For a long time, there was no question as to where information would be stored: libraries, which emerged as a distinct building structure and central institution of western modernity in the mid-19th century, were the physical sites where information was collected, organized, and made increasingly available. The industrial age had brought radical changes in publishing and, with them, lower production costs for books, requiring efficient techniques and procedures to ensure compact storage and rapid availability. In course of this development, libraries grew from cultural monuments to functional institutions, whose role and architectural character largely derived from the fact that they stored and lent books.
With the advent of the digital age in the mid-1990s, all of this was called into question. Libraries were declared obsolete, as information could be conveniently accessed from elsewhere. In the wake of these developments, library budgets were cut, branches closed, and staff reduced. At the same time, the 2000s also saw a boom of new iconic libraries, often designed by starchitects, aiming to redefine their function, architecture, and practices. However, the ultimate aim behind modern libraries – to create a universal and eternal archive – has not died out. Rather, it has shifted to a new architecture, arising from the requirements of data processing and storage resulting from widespread internet use since the 1990s: the data centre.
Whereas libraries today are tasked with proliferating social and technical demands in order to compensate for what the internet cannot provide, data centres constitute the physical infrastructure enabling our digital lives. A comparative look at the library as modernity’s central site of information storage and management and the data centre as the information hub of the digital age reveals surprising similarities, including shared concerns around efficiency, security, and environmental control. This not only allows for a more comprehensive history of information storage, but also invites reflections on possible futures for the ever-growing number of insatiably energy-hungry data centres around the globe.
