The Cultural Legacy of Isaac Asimov

The Encyclopedia Foundation on Terminus had tough times. The enormity of preserving 20,000 years of accumulated knowledge, on a planet that they had just colonized, and with little able to have been brought from the Imperial Library on Trantor, must have been daunting!

Yet they did it, though as mentioned in other articles, it would either have been wrote microscopically, or would have been a very, very large collection of books, with an index that might have been several large books! And apparently they did more than gather raw knowledge, as difficult as that alone would have been.

It is referenced that they had data on various wars and political leaders. It seems unlikely that these books would have been brought from Trantor in the original exodus, but there was still trade and communications for awhile, so perhaps they got more then.

Likewise, at the Encyclopedia Foundation on this planet, we intend to do more than just compile the raw facts needed for a re-building. We also intend on preserving our cultural legacy. You have seen on our site how we intend to preserve the Harvard Five Foot Shelf of Knowledge. Those are fifty books generally believed to be sufficient to give one the equivalent of a liberal arts degree from Harvard University, in the early 20th century. We also intend to preserve the works of Shakespeare and the KJV Bible.

Will that be all? No. A great start, no doubt, and if any one disc could be had, that (plus the 12th edition Encyclopedia Britannica) would be the one to have. But we’ve made mention that we would have other discs with all the science and technological works needed to rebuild.

Additionally, besides that data, we will be preserving other cultural works. While the Harvard set does admirably well for Western thought, we will also be preserving books representative of Eastern thought, such as to be found in India, China and such.

We also will not be stopping with pre-20th century Western works. We intend on including works from Thomas Paine, Henry David Thoreau, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) and of course – the late Dr. Isaac Asimov.

Isaac Asimov was one of the most prolific authors the world has ever known. He wrote over 500 books and essays and articles on every conceivable subject. His fiction and non-fiction works are unrivaled. The Encyclopedia Foundation was inspired by his “Foundation Trilogy”, so that to the extent we succeed in preserving the knowledge of mankind for 10,000 years the credit will be all his.

While it is only fair than that his works be preserved for all time, we can say – from having read many of them – that they are worth inclusion even if he had never wrote the “Foundation Trilogy” at all.

We are as yet some years from getting to the preservation of cultural works. We will be finishing up becoming self-sufficient, then we will be working on the first disc mentioned, then the rest of science and technology, then the cultural works. But on that day, Asimov will be included. Other authors will be forgot, but he will never be.