Long Now Foundation has a very interesting project - Manual for Civilization Lists, roughly 3500 books most essential to sustain or rebuild civilization. http://blog.longnow.org/02014/02/06/manual-for-civilization-begins/
The recent blog post on the subject has list from David Brin, Bruce Sterling & Daniel Suarez http://blog.longnow.org/02014/09/29/science-fiction-authors-manual-for-civilization/
