“One of the most monumental photographs ever made, and still apparently the largest single indoor image (by information density) ever created, is in fact the interior of a library. The Strahov Philosophical Library in Prague dates back to the 18th century, part of an older monastery complex founded in the early Middle Ages, and contains “approximately 200,000 volumes, estimated to hold 260,000 works,” as well as rare manuscripts and other treasures. And it’s also the subject of a huge 40-gigapixel panoramic view, “the largest indoor Photo in the world as of March 2011,” put together from a mosaic of images that allows you to zoom in to almost every point at an astonishing level of detail, and read the spines off books or follow the contours of figures on the frescoed ceiling. If you want to get a full idea, hit the tour button on the link above, or just spend hours panning and zooming in rapt fascination.

This should put the bookshelf view on your ereading application of choice to shame. And its incredible closeups do spark the imagination to contemplate some virtual library/memory palace filing system for ebook collections, complete with walkthrough and virtual tour systems, shelf catalog, etc. After all, with the density of information already here on display, a link and a few hundred kb ebook behind each closeup of a spine wouldn’t add too much at all.”

Stephen