Complete, Accessible, Now

The history of the research library represents a series negotiations over spatio-temporalities knowledge. This article focuses on debates nature and organization university libraries triggered by Harvard president Charles W. Eliot’s 1902 proposal to partition “living” “dead” books based usage statistics, relocating offsite storage inaccessible for browsing. I use Eliot debate explore attempts reconcile shifting ideals, institutions, practices itself at dawn twentieth century. Two intertwined ideals lie heart my analysis: completeness access. At start debate, opponents associated with an ideal accumulative that was generative access, then understood as browsing physical stacks. By growing indefinitely under one roof, collections would remain physically accessible browsers. Over course next decade, however, pressures mounted, ideas access came be detached from onsite attached logistical concerns communications transport infrastructures. An thus replaced what call communicative completeness, wherein scattered, partial were made virtually central bureaus information. redefinition relationship between argue, is foundational contemporary revive dream universal library, e.g., Internet Archive.