We can roam the bloated stacks of
the Library of Alexandria, where all imagination and
knowledge are assembled; we can recognize in its
destruction the warning that all we gather will be lost,
but also that much of it can be collected again; we can
learn from its splendid ambition that what was one man’s
experience can become, through the alchemy of words,
the experience of all, and how that experience, distilled
once again into words, can serve each singular reader for
some secret, singular purpose.
The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel
Bewildered Creatures 