In 1941, a young Argentinian librarian who would soon go completely blind published a story about the futility of the “total” library.

In 1941, a young Argentinian librarian who would soon go completely blind published a story about the futility of the “total” library.His inspiration was Kurd Lasswitz, a 19th century German philosopher and science-fiction pioneer, whose own idea of a “universal” library was a mathematical nightmare of frighteningly large but finite proportions.