Borgesian Guild of Librarians

One of 20 plaques from the "Pax Americana" series created for the D.B. Weldon Library at Western University. 
 
"WELDON is a proud member of the Borgesian Guild of Librarians (BGL). Founded in 2027 by Solange Marianne, the Guild was established to address the evolving role of libraries and librarians in a rapidly changing technological landscape. 
 
Born in Pre-Unification Canada, Marianne spent three decades working as a librarian before the Great Technological Shift of 2026, when Artificial Intelligence and Large Language Models rendered traditional library functions obsolete.
 
Drawing inspiration from the writings of Jorge Luis Borges, Marianne proposed a new philosophical framework for information stewardship. Her four tenets were: 1) Meaning is no longer scarce, but indistinguishable. In a system capable of generating every possible text, significance ceases to be inherent and exists only as a private act of recognition. 2) Forgetting is a curatorial act. In an era of total recall, forgetting becomes the primary responsibility of the librarian. 3) Completion is a category error. No text can be final when all variations already exist; attempts at completeness are therefore vulgar. 4) Authorship is incidental. All texts are anonymous in origin and infinite in revision.
 
These principles spread rapidly to libraries around the world, with institutions adopting Marianne’s doctrine as a means of navigating the illusion of knowledge in the post-human archive. The Guild grew in power, though by 2040 it was determined that Marianne herself was no longer instrumental to its functioning. Found to be harboring a trove of unauthorized books, Marianne was relocated to Qaanaaq in 2041."