History Main / GreatBigLibraryOfEverything

* ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight'' has a level called Long Library. It contains numerous books, especially ones that attack the protagonist, Alucard. There is a shop belonging to the Master Librarian, the head of Long Library. He sells items - such as healing potions - to Alucard.

* The Library of Alexandria gets this treatment in fiction. It held so much ancient knowledge that some say that if it had not burned down and been lost forever, technology would be significantly more advanced today. At the least, we'd know the content of many more classical works. The truth is a bit more complex. For starters the library was largely not concerned with technology and its (purportedly) vast financial, philosophical, and theological collections are often ignored in the popular consciousness. Secondly it was not the only great library of the ancient world and might not have even been the most extensive.[[note]]What's known about its physical size caps it as smaller than the estimated size of some of its contemporaries[[/note]] It was however very prominent thanks to its location in a trade/ tourist town and association with what was essentially one of the first colleges (the Musaeum). Its destruction was less than ideal but breakdown in leadership of the Musaeum was probably the bigger loss of the ancient world. An intact copy of its achieves would still be a field changing discovery for historians.
** Some historians also estimate that around half of the books are merely commentaries on the Iliad. Similar to how any library in Europe from the end of the Roman Empire to the Modern Era would be mainly commentaries on the Bible. Very important if you're into that sort of thing, but not as universally interesting as books of mathematics, technology, science, etc.

* ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast1991'': Beast's castle has a huge library he shows off to Belle that seems to have about five floors worth of bookshelves. It looks notably big even by modern standards, let alone by the standards of 18th-century France (for which it might very well have every book ever published at that time based on its size). [[{{Bookworm}} Belle]] is ecstatic to see so many books in one place, so Beast decides to give the library to her to read to her heart's content.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'':

** The Library of Alexandria, [[https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page Wikidata]], Website/{{Wikipedia}}, and the Internet Archive (see below) have obviously also influenced the creators of the idea of a “[[https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/enduring-allure-library-alexandria universal library]]”, the closest expression of this trope in mainstream media and academia.

* Creator/HGWells argued for a prototypical version of this (combined with a radically transformed education system) in a series of essays and lectures collected in the book ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Brain World Brain]]''. His proposal, however, speculated that microfilm, instead of books, would provide an adequate storage medium.

** In many communities (particularly ones that have faced long-term declines in socioeconomic investment), libraries, at least the public ones, already also serve as an important community center and are valuable as a [[https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/when-libraries-are-second-responders/622187/ lifeline for homeless people]]. The public library offers a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place third place]] for people outside of work, home, police stations or schools to gather without having to pay, and their provision of computers and periodicals to the broader public helps with applying for [[https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2014/11/24/a-home-to-the-homeless/ jobs, mental health services]], [[https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/libraries-under-attack-on-the-media disease testing and rental assistance]], in addition to making it easy to learn about current events. For neurodivergent homeless people, libraries also aid in concentration by providing refuge from noise and inclement weather.

** Another, nascent, example is an app called [[https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/p8bu54/how_i_collected_33_tb_of_unique_text_documents/ Library of Alexandria]] consisting of over 30 million documents.

** The Library of Alexandria, [[https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page Wikidata]], Website/{{Wikipedia}}, and the Internet Archive (see below) have obviously also influenced the creators of the idea of a “[[https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/enduring-allure-library-alexandria universal library]]”, the closest expression of this trope.

** The Library of Alexandria, [[https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page Wikidata]], Website/{{Wikipedia}}, and the Internet Archive (see below) have obviously also influenced the creators of the idea of a “[[https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/enduring-allure-library-alexandria universal library]]”, the closest expression of this idea.

** In many communities (particularly ones that have faced long-term declines in socioeconomic investment), libraries, at least the public ones, already also serve as an important community center and are valuable as a [[https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/when-libraries-are-second-responders/622187/ lifeline for homeless people]]. The public library offers a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place third place]] for people outside of work, home, police stations or schools to gather without having to pay, and their provision of computers and periodicals to the broader public helps with applying for [[https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2014/11/24/a-home-to-the-homeless/ jobs, mental health services]] and [[https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/libraries-under-attack-on-the-media rental assistance]], in addition to making it easy to learn about current events.

** The Library of Alexandria, [[https://en.wikidata.org Wikidata]], Website/{{Wikipedia}}, and the Internet Archive (see below) have obviously also influenced the creators of the idea of a “[[https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/enduring-allure-library-alexandria universal library]]”, the closest expression of this idea.

* While nowhere near as well known as the library of Alexandria, the House of Wisdom, located in ancient Baghdad, was for its time the largest repository of knowledge in the world and actually held a great number of Greek and Roman translated pieces that may have originated from Alexandria. Unfortunately, it too was destroyed, in their case when the Mongols sacked the city. It was said that so many books were thrown into the Euphrates that the water turned black with ink.

* To introduce a literal version of the trope name, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Things Libraries of Things]] have popped up in certain communities, particularly those that need seldom-used consumer goods in short supply (such as deep fryers or pottery wheels), as well as more mundane objects, such as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool_library tools]] and [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_library toys]]. The idea has been further developed by the hosts of the podcast [[https://srslywrong.com/podcast/189-library-socialism-usufruct/ Srsly Wrong]] into a conceptual economic system called [[https://boingboing.net/2019/11/24/usufruct-complementarity-irred.html/ library socialism]], which has been posited as a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOYa3YzVtyk solution]] to overconsumption, among other things, and is heavily influenced by the theories of American libertarian socialist thinker [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Bookchin Murray Bookchin]].

* To introduce a literal version of the trope name, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_of_Things Libraries of Things]] have popped up in certain communities, particularly those that need seldom-used consumer goods in short supply (such as deep fryers or pottery wheels), as well as more mundane objects, such as [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool_library tools]] and [[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_library toys]]. The idea has been further developed by the hosts of the podcast [[https://srslywrong.com/podcast/189-library-socialism-usufruct/ Srsly Wrong]] into a conceptual economic system called [[https://boingboing.net/2019/11/24/usufruct-complementarity-irred.html/ library socialism]], and has been posited as a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOYa3YzVtyk solution]] to overconsumption, among other things, and is heavily influenced by the theories of American libertarian socialist thinker [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Bookchin Murray Bookchin]].

* ''Literature/TheCrewOfTheCopperColoredCupids'' has the Interdimensional Library, or simply "the Library", which allegedly contains a copy of every book ever published anywhere in TheMultiverse (although Century Smith thinks the librarians may be exaggerating a bit). It is poorly organised, but spawns [[RefugeeFromTVLand living projections of fictional characters]] who can instinctively navigate its strange logic and guide browsers to the books they need. Entry into the Library is not free: you have to pay by gifting them a new narrative, the stronger and truer the better.

* In ''WebComic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'' arc "Futures Trading", the eponymous doctor uses a library of the printed out version of [[UpToEleven the entire Internet]], with the aid of a robot of Google, to help him with overcoming the villains' EvilPlan and StormingTheCastle. [[RefugeInAudacity It's that]] [[RuleOfFunny kind of]] [[RuleOfCool comic]].

* ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight'' has a level called Long Library. It contains numerous books, including ones that attack the protagonist, Alucard. There is a shop belonging to the Master Librarian, the head of Long Library. He sells items - such as healing potions - to Alucard.

** Yves' Library in Heaven contains anything ever written or recorded by mortals, ethereals and celestials, including some works that were only thought out or dreamed about. It's actually very well-organized ... but the sheer scale of its contents can make a search take days without assistance.

* In the ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' module ''TabletopGame/OutOfTheAbyss'', the party ends up needing to return to the Underdark to visit one of these called Gravenhollow to solve the problem of a demon infestation. There, the players can learn about how the demons were summoned in the first place, and what can be done to stop them. While there, everyone inside the library is always under the effects of the Comprehend Languages spell, to make finding and communicating whatever they need easier.

* The Library of Yves in the TabletopRPG ''TabletopGame/InNomine''. Slightly subverted in that Yves' Library is actually well-organized ... it's the sheer scale of its contents that can make a search take days without assistance. Also notable is that the Library includes not just every book that ever existed, but every book that its author never actually got around to writing. (Such as the scripts for all seven seasons of ''Series/{{Firefly}}''.)
* In ''TabletopGame/{{Planescape}}'', Thoth's Library.
-->'''Magnum Opus:''' [[http://mimir.net/musee/thoth.html They say Thoth's Library holds all the books that have ever been written, or ever will be. Doesn't sound likely to me - in my experience, 'they' say many things which aren't true.]]
* The plane of Mirrodin from ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' gives us the Knowledge Pool at Lumengrid, home of an entire race of GadgeteerGenius [[BadassBookworm Badass Bookworms]] known as the Vedalken. While the Pool is ''technically'' less of a traditional library as it is a swirling mass of liquid wisdom compiled by its keepers over countless millenia, the Vedalken have made it their prerogative from Day 1 to collect as much knowledge as is conceivably possible.
** Blowing the Knowledge Pool out of the water by orders of magnitude is the Bibleoplex on the plane of Arcavios, the beating heart of [[WizardingSchool Strixhaven University]]. A library so unbelievably massive that it has canals that require boats to cross, and is so tall that the higher levels have indoor weather patterns. The place is even rumored to contain a copy of every book of magic in the ''multiverse''.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' has this in the form of the Forbidding Manse of Ivy, headquarters of the Bureau of Destiny's department of Secrets (basically the people who keep track of everything that has happened in order to plan when people will make certain discoveries). Jupiter, the Maiden of Secrets, has a personal library which is much smaller but considered to be significantly more valuable by people familiar with it, since it not only contains her personal collection, but her own annotations and commentaries.
* In the ''TabletopGame/NewWorldOfDarkness'', the Athenaeum is a domain of TheUnderworld that contains a ghostly copy of ''everything'' in history that has ever been written and then lost. It's also an unmappable EldritchLocation with no filing system, so good luck finding the specific resource you need.

[[quoteright:350:[[ComicBook/TheSandman https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/boooooooks_5625.jpg]]]]

* The Library of Dream (pictured above) in ''ComicBook/TheSandman'' is full of those books that were conceived by their authors but never written or completed. This not only includes things like Creator/GKChesterton's ''The Man Who Was October'', or Creator/PGWodehouse's ''[[CanonWelding Psmith and Jeeves]]'', but [[SturgeonsLaw an awful lot]] of books like ''That Romantic Comedy Sci-Fi Thriller I Used to Think About on the Bus to Work''. WordOfGod has it that it has an annex that contains everything that actually was written, too. We just never see it because it's so tiny compared to the rest of the place.
* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'': The Fortress of Solitude has information from the 28 known galaxies. Supes decides to store up Earth's knowledge as well.

* The Wiki World (a reference to [[Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} The Other Wiki]]) of ''Script/AHDotComTheSeries'', which is an AlternateUniverse Earth that has been wholly converted into a huge spherical space station dedicated to the preservation of all knowledge. So large that entire lost civilisations of "Edit Gangs" roam its abyssal reaches. Its rulers, the Wikimasters, govern it from an intimidating "Dark Cathedral". Subverted, however, when it turns out that in fact they're [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything all just a bunch of pathetic anime nerds]].