Why a cold library

For most of history, only a few people were remembered on purpose. Kings, scholars, the rich. Everyone else lasted about three generations, then thinned into a name nobody could place.

In the disaster films, the arks are always sold to the people who can pay. In a certain television series, a company keeps a whole wing for its dead founder and asks the living to obey him. Both stories say the same thing: that being kept is a privilege.

This library says the opposite.

What we keep#

Nothing. That is the first rule. We do not hold your keys, your files, your letters or your money. We give you a format, a few offline tools, and a set of rules that any person or machine can follow after you are gone. You keep the box. People you trust keep the keys.

Why cold#

Cold is how things last. Seeds are kept at minus eighteen degrees under a mountain in Svalbard. Ice holds air from before there were cities. A cold harbour, in old England, was a roadside shelter with no keeper and no fire: a roof against the weather, and you brought your own fuel.

Why it fades#

Your wishes should matter most when you have just gone, and less as the years pass. The living need room. So every wish here has a half-life: binding at first, then advice, then only memory. A friend once refused to burn Kafka's manuscripts. We cannot count on that kind of luck, so we write the rules down instead.

Why ordinary people#

Because AI has now read almost everyone and knows almost no one. A short, honest file — who to call, what to stop, what to say — is worth more to the people you leave than any amount of training data.

Write it down. Give it to people you trust. Let it go, in time.