Anna, the Universal Library

Abstract

This paper attempts to interpret Anna’ Archive in the context of the so called “Shadow Libraries”, and its effects on the global circulation of knowledge and the debate over copiright. Anna is the last of a long series of online repositories of shared written material that originated in the early years of the World Wide Web, especially in post-Soviet academic environments. Anna has a unique approach to digital preservation, based on a radical refusal of any law or insitution that limits the possibility of access and conservation of knowledge, encouraging the act of copying or mirroring her data. Anna’s style has developed from the beginning of the project, and has slowly developed a personality and a sophisticated work procedure. At the same time, Anna seems to seek a simple and radical approach, in order to act at a truly global scale. Anna is perhaps the only libary in the world that aspires to be universal, and is attempting to catalog and visualise the entire humanity’s written collection in innovative ways, that remind of the fictional libraries immagined by Borges and Eco, and questions us on what should be the real nature of a library in the future