User:Rita Graca/readingwriting3

Introduction to Shadow Libraries

Abstract (Library Genesis)

Library Genesis is a digital library with a catalog of more than 25 million documents. The website owners describe themselves as “random book collectors”, which means they don’t accept requests or focus on curating materials. The topics are broad: from business, economy, and geology to housekeeping and leisure. The dimension of this library is enormous, there are even several copies of the same books. The content is mostly written material.
Although this huge library seems to take information without any specific methodology, the reasons don’t seem completely apolitical. The main page of the website links to a letter of solidarity with strong opinions on sharing materials, copyright, moral values, etc.
All people are encouraged to upload content and to download it too. There’s no score to maintain, log-in necessary, or price to pay. The desire of the platform to exist is well seen in the possibility of downloading all content, accessing the database and making mirrors.

Group reflection and questions

What could be the motivation to make such a library? What is the message they might be trying to spread?
The scale, the amount of data provided in a library is directly related to the energy and time needed to provide them.
How is responsibility distributed ?
How are shadow libraries of different scales and purposes interconnected?
Are shadow libraries interconnected to each other, even if they have different scales and purposes, because what they have in common is that they brake the law (so they are vulnerable)?
flag of convenience
Do they have moral goals, or anarchist goals? Is an anarchist goal immoral (or moral)?
Symbolic gesture
Is it a solidarity gesture?
You can copy the website and mirror it. They don't claim ownership
Is there a heroic attitude of "liberating" knowledge? (robin hood style)
What values does it communicate?
Can these values be seen as coming from a particular cultural context (e.g. post-Communist, Eastern-bloc samzidat techniques)?
Is it moral to publish books which have a commercial goal?
Is the librarian replaced by a random algorithm?
Is there a librarian?
Who is responsible and what are they responsible for?
Non-curation can be a critical position; it is nort imposing a particular position.
Are they collecting material just because they can?
Yes! No filters;
Is this dissident activity?
They don't care a lot about the quality, everything is welcome. Duplicated material
Do they try to curate doubled material?
Why is it easier to support piracy for academic research than for recreational purposes?
Distinctions between "knowledge" and "information" / Democratic principle of sharing knowledge in the name of progress / Providing a benefit to society What are the conditions of making something legitimate? (if we shift back to copyright - see also bootleg drugs,)
benefit for the greater good? is it based on profit?
What would be the first shadow library to be considered legitimate?
Why can't a fiction book (or anything besides articles) be considered research, culture, important to share, meaningful...?

Outline of the workshops

First

pad: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/IFL_22_05_19

Group project: create a library focused on the capacity of annotation.
What can be in this library besides books? How can we understand knowledge outside the written medium (books, articles, academic research...)
If we have different files, then what other forms of annotation, besides text annotation. Wants to explore this!
Examples of ways of annotating other media, as rapgenius.com, video annotation with time-stamps, video annotation on subtitles cues, hypothes.is, ...
How is this library going to be different than a cloud-folder? It is about 'sharing' -- making public. It means not only for ourselves but for a public. Because of time, the project will be first of all about why/how to annotate and maybe not about the notes themselves.

• What collection deserves to be made public?
• Media-on-media annotation?
• Stretching the categories of knowledge by adding other media?

I find similarities with Artemis' project & Simon's?

Second

pad: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/IFL_22_05_19

Most of the subjects that we have been working on (such as piracy, file-sharing, and shadow libraries) work outside the law. Although illegal, sharing academic books seems to be morally acceptable by most of us. But what happens if we are studying Cinema, and watching a film becomes our research? Is it different to download a book or a song?

Aim:

• Invite people to make choices to start a conversation on what we find moral, immoral, ethical, what we perceive as knowledge, role of pirate libraries, the importance of sharing the culture...
• Talk about these activities in a group, shed light upon these issues
• Because what is moral/immoral is so personal, some interesting confrontations can happen
• The place where the workshops will happen is important. It would be interesting to go outside the artist/activist bubble and have diverse opinions.

But that can also be my role, to be the devil's advocate and ask more provoking questions.

Practical example:

• Conversation starters where you divide the participants based on a question: "Move right if you think stealing a book is different than downloading it", "Move back if you don't know what the legal implications of downloading a file are", "If you'd write a book, would you consider distributing it for free?", etc.
  

Is important to start with easy questions to set an entry point for the workshop and to get a sense of the practical knowledge of the participants (I found difficult in the launch of the special issue 8 to start explaining my research because I didn't know how much the person knew about networks, if they were very informed or not at all)
(Possible inspiration: "A day in the courtroom" by Eva Weinmayr; "Middle ground"; "Conditional design workbook")

• New Knowledge: through the discussions between the participants. But how does my knowledge, what we learned, gets visible?

• How is annotation being discussed here?
  

We can annotate the discussion: with other questions that come up, answers, notes... what could be an interesting way of doing this?
Thinking besides written notes
If this discussion is recorded then annotated on, several layers can be put together.
The workshop shouldn't be the end point, but the starting point of the annotation

• The questions should be related to the set of texts we are using as a group, quoting books, films, etc.

• How to document the workshop?

The annotations seem to be an important part of the documentation.

• How will people interface with my project?

Third

pad: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/IFL_2019-06-04-selection

Outline of the workshop with Biyi

After our interviews with Leeszaal, we will turn the questions to our audience, and encourage them to make decisions. (it's ok here to adapt a more provocative tone.)

• Proposal: A system to facilitate discussion around librarianship on a more personal level.

• Why: In different ways, all workshops try to bring hidden, marginal processes to the light.

Our workshop would like to turn the discussions about libraries, books, copyright and piracy from abstract concepts to real experiences.

• Goal: Not only sharing the same opinions and discussing new ones but creating small communities.

For example, by saying that we all download books we aknowledge the issue.

• How to do:

Make it spatial: (a reference is Middleground, Joana Chicau workshop, https://hackersanddesigners.nl/s/Summer_Academy_2018/p/Media_Choreographies:_rehearsal_series make the space as an axis to generate feedback) can get rid of the screen be an option? because the screen is a distraction because it's so centered! — we can divide the space would be nice to let the audience have a chance to witness documentation of workshop output

• Our input:

We want to also provide input, and weave the input in a nice way during the question/discussion (not only rely on their answers, and it results in some kind of "consumer questionnaire poll" We enrich the discussion by providing background stories, small texts/articles, information

• Tools: Is there any prototyping tool that would add value? help in some way?

• Examples of questions:

1. I bought books from physical bookstores recently.
2. I bought books from online platforms recently. sub question: I bought the books from (which), (which), (which) platform. I buy from (which) platform most.
3. I follow suggestions from online platform recommendations, I found them useful.
4. I downloaded online pirate copies of books.
5. I made purchases of legal digital copies of books.
6. I keep a record of my book collections.
7. I bought a book in the last month.
8. I downloaded a book in the last month.
9. I've been in a library where the librarian was a male.
10. I think it's morally different to download a book or to download a movie.

Assume identities? roles? new roles - the algorithm writer for book recommendation/ the server manager

Leads for discussion after questions are asked:
Can you describe the books in your home? What books do you have more, and what books you don't have?

• Documentation Method

Goal: To gather preliminary schemes, outputs during the event, feedbacks for the publication Method: Recording the workshop using voice recording

!! The "data", the answers are not that important, is the discussion we want to document and find worth to keep.

Dramaturg:d/Actions

1. Circulate in the room, just keep walking. If you download files illegally stop walking.
2. people stop or not
3. Make other questions
4. We regroup and continue the discussion. Asking about what they would like to see in these platforms, etc.
5. We provide a piece of text, articles, inform about a specific case, a law, ...

Geometry for spatial division
Props for posture: chairs, ...

Fourth

pad: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/IFL_13_06_2019

Knowledge in Action

Through role-play, you will perform the activities crucial to the sustenance of libraries. You will interpret and reimagine the actors that take part in knowledge production and distribution, such as the librarian, the researcher, the pirate, the publisher, the reader, the writer, the student, the copyist, the printer.

The workshop consists of three activities where different scenarios shift your accustomed perspective to start common dialogues. Put yourselves in the shoes of the librarian, imagine together a reading space, and contest the morality of knowledge proprietization.

Interview with Leeszaal librarians Laura and Ronny

transcription: https://pad.xpub.nl/p/IFL_2019-06-04-selection-transcription
editing: https://beta.etherpad.org/p/librarian_interview