The year is 630 BCE. Ashurbanipal, the last ruler of the mighty Neo-Assyrian Empire, spanning from Egypt to Babylonia and Persia, has garnered through conquest and systematic collection a royal library of a scale perhaps never witnessed before. Among this selection, consisting largely of divinations, rituals and incantations, are ten to thirty thousand clay tablets, including the famous Epic of Gilgamesh.

Return to 2019 CE. At the heart of Helsinki, Finland, opposite the Parliament House, rises a colossal wooden structure, its architecture resembling that of Noah’s Ark. If this Ark, however, surfs any waves, it is those of the information age. Behold Oodi, or Ode, the new Helsinki Central Library. Like Ashurbanipal’s library, Ode too houses a collection of tablets — although these digital devices are not made of clay and are, unlike Ashurbanipal’s, open to the public.