds like someone's cooking the books... ha
@@senseweaver01 what a novel idea
What is your profile picture of? It looks really familiar but can't put my finger on it
22:43 My heart just skipped a beat when you said Morris public library. I live right down the alley way from it! I so vividly remember exploring the old movies that they had there and running home to get my parents permission to get one! We often picked out the Shrek DVDs they had in the late 2000s. It’s kind of amazing to have someone big like you recognize our little library.
!! I'm so glad it's reaching y'all, that library did a ton for my childhood.
This is probably gonna get lost in the sea of comments but I don't really care, I feel like I just need to send this one out anyway. I just found your channel today and I've been spending my afternoon watching your videos. I just wanted to say thank you for making these; the way you tell these beautiful stories really hits me. Your essays are a great reminder of why stories like these are important in the first place, why just the mere search for answers and knowledge gives people purpose and fulfillment. I am - admittedly - an emotional person (and yes the sentimental orchestral swipes you choose as a backdrop for these videos certainly don't help thank you very much) but almost all the videos I've watched so far have managed to get my eyes teary. Learning about people being truly passionate about anything is my greatest weakness. So yeah. Thank you for your beautiful work. I'm gonna go get some tissues now.
That NieR:Automata soundtrack giving me more feels on top of this already feels video
For me it was for river
my brain jump started at the sound of it
Abdul Kader Haidara just straight up wearing a Zelda scarf lmao
yo okay I thought I was crazy
Yeah I was trying to figure that out too...
lmao a true hero
He is worth being called one of the Six Sages.
He has the Triforce of Wisdom
No way have other people looked for Animorphs books in the library of Congress You are my hero and my spirit animal sir
When I was young, probably about 6 or 7 my town closed down the library that had been there for decades, a small run down building that was the size of your average classroom. A new library was being made, and my fathers construction company was contracted to build it. I was much too young to fully remember every detail of the building of this library but I know there were days my dad would bring me and my siblings to the site. Construction was what he did, his entire career, and here was a chance to show his kids what he did, what he helped make. In the blueprints for this library was a skylight, the tallest point in the building. About three stories up, even though there’s only one floor to the building. On one of the last days of construction my dad brought each of us up to instal lights. My brother, my sister, then me. I still remember the awe I felt, being that high up, knowing that I was a part of the construction of this building, that I was one of the few people who could point up at the skylight and say, I’ve been there, I know what went into this. I’ve lived in this town my whole life, next year I’ll be 18, I’ll probably move away. But I find myself thinking about everything I’ll miss. It’s that library, the one I got all my books from, the one where every Friday they showed a movie, the library that was warm and safe and open every Halloween for trick or treaters to grab some hot coco before heading home with our haul. A library truly is so much to so many people, thank you for this video.
I did study to become a librarian/archivist (it did not worked out in the end but that is not the point here.) It really helped me to understand how great, how important those places are. So I just want to thank you for this video.
i've been thinking about books and libraries and the sort of constant voracious reading i used to do as a kid a lot lately, so this video coming out now is a fun coincidence. when you said you were doing a video closer to the vibes of museum theft than some of your others, i was like "oh hell YES." and you did NOT disappoint!! love being reminded of things it's easy to take for granted these days - art, books, knowledge in a tangible sense - and learning things i probably never would have known about otherwise - the story of the librarians of timbuktu especially. not saying i'm a little emotional but. well. in any case, i do think i need to drop by the local library one of these days. another great video, man. keep being cool. (also, spent a large part of the video puzzling over why that additional voiceover sounded so familiar, then physically startled out of my seat and yelled OH, SIMONE!!! upon seeing her name at the end LMAO. so cool to see you two working together in any capacity!)
Thank you so much ❤️
I heard 'Bloodborne 2' when he said the line at about 9:25, and I immediately got my hopes up that a sequel had been announced and I'd somehow missed it.
I can't believe you made me feel nostalgic for all-nighters in my college library I love that place
When 'For River' started playing, I almost cried. This has been a fascinating video TwT
Sam Kim timestamp?
@@pockettes3918 22:45 , when he starts talking about his minnesotan library experience!
To the moon and Firewatch have two of the best soundtracks of all time or at least in terms of indie
same
"I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life." Thank you yet again, Jacob; what a wonderful video.
one time whilst browsing I came across the phrase "I am the library I am alive" as you can imagine it gave me chills
idk what this says about me or what kind of day i'm having, but when you told the story of Abdel Kader Haidara and the other volunteers saving the manuscripts of the Timbuktu library, i started crying. the sheer bravery and tenacity of those people willing to risk everything to preserve history and knowledge, it makes me so emotional. i love reading, i love learning, and i love libraries. the people who care for and maintain them are true heroes.
You posted this just as I was about to go to sleep. Since I value my sleep time I can’t watch this right now but I guarantee that this will be the the very first thing I watch tomorrow morning.
wow that is a rare thing for someone to say in the comments. Good on you for getting sleep.
did you end up watching it?
Patrick Corby yup. It was great.
The smell of libraries and used book stores brings me right back to the first library I visited regularly as a young child.
Those people guarding those books was An incredible story I felt myself getting teared up for it
"What's really chilling about this discovery is..." [Music stops] Well, everything. It's a book covered in skin, "but [music resumes] what really gets me about it
I just keep thinking about the woman whose name we'll never know whose skin is preserved as a book cover. She's part of a novel now and we have no idea who she is or what kind of life she lived or how she ended up in that position. It's gonna haunt me for a while.
@@slithra227 See, the particularly sad detail is, the reason why Doctor Ludovic Bouland-the surgeon friend of Arsène Houssaye (the author) who rebound the volume and wrote that rather strange and unsettling note which Jacob quotes-used that woman's skin specifically was that, after she passed away of a stroke in the psychiatric ward of the hospital Bouland worked in, they could find no next of kin, and no-one to claim the body. To his logic, so far as I can glean, it was more respectful than seeing her dumped in a potter's field with nobody to grieve her passing. Everything about this entire scenario is haunting and haunted.
Weird... Last night I had a dream where I was recommending your channel to someone, and frustrated that I couldn't find the words to adequately pursuade them that you never, ever fail to blow my mind. And now you're doing it again.
"....a near infinite amount of nonsense." *Cohen's Masterpiece gets louder* Ahhhhh I see what you did, I just wanted to appreciate how fitting this piece as an intro was lol.
another breathtaking work of art from jacob geller. I always thought the idea that the destruction of the library at Alexandria being the reason we're "behind" in our knowledge was a strange one; the more you study history and historical cultures the more obvious it is that knowledge is not a linear process. things are too complex, what's culturally important changes and shifts over time and likewise so do the subjects people consider "worthy" of study. it is fascinating, though. I think the desire to archive and preserve knowledge is a very human one.
Another absolutely stellar video to add to the collection. Mr. Geller, you are an inspiration. Every single one of you]r videos send me into an upward spiral of thought and consideration that I never thought myself capable of. Please keep doing this
I don’t know why I got emotional when you described the way the books/manuscripts were sent down the river and every single one survived….didn’t expect that at all. It’s been a while since I even opened a book but deep down i must have this understanding and gratitude to the efforts all those people made to save those priceless pieces of paper and ink. Their efforts have overcome the test of time and the physical rewards are still here today as testament to them👏🏼👏🏼
Libraries and art galleries are the purest form of knowledge and creativity without abstraction.
OMG you are quoting 99% Invisible. I hate not being able to see my friends and family and I HATE HATE HATE virtual learning, but discovering amazing KZhead channels is the escapism that is keeping me from ending it all. I'm only slightly exaggerating. Dude, your channel is AMAZING. Keep it up!!!
I remember when I first tried to find books for my final music history essay in my college library. It's a CUNY and, as you could imagine, it's a tight complex. There aren't windows in the lower floors, where most of the work is done. But, there was something so...exciting and invigorating about trying to find those books. With only a name, an author, and floor to go by, it's one of those fulfilling DIYs that you aren't afraid to fail at, you know? It's the search that makes it thrilling: it's dimly lit, there aren't many people around, it's quiet, you have to turn cranks and spin wheels to move certain stacks of books aside. An easter egg hunt for knowledge, although I mostly enjoyed searching for it at the time and hardly cared about reading it for my essay. But it still sticks out to me, and I feel like I should do that again.
Thanks for this, man. I work in my campus library, and even though I don’t work with books or anything, this just speaks to me on a deep personal level. There’s nowhere else on campus that I’d rather be, ever.
I have always loved the concept of L-Space: a "hyper-library-space" that connects all libraries and book stores due to the spatial warping caused by large numbers of books. Knowledge=power, power=energy, energy=mass...thus all libraries are genteel black holes that know how to read. Think of it as Sir Terry Pratchett's fond parody and homage to Borges.
I'm getting ready to cry over that segment about Mali. The joy and thrill that comes with the knowledge that you're reading something from someone who has long left this existence and that remains in this world because it was worth preservation at one point...and that you too are not alone in your struggles as others have seen them pass them by is so uplifting and I'm just gonna go cry into my bookshelves now, thank you very much.
Yes! Borges! "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" is also trippy with its exploration of language, philosophy, and the line between fiction and reality.
Funnily enough, Jorge Luis Borges has another story called "The Aleph" that instead of borrowing from an infinite supply of books, concerns itself with a what if scenario of: What if there's a point in space from which everything in the universe was visible. The process of being born in a well of infinite knowledge and then trying to close the scope, gets repurposed into the process of being born with a small view and understanding of the world, which then expands to infinity. Needless to say, Lovecraft portrays that same sentiment with most of his characters who eventually go insane after learning of what lies beyond the veil of human understanding. Which then leads me to think that the way lore is approached in Dark souls and Bloodborne it's kind of like a mercy of the developers, who have obscured most of the strokes while giving us a tiny sliver of the story so we don't go crazy! Anyways, great video Jacob!
I adore libraries, being in one is one of the most calming and magical experiences I think there can ever be had, and the to think people went through so much to save these ancient books is so inspiring to me.
i work at a library, and there’s something so awe inspiring to walk around knowing you are in a room literally filled with knowledge, more knowledge than you could ever consume in a lifetime. its… incredible
Got here when this was posted 37 seconds ago and you guys had comments from 18 hours ago
They're Patreon members
The library is real....
Librarian here: Thanks for this ode! I had a couple notes, tho'. Weeding doesn't just mean "get rid of." It means re-evaluating the PURPOSE and PRESENTATION of the book. If a science book is wrong, it is removed from the shelf that says "The books on this shelf are accurate and vetted to the best of our ability." That book is not necessarily toosed away for nothingness. Some get moved into special collections. Some are donated to better collections. Some are replaced with updated editions. The vast majority are sold in the yearly library booksales. I, for one, work with dime novels, which are cheap 19th fiction with loads of racism and 1800s nonsense. But we preserve this and make them available. We just don't call them accurate medicine (in the case of the "make your own medicines" handbooks). Other books weeded are transformed into art projects, furniture, recycled for new works, or the reprint of old or heck, even the same texts. Every single book is meaningful. But books are temporal objects, even if the meanings and thoughts within them are theoretically eternal. When one works in rare books and special collections, you're faced with the idea that everything eventually crumbles. Our jobs are to delay that crumbling, but entropy will get them all. Every illuminated German manuscript. Every Javan glass painting. Every Coptic-bound codex. The atoms themselves have half-lives. But. We do what we can.
When we were kids, my dad used to take my brother and I to the library at least once a week and we would all pick out a stack of books- or sometimes audio books on disk to listen tonwhile driving for my dad- and movies, too. I'll be forever grateful to my dad for encouraging us to read and showing us kids the value of the public library. To this day, over 20 years later, I'm still an avid reader, and I know I have those library trips with my dad as a kid to thank for that. Side note- my first R-rated movie was also The Matrix! :)
videos that make me seriously consider again a masters in library science
i WEEP every time i hear for river!!! this was a fantastic essay!
20:05 GRIS soundtrack,a man of culture,not that the rest of this video doesn't already prove that...
I'm a new subscriber of yours and this really resonated with me so I'm going to share three things this made me think of (and thus placate the algorithm) that I think are relevant: 1. I'm a librarian!! Specifically, I'm a peripatetic librarian. This is a great job title but my enjoyment of it is somewhat marred by the knowledge of what it signifies. Because local councils have been steadily trimming the budgets of both libraries AND comprehensive schools (public schools, to Americans) this has forced many schools to stop having a dedicated school librarian. In order to counter this, peripatetic librarians are employed to go into schools for (usually) one day a week at most, and try to manage the library, read to the kids (a lot of the schools who take this measure are primary schools - Americans: that's ages 5-11), issue and return, etc. Now, of course, I also create my own safety plans; quarantine books and try to help teachers work out how to use me as resource while being safe AND working out how to teach their students. 2. My father briefly worked as a librarian; according to him, his head librarian used to sort out the books to be taken out of circulation by ripping the unwanted volumes in half by hand. Another librarian used to sneakily stamp extra dates into the card at the front because he couldn't stand the sight. 3. Having studied Classics, I am less interested in any arguments based in what progress might be made with the library of Alexandria intact as the amount of missing literature and historically relevant writing. My username refers to a poem by the poetess Praxilla; only a fragment of it survives and that, only because later commentators included it specifically to criticise it's apparent stylistic flaws.
I spent hours yesterday going through the upper floors of web du bois library (which is 26 floors tall and has some 6 million books) Those upper floors are all informational tomes on esoteric topics, and its not just a couple books on each, it has complete series on countless topics, with dozens or hundreds of editions each. I found a section with over 500 books on dairy farming. I found individual spiral bound printed theses slipped between massive tomes, I found magnificently bound and embellished books about bugs. It was frickin great. Almost all of these books are "musty" I doubt 1% of them have been taken out, probably ever. Most of them are made irrelevant by a newer version, stored right next to it, and even the newest ones are probably obsolete at this point. It didn't feel like looking through a library. The books were not valuable for the information in them, but they were valuable as historical artifacts. It felt like I was in a museum.
This reminded me of how much I revered my childhood local library. Thanks.
"You ever drop a centuries old manuscript in the bathtub?" If I had a nickel for every time... ...I could probably buy Megamorphs 2: In the Time of Dinosaurs.
I love knowing there's people who care about these things as much if not more than I do
As someone who works in a library (not officially a librarian unfortunately, just an assistant) this video really made me appreciate the place I get to work even more. Like many have said before, libraries are much more than just collections, and I can't agree more. It's mind-boggling how many libraries are doing so much social work and promoting education simultaneously.
That to the moon soundtrack at 22:50 gave me goosebumps before i even realized what it was and i had to stop the video to remember from where i heard it.
3:55 thanks for calling me a hero. You're the first person to do so ❤️
well, it's a school library and I'm not working there, I'm volunteering - but I enjoyed that moment, okay?👀
After my father passed away, I would go online to the Library Of Babel and type out messages from him to me. It was stupid but in some way I felt like I was talking to him again. Words are the most powerful thing ive ever experienced. At times im left simply as the quote says below. "to weak to move, to moved to speak" - Star Wars the empire strikes back novel What helped me deal with the grief was looking through my dads library of books he went through. He was always on the search for self actualization in a world he felt entirely lost in. I found a first edition copy of Steven Kings book 'The Long Walk'. A book beautifully written in its horrific destruction of children on a death walk for Americas entertainment. Later I found 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra' By Friedrich Nietzsche and truly this quote always moves me. "Let your love towards life be your love towards your highest hope: and let your highest hope be the highest idea of life! but you should let me commend to you your highest idea - and it is: Man is something that should be overcome." -Friedrich Nietzsche Thanks for the video. libraryofbabel.info/
This is probably one of the most beatiful videos I've ever seen. I love libraries and I shared that child like assumption that all books except those lost to time were contained in a library somewhere... as an adult I obviously realise that's basically impossible, but I still hold out hope that we don't lose ourselves, our connection to our past, for the sake of the turn over of "current" knowledge. I myself, have saved a few redundant books (mostly about earlier computer knowledge, my personal interest). I cherish those books, it's where I discovered things I may otherwise never have heard of, and it's part of the long history of man, possibly soon forgotten. Books, carry an eternal weight. Both in physicality and of the mind. People think the internet is forever, but it in many ways is more fragile than physical books can be. The "internet dark age" is a real and present fear, we've lost so much of the internet we knew to time and servers becoming redundant, people stop paying hosting fees and again huge parts of out selves disappear to time. I hope more people share the love for books that I do, and Jacob does.
Your videos really are something else, I’m so glad I stumbled upon you and to think, if it hadn’t of been for this video I never would of been aware of anything that happened in Timbuktu. The more I think about it the more I could imagine it being a Hollywood blockbuster.
I appreciate your uploads immensely, thank you. Seeing them bloom from the initial jumping off point and wondering where you'll take it, to eventually seeing the entire message. I just love them all, they make me happy.
A couple weeks ago I was working at my school's library detagging books that had been weeded. MUSTY books, in other words. As I peeled and sharpied a nonsensical number of books on Iowa, I felt the same sense of sadness you describe at the beginning, even over these books that I would never desire to read.
My mom used bring me to this small library daycare of some sort in a mall, whenever she shops for groceries. I could not read English yet, at the time. I'd only look at pictures of dinosaurs and trucks and cars, play educational computer games. However, I think it left an impression on me. Libraries felt more like cathedrals to me, sacred places of knowledge and silence that deserves respect. I like books, but books never liked me back lol. I'd always fall asleep due to eye fatigue.
You're an intellectual that is very much needed and appreciated on KZhead, thank you Jacob!
This is one of my favourite (maybe my favourite?) short stories, and I'm so happy you're introducing more people to it!
Babel's library always fucks me up... Like, it's one thing to know, logically, that if you make enough random combinations of whatever sooner or later you'll get something that makes sense, but that is just a fact, a funny mental exercise that you store in your head and don't meditate about too hard, it's distant, disconnected. It's something very, very different to have an example of it presented to you in a way that feels so... Real. And brutal, like getting hit over the head with it. Sometimes when I'm bored I'll write something, whatever random sentences or pick something from a story I wrote some time ago and look it up in that library, and I always know I'll find it, and still it always fucks me up just as hard when I do, in fact, find it was there all along.
the atmosphere of libraries is truly unmatched. last week while i was visiting new york city, i got the opportunity to visit and study in the Rose Reading Room in the New York Public Library. not only was the architecture stunningly beautiful, but the people who run the library were so committed to keeping the room as a quiet, peaceful place to study, even though the library itself is a huge tourist attraction. i think it definitely says something about me that throughout my whole visit to the city, my favorite part was just quietly reading and writing in the Rose Room for a few hours. it was a fantastic experience. i would've stayed all day if i could. god, i just love libraries. no pressure to buy anything, just a nice, quiet space. (also, if you've never seen what the Rose Room looks like, definitely look up a picture. that room is what my personal heaven looks like.)
Fantastic video as always, your channel has become a library i very much enjoy revisiting every once in a while, leading me to looking into topics i had never thought about before, reading books i would have ignored previous to watching your videos, keep up the incredible work you beautiful man
One of the few creators worth using the bell for.
The 'magical library' or 'library of everything' is one of my perennial idle fantasies and favourite fictional settings. I always hunt down and devour books and fiction where they appear, though usually they're never really 'explored' deeply. And yes, I did become a librarian, and I do currently work in one of thhe libraries that is closest to that ideal (a big, old academic library).
My mother was a librarian for the entirety of my childhood, and as such, I spent almost the entirety of my childhood in libraries. When you said "Libraries can be intimidating, exclusionary", my personal experience said "you couldn't be more wrong". To me, a library will always feel like home. A safe place among references and comedy and tragedy and epics and sagas and horror and romance and everything in between. Libraries are beautiful, but not untouchable or alien, rather the beauty of libraries is best understood to me as a reflection of nature. The bookshelves and stacks and pages are as much a forest of trees as those trees were that were used to print those books. And whether the edifice is huge and imposing or quaint and cozy, you can still sit down among the grass and the trees or the carpet and the tables and see life all around you and learn so many things. I've watched almost all of your videos, and I love every single one of them including this one, but this is one place where my understanding is fundamentally different than yours, and that's more than okay, it's what makes us so human and each of our understandings and our arts so valuable.
Aw shit I KNEW I recognized that voice, it's friggen Simone! Mr. Geller, are you applying for the Polygon Arts & Literature department?
This was a really gorgeous video! I didn't expect the throw to Dark Souls, but I should have from the title lol. I love that you draw inspiration from so many sources and manage to tie them into a solid narrative. Thank you for another great essay!
Hearing To The Moon music at the end really got to me. Its hard to put into words but it felt so fitting hearing it in this context, really well done
I work at a public library, so seeing someone speak passionately on the subject is always meaningful to me
DUDE, AT 23 MINUTES HE USED A SONG FROM A SMALL INDIE GAME CALLED "TO THE MOON" AND I FUCKING LOVE THAT SOUNDTRACK, ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL just thought i should point that out :)
You are great at setting the tone of the video. Watching this gave me the same feeling as playing dark souls.
I've been a subscriber for at least a year or so, and I've been a fan of the Library of Babel for over a decade. I'm so glad you made this video. Thank you Jacob.
I did a DnD one-off in the library of babel. The party spent thousands of years trying to find the "crimson hexagon" (which I homebrewed to be the heart of the eldritch god of Mania). It awesome having them try and read random books, and I would just go to a "random word generator" and read from there. They were flabbergasted, and knew nothing of the library of babel, so it was a great fresh take. The idea of this library is so interesting. And, all this knowledge is essentially meaningless. For every book that has "secrets" and "knowledge" in it, there is another book that debunks the same exact "secrets" and "knowledge". There are books that say one thing, and a book that says another. And this is all interwoven with books that essentially say complete gibberish. It's an amazing philosophical exercise. A library of infinite possibilities, may as well be a library with no possibilities. It's senseless madness.