Let us begin with a dream perhaps a nightmare: we dream that we are wandering through interminable corridors flanked by shelves tightly packed with books, collections of periodicals, and reprints. After a while we fear that we have been trapped in Jorge Luis Borges' "total Library," but we are relieved to discover that the Library is surrounded by walls. The Library is not infinite, but it is nonetheless colossal. It has to be because it holds all the writings thus far produced that can be filed under the label "History," with as many sublabels as needed. We shall give it a name: the "Herodotus Memorial Library," or HML for short. In order to avoid messing things up more than necessary, I propose to adopt a variant of Occam's rule. I will call it "Sallustius' Scissors" (in honor of one of the most concise historians that I know of). My rule has two sections: i. 'History' is to be understood as 'human history' history of human beings and of their achievements no less than of their more abundant failures. Therefore, we will allow in the HML no writings about subjects such as "Natural History" although we will permit, of course, histories of human research in the field of Natural History. z. HML will be strictly historiographical. It will hold only historical writings, namely pieces written by historians, whether professional or amateur. It may hold lists of such writings, or bibliographies of historical writings, but not materials which historians may have used, or could use, to write their pieces. The proper application of rule z may require a few guidelines, for it may not always be perfectly clear whether we are dealing with "historical writings" or with "materials for writing history." Is an autobiography a historical writing or is it a material for historiography? Obviously, it could be both. On the other hand, it may be safely assumed that documents, scrolls, sermons, political speeches, baptismal records, inscriptions, lists of archeological findings, and so on will not be a part of the HML. The same happens a fortiori with films, records, videocasettes, and objects such as jars, clothes, or pieces of furniture.