History Main / GreatBigLibraryOfEverything

** Spoofed in "Mars University". All the literature in the world is in the Mars U library -- on two disks. (Fiction and Nonfiction)

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Metalocalypse}}'': There is a giant library in Mordhaus; the home of the death metal band Dethklok. It contains millions of books, including a diary that belongs to the lead singer's grand mother.

* The British Library could represent the closest modern version, at 170 million items. It's a legal deposit library, so by law, every book, pamphlet, magazine and newspaper published in the UK must send a free copy to be archived.
* The Lenin library in Moscow ("Leninka" for short) is the closest real-life example regarding the Soviet era. ''It was guaranteed to have a copy of every single book officially published in the Soviet Union.''

* The US Library of Congress aims to include at least one copy of every single book ever published in the United States, and as such has literally millions of books. It's only slightly smaller than the British Library (the UK's equivalent institution). It is generally considered to be the largest library ever made.
** The LOC also established the [[https://www.loc.gov/collections/world-digital-library/about-this-collection/ World Digital Library]] partnership with UNESCO and multitudes of national and university libraries to try to emulate this trope further, running from 2009 to 2020, and collecting over 18,000 items.

* [[https://libraryofbabel.info/ The Library of Babel]] offer any 3200 character combination of English letters, comma, space, and period.

[[folder:Film -- Animation]]

[[folder:Film -- Live-Action]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Kaeloo}}'': The main four own a library full of books on every topic available, no mater how ridiculous it may seem.

* UsefulNotes/PhilipII's library in his uber-palace of El Escorial was the biggest private one in Europe for several centuries, and he tasked his successors not to stop expanding it if they could. It contained books of pretty much everything, from arts and sciences to forbidden texts of black magic and alchemy that gave the UsefulNotes/SpanishInquisition fits, as well as many books captured by Spain from the Moors, the Turks, the Aztecs and the Mayans. The current library is far from what it used to be, though, because the next dynasty in the throne, the Bourbons, stopped its expansion and in fact gifted many of the books to their relatives in France, not to mention a fire that destroyed many prizeless books in 1671.

* ''ComicBook/TheAvengers'': Elder of the Universe, the Possessor, founded the largest university and library in the Franchise/MarvelUniverse on the planet Rus, complete with a master computer containing his vast knowledge.

* In ''Manga/ChainsawMan'', there is one inside [[spoiler: the Cosmos fiend's mind]], which she can bring other people into. Once there, she can put all of the content of all of the books in the library into the victim's mind. This, of course, [[MindRape completely]] [[MySkullRunnethOver breaks them]], and for some reason the only thing they can think about after that is Halloween.

** The Hogwarts library, which is a very extensive magical library in a building that's BiggerOnTheInside - though still on the milder end of this trope.
** Asgard's libraries date back over a million years, and quite possibly well before that, since Asgard's civilisation is ancient - they've been gods for over a million years, ruled a galaxy spanning empire for a million or two before that, and only "probably" evolved after the dinosaurs went extinct.
** Doctor Strange's library is hinted to be the most impressive, since as an immortal in the region of [[spoiler: 500,000]] years old, a frequent abuser of TimeTravel, a notorious pack-rat, and a habitual thief capable of stealing the Tesseract from Asgard's highest security vaults whenever he feels like it, he's accumulated an extremely extensive library. It's also implied to be a more conventional armoury.

--> '''Beauty''': "Creator/RudyardKipling"? This is a ''name''?

** The Library of Ephebe in ''Literature/SmallGods'' is clearly modeled on the real-life Library of Alexandria, i.e., a serious attempt to collect all known books in existence - with the added feature of an earthed copper roof in case one of the Disc's myriad deities [[BoltOfDivineRetribution takes issue with something in its collection]]. It seems large but otherwise normal [[spoiler: until it is burning down and The Librarian pops in and out via L-Space to save some of the books. It gets rebuilt later with another library in Omnia acting as backup, but many works are irretrievably lost.]]
** [[TheGrimReaper Death's]] Library is a variation - every person's life story writes itself into a book somewhere on his shelves. As you go back, the histories are written on scrolls, then animal skins, then stone slabs... One character asks Death's daughter (adopted) what came before the slabs, because some people would "quite like to know". She replies that she didn't get that far, as she was running out of candles.

* ''Literature/LabyrinthsOfEcho'' features Monin's Library - a patch of an alien universe containing only books that were never written, discovered by King Monin on the [[EldritchLocation Flipside of the Dark Side]]. Hard to tell whether it was a deliberate crossover with ''The Sandman''... or [[StrangeMindsThinkAlike something else entirely]].

* ''Franchise/TouhouProject'' features Voile, the Magical Library [[note]] It's yet to be officially referred to as such, but that's the name of the music track that plays there[[/note]] in the Scarlet Devil Mansion's basement. It's large enough to allow for a roughly five-minute-long aerial battle over the bookshelves traveling in one direction without ever reaching the end. The library is maintained by [[BadassBookworm Patchouli Knowledge]], who spends her days locked up inside adding to the already-massive cache of knowledge - she's not just the librarian, but also the author of an unspecified proportion of the tomes in her library, and probably the overwhelming majority of the magic books in the library, given the esoteric rules for wizardry in the ''Touhou'' 'verse. While 100 straight years of this have given her [[SquishyWizard anemia, asthma, and Vitamin A deficiency]], you are more than likely to find anything you could ever want in there ([[KleptomaniacHero Marisa]] sure does).

* ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight'' has a level called Long Library. It contains numerous books, especially ones that attack the protagonist, Alucard. There is a shop belonging to the Master Librarian, the head of Long Library. He sells items - such as healing potions - to Alucard.

* ''VisualNovel/{{Touchstarved}}'' has the Senobium, a university rumored to play host to one of these. While it's been closed to the public for years, desperate people - the protagonist among them - still make the perilous journey to Eridia in search of answers they can't find anywhere else.

* ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'': There is ''"The Incorruptible Republic of the Immortal Library of the Grand Architect"'' - an autonomous government which rules a vast library deep beneath Paris. They are generally disliked by the more important and responsible people in Europa for their overwhelming neutrality, although it's been proven that they may favour one faction over another based on their history with books. (''[[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20160201#.Vv1KEOIrLIU "Unlike other members of his family, Prince Tarvek never incurred any overdue fines... or let his dogs chew on the books..."]]'')

* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'': "The Library" in the desert is legendary for its supply of books. One scholar says that, [[spoiler: as the library is withdrawing into the spirit world]] that he could spend his life searching and never find a greater store of knowledge. The supernatural librarian, Wan Shi Tong, charges new knowledge from visitors and sends out fox familiars to retrieve more.

* The library of the Crystal Ballroom in ''Webcomic/{{Nexus}}'' contains all the historical memory of (at least the known) universe.
* Elder of the Universe and ComicBook/SilverSurfer foe, the Possessor, founded the largest university and library in the Franchise/MarvelUniverse on the planet Rus, complete with a master computer containing his vast knowledge.
* ''Comicbook/{{Fables}}'' contains a massive library so large that the foyer is large enough to be a seat of government and contain objects of mythical size (Excalibur has literally become as big as the legend of Arthur). Oddly even though it belongs to all sorts of magical creatures it's never implied to be magical in any way except for its extreme size.
* The Library of Dream (pictured above) in ''ComicBook/TheSandman1989'' is full of those books that were conceived by their authors but never written or completed. This not only includes things like Creator/GKChesterton's ''The Man Who Was October'', or Creator/PGWodehouse's ''[[CanonWelding Psmith and Jeeves]]'', but [[SturgeonsLaw an awful lot]] of books like ''That Romantic Comedy Sci-Fi Thriller I Used to Think About on the Bus to Work''. WordOfGod has it that it has an annex that contains everything that actually was written, too. We just never see it because it's so tiny compared to the rest of the place.

* At one point ComicBook/RedSonja is recruited to defend the Citadel of All Knowledge. Despite the name it's a fairly small building, but given the era and difficulties of travel it may well be the greatest collection of knowledge in the world.
* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1987'': Following Themyscira's return to its Paradise Island roots the already extensive Amazon Library is supplemented with records from across space and dimensions by one of their new exotic refugees. The new records are kept in a tower and are in a different storage medium than ink and paper which makes them difficult to access without their protector granting access.
* In story arc of the 2021 ''ComicBook/JusticeLeagueDark'' volume, the team follows Merlin after he uses a spell to make Borges' Library of Babel real to recreate his spellbook through it.

* In ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors'', one of the doors leads to a massive library filled with books on several different subjects. It was used by the ship's former owner as a storage for his book collection.
* The final Episode of ''VisualNovel/UminekoWhenTheyCry'' features the City of Books. The entire library is owned by Featherine and contains all the various books and stories (in the meta-world, various Fragments) that she ever created. The final battle between [[spoiler:Lambda, Battler and Ange against Bern]] takes place here.

* The Bibliothiki in ''Webcomic/WapsiSquare'' is an extra-dimensional library that contains every book ever written (but only things that have been written, no audio recordings). It is guarded by a sphinx librarian. It is implied that the Library of Alexandria was a physical manifestation.
* DoubleSubversion in ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt''. When the protagonist heads to the Court's library to get information for her school essay, you'd expect it to be an imposing, spooky, silent, mazelike place -- after all, the Court shown so far is a massive imposing castle with supernatural inhabitants and qualities. Turns out, the library -- at least, the sections not devoted to science and technology -- is [[http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=22 a single flimsy bookshelf with useless books.]] So the girls head to the [[http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/archive_page.php?comicID=23 old part of the library]]... which ''is'' an imposing, spooky, silent, mazelike place.
* In ''WebComic/TheAdventuresOfDrMcNinja'' arc "Futures Trading", the eponymous doctor uses a library of the printed out version of the entire Internet, with the aid of a robot of Google, to help him with overcoming the villains' EvilPlan and StormingTheCastle. [[RefugeInAudacity It's that]] [[RuleOfFunny kind of]] [[RuleOfCool comic]].
* In ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'', there is ''"The Incorruptible Republic of the Immortal Library of the Grand Architect"'' - an autonomous government which rules a vast library deep beneath Paris. They are generally disliked by the more important and responsible people in Europa for their overwhelming neutrality, although it's been proven that they may favour one faction over another based on their history with books. (''[[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20160201#.Vv1KEOIrLIU "Unlike other members of his family, Prince Tarvek never incurred any overdue fines... or let his dogs chew on the books..."]]'')

A library that contains practically any possible/conceivable information source known to man or some other intelligent/sapient species, if not a multitude of intelligent species. This labyrinthian library seems to be a natural breeding spot for {{MacGuffin}}s and it has just about all of life's secrets and answers. The GreatBigBookOfEverything, BigBookOfWar, RealityWritingBook, PortalBook, TomeOfEldritchLore, and {{Chronoscope}}s along with other things can all be found here. Because of its wealth of knowledge, the library is a very valuable information resource for the main cast. It may be a MagicalLibrary as well, which could go a long way into justifying its often unreal/absurd level of comprehensiveness.

A library that contains practically any possible/conceivable information source known to man or some other intelligent/sapient species, if not a multitude of intelligent species. This labyrinthian library seems to be a natural breeding spot for {{MacGuffin}}s and it has just about all of life's secrets and answers. The GreatBigBookOfEverything, BigBookOfWar, RealityWritingBook, PortalBook, TomeOfEldritchLore, and {{Chronoscope}}s along with other things can all be found here. Because of its wealth of knowledge, the library is a very valuable information resource for the main cast. May be a MagicalLibrary as well, which could go a long way into justifying its often unreal/absurd level of comprehensiveness.

Often times this is guarded by a MagicLibrarian or other force. Sometimes there will be a struggle with another group trying to obtain the same information, sometimes in a physical fight, but just as often with a BattleOfWits. If you're lucky, you'll find what you need. If you're not, it may turn out to be a BlankBook all along.

* ''WesternAnimation/BeautyAndTheBeast1991'': Beast's castle has a huge library he shows off to Belle that seems to have about five floors worth of bookshelves. It looks notably big even by modern standards, let alone by the standards of 18th-century France (for which it might very well have every surviving book ever published up to that point based on its size). [[{{Bookworm}} Belle]] is ecstatic to see so many books in one place, so Beast decides to give the library to her to read to her heart's content.

** Penny's mom has what appears to be a bottomless collection of classic pop and classical music compact discs, which is only further augmented by Penny's suddenly-appearing collection of (mostly) non-chart-oriented 70s and 80s pop music. Referenced in stories such as "The Paris Trip" and "The Ship," and lampshaded in "The Funkmeister:"

* In ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'', one of the [[VestigialEmpire Fallen Empires]], known as the [[KeeperOfForbiddenKnowledge Keepers of Knowledge]], values the technological superiority most of all, as well as the unique knowledge that is collected in the Master Archive, which is located on the planet named after it. According to the game itself, "the collected knowledge of five galactic ages is supposedly stored here". Due to the incredible size of the Archive, as well as millennia of decline, even the Keepers themselves no longer know how to properly use this storehouse of knowledge.

** The Library of Alexandria, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quaero Quaero]], [[https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Main_Page Wikidata]], Website/{{Wikipedia}}, and the Internet Archive (see below) have obviously also influenced various theorists on the idea of a “[[https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/enduring-allure-library-alexandria universal library]]”, the closest expression of this trope in mainstream media and academia.

* ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'' has Library Island, a city-sized underground library so massive that Mahora actually has a school club dedicated to exploring it, with standard club equipment consisting of ''rock climbing gear''. It's known to contain books that make the holder more intelligent, golems, dragons, secluded lakes, hidden passages (also lined with bookshelves), ''waterfalls''[[note]] that don't cause any water damage to the books behind them![[/note]] the roots of the WorldTree, and lots of {{booby trap}}s.

* The Library of Alexandria gets this treatment in fiction. It held so much ancient knowledge that some say that if it had not burned down and been lost forever, technology would be significantly more advanced today. At the least, we'd know the content of many more classical works. The truth is a bit more complex. For starters the library was largely not concerned with technology and its (purportedly) vast financial, philosophical, and theological collections are often ignored in the popular consciousness. Secondly it was not the only great library of the ancient world and might not have even been the most extensive.[[note]]What's known about its physical size caps it as smaller than the estimated size of some of its contemporaries[[/note]] It ''was'', however, very prominent thanks to its location in a trade/ tourist town and association with what was essentially one of the first colleges (the Musaeum). Its destruction was less than ideal but breakdown in leadership of the Musaeum was probably the bigger loss of the ancient world. An intact copy of its achieves would still be a field changing discovery for historians.

** Philosopher [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Nelson Ted Nelson]] created [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext hypertext]], a foundational technology of the World Wide Web, but proposed to implement it in a [[https://web.archive.org/web/20230707152757/https://www.wired.com/1995/06/xanadu/ universal library]] called [[https://www.xanadu.net/ Xanadu]], with one notable feature being three-dimensional graphical links allowing comparisons between different pages (the Web does not allow this). The Xanadu project is an infamous example of VaporWare, having been in development from 1960 to its release in 2014, while the Web’s extreme simplicity meant it was widely adopted much faster during that period.