User:Simon/Profiling shadow libraries

Researching aaaaarg.fail, ubuweb & Project Gutenberg with Tancredi:

   AAAAARG.FAIL https://aaaaarg.fail/

Content: What is in the library? How much? PDFs - a lot! (hard to see how many, but 26,000+ and counting...) theory and critical theory

Users: Who is using / uploading / downloading? Used by researchers, academics, students, people interested in theory who can become members by invitation. Members of the site can upload and download, and request new titles through a messageboard.

Catalog: What is the system? How is it organised? How about its ontology? Indexed, by "catalog" (listing by author name), "collection" (listing by topic), and also by "requests" (listing by new requests, most requested, unrequested, and everything - also with RSS feed)

Infrastructure: What are technical specs? Software? Hardware?< Probably runs on self-hosted server - you access it through a browser

Politics: What is the attitude? Kind of like a private club - invite only

Economy: Sponsors? Donation? Advertising?< No advertising on site - no information about sponsors or donations on site either...

Law: How does it interface?< Brazen defiance

   UBUWEB http://www.ubu.com/    info >> http://www.ubu.com/resources/     p.66 https://bit.ly/2HN5IST

Content : What is in the library? How much? (PDF, VIDEO, AUDIO...) art, media, theater... in the contest of avant-gard in 2011 over 7,500 artists and over 2500 full-length avant-garde films and videos Users: Who is using / uploading / downloading? editors + volunteers + users + artists

Catalog: What is the system? How is it organised? How about its ontology? each section has an editor who brings to the site their area of expertise / structured as a research project, index with descriptions

Infrastructure: What are technical specs? Software? Hardware? servers donated by several universities as a means of study

Politics: What is the attitude? library which is ever-expanding in uncanny—and often uncategorizable—directions / no logo,advertise,donation / anti-institutional / Act as a museum alternative by invoking a gift economy of plentitude with a strong emphasis on global education Economy: Sponsors? Donation? Advertising? volunteering / no advertising / free download / autonomous no sponsors Law: How does it interface? no financial interest but educational approach. VS copyright

   PROJECT GUTENBERG https://www.gutenberg.org/

Content: What is in the library? How much? Project Gutenberg started in 1971. Texts in the library are those that have entered the public domain after exceeding the statute of limitations (in 1971 it was 14 years after death of the author, then 28, now 50 years). The website offers 58,000+ free "eBooks" (ePUB, Kindle, HTML and plain text formats). The collection is described as being comprised of three core types of text, "light literature" (e.g. Alice In Wonderland), "heavy literature" (e.g. Shakespeare), and "references" (e.g. encyclopedias)

Users: Who is using / uploading / downloading? Anyone can download without registering an account. Only the site admin can upload.

Catalog: What is the system? How is it organised? How about its ontology? Indexed alphabetically by author, title, language, "special categories" and recent uploads. Also includes a search function based on U.S. Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), and Yahoo and Google search (using metadata)

Infrastructure: What are technical specs? Software? Hardware? Runs off a wiki. Hosted by ibiblio.org ("one of the largest free information databases online"). Accessed through the browser.

Politics: What is the attitude? Based on democratic principle of shared knowledge. Operates (mostly) within the law. Heavily affiliated, with sister organisations in many countries, as well as partnerships with many other libraries and organisations that provide software to help read eBooks.

Economy: Sponsors? Donation? Advertising? Project Gutenberg began with a serendipitous grant to Michael Hart (founder of Project Gutenberg) of an operator's account with $100,000,000 of computer time in it in 1971. Now, donations are accepted, run by volunteers (also makes calls for volunteer help - "digitizing, proofreading and formatting, recording audio books, or reporting errors").

Law: How does it interface? (mostly) Legally, as most texts are within the public domain.

Writing task with Artemis & Bo

A) DESCRIPTION: an abstract of what each shadow library is [Steve suggests: make this 300 words or so]
B) QUESTIONS: what type of questions does it raise? (e.g. what type of assumptions are implicit in its ontology?)

   PROJECT GUTENBERG

Abstract — Project Gutenberg, initiated in 1971 by Michael Hart, is the world's oldest digital library of "eBooks", that is, books that are available electronically as PDFs, HTML, ePUB and plain text format. The collection has more recently expanded to include audio books, and texts in a variety of languages other than English. On the wiki-based website www.gutenberg.org, more than 58,000 eBooks are indexed by author, title, language and "recently posted". The search function allows users to look for titles by US Library of Congress search terms, as well as by going through Google and Yahoo metadata. The majority of these books are within the public domain and therefore free from copyright restrictions, although undoubtedly there are some that are orphaned by subsequent changes to US copyright terms (which in most cases of published texts, is now 70 years after the death of the author). Due to this, as well as differences in copyright law internationally, the complete legal legitimacy of its collection is in question, despite careful attempts to comply with US copyright law. It is important to note that Project Gutenberg is a project, rather than a single library, with sister affiliations in many countries (Project Gutenberg Australia, Project Gutenberg Europe among many others). This, alongside its non-profit stance (Project Gutenberg accepts donations, and also calls for volunteer help with proofreading and digitization of books, as well as recording audio books) lends moral legitimacy to its online distribution of texts.

Questions — Looks like a classic collection; the interface is classic; based on a wiki; speaks of legitimacy

Who is responsible and what are they responsible for?This is all the stuff that's in the public domain...
What could be the motivation to make such a library?
What values does it communicate? Good. Air of legitimacy; “library of congress search terms” and google to collect information. On this way they seek legitimacy from the on-line and off-line agents.
What do they mean 'a project'? (is this an agent of legitimacy?) Involves many people; projects into the future; mutable (not set in stone)
What is it filtered out and what are the political implications of that?
How does the codex form limit what is available?
Who does the library serve? user friendly interface; Also limitations of content, classic collection
Who is responsible and what are they responsible for?

   AAAAARG.FAIL

Abstract — Out of the necessity for a library, for artist Sean Dockray's LA-based educational institution called "The Public School", aaaaarg.fail (formerly aaarg.org, then aaaarg.org) is a website that hosts a collection of mostly theory and critical theory texts, and an online forum for members. Access to the collection comes from registering an account (you must be invited by a member first). Members can upload and download texts, as well as request titles via the forum. The changes in the domain name for the library come from repeated copyright infringement allegations from publishers of works that have been made accessible on the site, including the Australian publisher Macmillan. The publisher hired Mark Taylor, a former music industry executive, who was instrumental in bringing forth a cease and desist order against aaarg.org. Dockray later called this "another case where university students are conceived of as consumers, as carriers of debt for everything from degrees to consumer electronics to intellectual property" (http://unprojects.org.au/magazine/issues/issue-4-2/the-future-and-the-public-school/ ).

Questions —

Who does the library serve? (who are the customers?) Intellectual snobs. You have to be invited
Forum? What affordance does that give?Sociability? There is a set of manners
The forum produces a text (a form of collective annotation); a discussion on the texts in the library. Because you can make requests it is much more personal. You can also select by "most requested", which means that a hierarchy of information is produced within the forum.(by the discussion of the members)

How is it different if you can participate in discussing the content of a library, than just be a viewer-receiver of the content?
Who is responsible and what are they responsible for?
How is it different to be an exclusive member in order to have access to the content of a library, compared to have no restrictions in accessing it?
How does the collection (and discourse around it) represent the members of the library?
If the library is based on user requests, it's a mirror of the members interests/social status/credentials/ideologies/clout
Does this platform require a certain degree of library literacy and research skills?
Does the background of the librarians affect the content presented in a library?

   UBUWEB.COM

Abstract — UbuWeb.com is a large web-based, free, non-commercial resource for avant-garde poetry, music, film, literature and more, founded in 1996 by poet Kenneth Goldsmith. It offers visual, concrete and sound poetry, expanding to include film and sound art mp3 archives. The site's architecture limits retrieval to keyword searching and browsing by media type and artist/project name. In addition, sustainability is a concern for this website as it was never intended to be a permanent archive. Still, there is no comparable commercial source for the content on UbuWeb so it is valuable as a resource for libraries to point users toward so long as librarians are aware of its limitations. It is a library which is ever-expanding in uncanny—and often uncategorizable—directions. Each section has an editor who brings to the site their area of expertise. UbuWeb is not n to any academic institution, instead relying on alliances of interest and benefiting from bandwidth donations from its partnerships with GreyLodge, WFMU, PennSound, The Electronic Poetry Center, The Center for Literary Computing, and ArtMob. UbuWeb was founded in response to the marginal distribution of crucial avant-garde material. It remains non-commercial and operates on a gift economy. UbuWeb ensures educational open access to out-of-print works that find a second life through digital art reprint while also representing the work of contemporaries. It addresses problems in the distribution of and access to intellectual materials.

Questions —

Who does the library serve?
What could be the motivation to make such a library?
What values does it communicate?
How can the material available in a library shape the discourse around a particular field?