''MS Fnd in a Lbry'' (probably intended to be understood as "Manuscript Found in a Library") is a

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

about the disastrous effects of the exponential growth of information. The story was written by

Hal Draper Hal Draper (born Harold Dubinsky; September 19, 1914 – January 26, 1990) was an American socialist activist and author who played a significant role in the Berkeley, California, Free Speech Movement. He is known for his extensive scholarship on t ...

in 1961. Its title is a play on the

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...

story "

MS. Found in a Bottle "MS. Found in a Bottle" is an 1833 short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. The plot follows an unnamed narrator at sea who finds himself in a series of harrowing circumstances. As he nears his own disastrous death while his ship drives ev ...

Plot

The story is in the form of a report written by Yrlh Vvg, an

anthropologist An anthropologist is a person engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropology is the study of aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms and ...

from an

alien Alien primarily refers to: * Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a national of that country ** Enemy alien, the above in times of war * Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth ** Specifically, intelligent extrater ...

civilization who investigates the remains of human

civilization A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system). Ci ...

approximately 175,000 yukals into the future. It turns out that humankind's fall was brought about by

information overload Information overload (also known as infobesity, infoxication, information anxiety, and information explosion) is the difficulty in understanding an issue and effectively making decisions when one has too much information (TMI) about that issue, ...

and the inability to catalog and retrieve that information properly. The title of the short story comes from the fact that all redundancy - and vowels - had been removed from our language in order for the information volume to shrink. Finally the sum of all human knowledge was compressed by means of subatomic processes and stored away in a drawer-sized box. However the access to that information required complicated indices,

bibliographies Bibliography (from and ), as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology (from ). English author and bibliographer John Carter describes ''bibliography ...

etc., which soon outgrew the size of all knowledge. The use of indices grew exponentially, comprising a pseudo-city, pseudo-planet and eventually a pseudo-galaxy devoted to information storage. At this point, a case of

circular reference A circular reference is a series of references where the last object references the first, resulting in a closed loop. In language A circular reference is not to be confused with the logical fallacy of a circular argument. Although a circular ...

was encountered, and the civilization needed to refer to the first drawer-sized box to find the error. However, this drawer had been lost in the pseudo-galaxy, and soon the civilization fell apart while trying to locate the first drawer. It turns out that the anthropologist's civilization is actually heading down the same path. Presumably, the report was given the name "MS Fnd in a Lbry" after the fall of the anthropologist's civilization by another anthropologist from another alien civilization that is also heading down the same path.

History

In a December 12, 1960 article in ''Time'' magazine,

Richard Feynman Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist, known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of the superflu ...

predicted that the explosion of information and storage made possible by the computer revolution would necessitate shrinking the size of information. Feynman offered a prize for anyone who could shrink a page of information down 1/25,000 size that could still be read by an

electron microscope An electron microscope is a microscope that uses a beam of accelerated electrons as a source of illumination. As the wavelength of an electron can be up to 100,000 times shorter than that of visible light photons, electron microscopes have a hi ...

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

librarian Malcolm Ferguson wrote that Feynman's idea "may provoke discussion and perplexity" in an article for ''

Library Journal ''Library Journal'' is an American trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey. It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional prac ...

'' in November 1961. Draper's satirical story "MS Fnd in a Lbry" envisaged a world where information was reduced to a microscopic scale and required indices of indices to retrieve the data. The short story first appeared in the December 1961 issue of ''

The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction ''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'' (usually referred to as ''F&SF'') is a U.S. fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Mystery House, a subsidiary of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Press. Editors Anthony Boucher a ...

''. It was anthologized in the collections '' 17 X Infinity'' (1963) edited by

Groff Conklin Edward Groff Conklin (September 6, 1904 – July 19, 1968) was an American science fiction anthologist. He edited 40 anthologies of science fiction, one of mystery stories (co-edited with physician Noah Fabricant), wrote books on home improvemen ...

and ''Laughing Space'' (1982), edited by

Isaac Isaac; grc, Ἰσαάκ, Isaák; ar, إسحٰق/إسحاق, Isḥāq; am, ይስሐቅ is one of the three patriarchs of the Israelites and an important figure in the Abrahamic religions, including Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He was the ...

and

Janet Asimov Janet Opal Asimov (née Jeppson; August 6, 1926 – February 25, 2019), usually written as J. O. Jeppson, was an American science fiction writer, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst. She started writing children's science fiction in the 1970s. She w ...

. It was also published as "Ms Fnd in a Lbry: or, the Day Civilization Collapsed". The story inspired a discussion on adopting computers in libraries at a symposium on technological advances in medical librarianship in 1963.

References

External links

* {{isfdb title, id=93729, title=MS Fnd in a Lbry
"Ms Fnd in a Lbry"
at folk.universitetetioslo.no 1961 short stories Science fiction short stories Post-apocalyptic short stories Works by Hal Draper

Plot

History

See also

References

External links