Abstract
" Invisible libraries " is the title of this year's lecture.
Visible libraries are those - material, tangible - that we immediately think of when we say the word library : local libraries, hospital and prison libraries, national libraries. But the global library is invisible. Generally speaking, libraries can be invisible in several ways : because they are mental, hidden, lost, censored, or because they don't yet exist. This year's lecture will explore a number of special cases of invisible libraries, and will not be limited to what are now known as virtual libraries (such as Gallica, for example).
The library here refers to any collection of texts, and is based on a fundamental distinction between the notion of text and that of work : these two entities do not function in the same way, as shown by situations where an illegible text is the support of a perfectly legible work (the example of the Hellenist Paul-Louis Courier) or, conversely, where a legible text is the support of an illegible work (the example of the Greek poet Lycophron and his poem Alexandra).
" L'œuvre de l'esprit n'existe qu'en acte ", said Paul Valéry. It's reading that brings texts to life, and in Western culture there's a strong link between invisible and material libraries. In other cultures, this link is less strong, giving rise to entirely immaterial libraries : Vedic poems, for example, were forbidden to be written down, because writing them down would have been a desecration of these sacred texts. But the immaterial, and therefore invisible, library is not the prerogative of Eastern cultures ; indeed, it is the general case. Material libraries do not supplant mental libraries ; they merely constitute their support. Invisible libraries take us back to the very foundations of our culture.
