Bibliotheca
Yes, this one is a real word according to Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913). Borrowed from Latin, this word (and its cognates like the French bibliothèque and Spanish biblioteca) means "library" in modern English.
Libraries are quiet havens for enriching my knowledge, but they can be restrictive with the amount of materials that I can find and borrow. They can range from a small bookshelf at home to a large building in a major city. While I have never visited a public library before, I have been to some private ones within school grounds.
During my elementary and high school years, I read a lot of reference books inside that quiet room (especially the 1979 edition of the World Book Encyclopedia and its two extra Australasian volumes). I remembered one of my teachers saying that I almost finished the entire collection at my small, local school library. In reality, I did not even finish every single book there.
During my university years, I had access not only to one, but two library buildings within the campus! I frequented at the main one, where I skimmed a more diverse collection of printed materials (books, periodicals, research journals, and dissertations) that are categorized in the Library of Congress format. If I felt like surfing the World Wide Web or accessing any physical media (particularly optical discs), I would just go to the adjacent building instead. Inside those libraries, I could learn about different topics that may or may not be applicable to my course curriculum.
Now that I finished my studies, I am now limited to my printed and optical media collections at home. Although I can commute to a local library near me, I feel like it is more convenient to choose something from those shelves than visiting that place physically. Not to mention the World Wide Web being accessible to my devices, especially my smartphone and my laptops.
The World Wide Web serves as an expansive library full of files and documents in different formats. While it was originally created by Tim Berners-Lee to exchange data in a decentralized manner, it has gradually been taken over by questionable slop machines who provide nothing but inaccurate junk. In spite of that, it is still a great way to access a bunch of valuable resources.
Here is a sample collection of various articles from the library and their digital counterparts.
| Article | Digital counterpart | Example websites |
|---|---|---|
| Paperback and hardbound books | E-books and audiobooks | Libby |
| Periodicals (newspapers, magazines, academic journals, etc.) | Their standalone or grouped equivalents | PressReader, Issuu, JSTOR, ScienceDirect |
| Encyclopedias | Wikis | Wikipedia, Encyclopedia.com |
| CDs (music albums) | Audio streaming services | Freegal Music, YouTube Music |
| DVDs and VCDs | Video streaming services | Kanopy, YouTube |
| Paper maps and globes | Online maps | OpenStreetMap |
Most of these stuff is readily available via HTTP / HTTPS, which is a widely used protocol on the Web. Of course, there are piles of esoterica that can only be accessed on Gopher and Gemini (which require specialized browsers like Lynx and Amfora, respectively).
Speaking of Gemini, I came across this wonderful sentence from the protocol's FAQ page:
Reading whatever sounds like it might be interesting, clicking links from one page to another page in the same relaxed, carefree way you might put one book back on a library shelf and open up another one, because it only takes a second and there's no risk. [...]
I feel like that particular vibe does not only apply to Gemini pages, but also to regular text files and simple multimedia websites. As long as I do not get distracted with the impending bloat, I can experience the same calmness as I do with any print publication.
If only I could have access to the world's entire library catalogue, I would be willing to check the most unusual and diverting stuff out there. Who knows if someone made a textbook about Papua New Guinea's 800+ languages or a coffee table book about uncharted waters on Earth?
I think that I should just stay quiet and read that one book from my personal library instead...