It has taken me quite awhile to digest the work of Borges and to develop my own thought process on the elaborate idea of the total library. Something that has helped me gather what to make of Borges’s legendary short story is Mark Marino’s metafiction “Marginalia in the Library of Babel” which has eased the connection into the 21st century.

I am stretched to incredible lengths to capture what is most meaningful between the two readings this week and I concede that the most impactful line, to me, is Borges stating “The Library exists ab aeterno“. This Library that Borges introduces in 1941 has stood the examination of of the last century, while the story itself feels like it has existed since the inception of the tool known as the book. In that sense, the story feels imperative to reread over and over again, especially in this modernized and expanded age of the library in the form of the internet. In retrospect, the vastness of the universe and the Library as Borges beautifully writes, has exponentially grown beyond imagination. And yet, the story’s most salient truths about the search and journey of knowledge reach deeper than ever.

What I took away from Marino’s short form metafiction is the perception of the internet. We brushed over this in class but the internet, like the Library, has slowly crept into the everyday lifestyle of nearly every country. What Marino’s blog, or marginalia, represents is the digitized hand users scribe daily, without a second thought about their footprint. He types, “Write in the margins, suggested my machine. Social annotation. It means that I exist or have existed.” Marino’s small contribution to the Library of Babel, the Library of the Internet, is from 2007. It feels like forever ago, and it feels a part of the Library that exists ab aerterno because it is. The marginalia he leaves with hyperlinks, highlights, and digital sticky notes are as powerful and meaningful as those previously left in the archived library of the universe. These digital notes also leave behind that someone was here, there, and everywhere. For myself and others, I think we tend to forget that integral part of the digital footprint marking the Library of Babel.