NEWS
Future Library: An unknown future that is already written
WHAT do Margaret Atwood, David Mitchell and Karl Ove Knausgård have in common, asks Donna Irving. They have each written a manuscript that will be unread for one hundred years. On a sunny Sunday morning in late June, an international crowd gathered in a shady car park on the edge of Oslo’s Nordmarka forest. We were there to witness a literary event unlike any other: the handover of a manuscript that nobody present would ever read. This year I attended. I’m a librarian. Libraries are usually about access. Future Library is about deliberate inaccessibil- ity. I have spent my career removing barriers between people and information. Future Library is a collection that is carefully preserved yet intentionally unavailable. So here I am at a cere- mony to celebrate books that won’t be read for another century. It feels existential, planting trees and stories for future gen- erations.
We hiked through Norwegian spruce, looking out for moose. After half an hour we came to a glade where the cer- emony would take place. The opening was a beautiful Sami Yoyk performed by Sámi singer Marja Mortensson and the Daniel Herskedal Duo. A yoyk is more than a song; it’s a mag- ical tradition, a way of evoking a person, place or spirit. It felt a fitting way to begin, singing the project into being, blending story with forest. In 2014, the Scottish artist Katie Paterson created Future Library, a project developed in collaboration with Deichman Bjørvika, Oslo’s public library, the Nordmarka forest and generations of readers yet to be born. This project relies on the trust between us and the yet unborn, who, eventually will be able to access the project. Each year, an invited author contributes a manuscript, which is ceremonially handed over in the Nordmarka forest before being sealed away for a century in the beautiful silent room of Deichman Bjorvika. The room is tranquil. lined with timber from the Future Library forest, it is both archive and
Ceremonial handover at the Nordmarka forest. Photo © Future Library Project.
artwork. The manuscripts are there, tangible yet unreach- able. I can touch the glass vaults but I am used to collections that invite exploration. This one invites patience. I had assumed the audience would be largely made up of librarians. After all, Future Library centres on books, pres- ervation and a library collection. Instead, I found myself among artists, writers, readers and visitors from around the world. The project seems to resist easy categorisation. It is part literary event, part environmental intervention and part work of conceptual art. Perhaps that is why it attracts such a diverse audience. I had travelled from Bradford to Oslo to see an inaccessible library.
This year had two authors. Tommy Orange handed over his manuscript , You Who Are Forever There and Amitav Ghosh contributed Letter to My Grandson. What words they con- tain, only the future will know. For now, maybe that is enough. Future Library is an act of collective optimism. It asks us to believe that the forest will continue to grow, that libraries will survive, and that future generations will still value books and one day open them. In our uncertain age, it’s a profound act of hope.
Timber-lined archive vault. Photo © Future Library Project.
8 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
Future Library ceremony in the forest. Photo © Future Library Project.
August-September 2026
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