During the Middle Ages, medieval intellectuals decided to construct library catalogues in a way that would make it easier for someone seeking a certain document or specific information. They abandoned the old order based on relative religious importance in which, in all catalogues and indices, the Bible came first, the writings of the Church Fathers second, other religious texts followed. The liberal arts came at the end.
To replace this system, they chose alphabetization based simply on the first letter of a word. In this library, as in a modern day index or dictionary, everything is of equal value – God and King appear as equals of apple, manna and yew tree. This is a major, if subtle, step in breaking down traditional ways of seeing the world. It speaks of the importance of order as an abstract concept. It rings of science and mathematics in which every number, every digit, is equal in importance for conveying information.
In another subtle way, it speaks too against poetry, and belies the view that all of reality is based on an overarching or root story, whatever that ur story might be. It also begins to break down the distinction between the secular and the sacred. It says, “Everything is equal here, nothing outweighs anything else.”