How Do We Library That?: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 16:53, 13 September 2022

Tasks of the Contingent Librarian (2020)
Making a Common Index Zine at the Hold and Release Partyline (2022)
k!words Conversation Map from Keleketla! Library (2021)
HyperCard, a pre-web hypermedia system released by Apple Macintosh (1987)

A moment for Temporary Indexing at Varia (2021)
The digital bootleg library
Jumbie Library, Trinidad & Tobago
Leeszaal Rotterdam West

Context

Libraries are complex social infrastructures. It's difficult to describe them without speaking in the generic plural "libraries", or specific singular "a library/the library"; as if they were all the same. Universalisms won't help in understanding what is particular about libraries and collections of texts, or why they have value to their readers.

Public libraries function more than simply as access points to knowledge. They facilitate many actions; including reading together, annotating, organising and structuring. As public libraries vanish, [shadow libraries] and [fugitive libraries https://placesjournal.org/article/fugitive-libraries/?cn-reloaded=1] appear in their wake, answering the call for replacement. How can we understand a library, and make it understandable to others? What are the access points to this library-in-the-making, and where do readers cross over?

Special Issue 19

We will begin with searching for proposals around how we "do" libraries together.

We will question indices and indexical attitudes that point toward universalisms, and discover in the process a library-in-the-making.

In a 2019 interview, researcher and architect Dubravka Sekulić asks, "what is useful knowledge for people to understand what surrounds them? Or for example, what can help to understand the politics of knowledge distribution". It is clear that what we need is to understand "how to offer people tools that allow them to interpret the position in which they are".

Libraries as:

distribution networks
sets of practices
sites of cultural literacy
sites of production
sites of learning
social spaces of text

Rather than looking only at what a library stores, we will also discover what it produces. We will consider collections as not only comprised of things, but also people and actions. In other words, we will attempt to collectively and individually answer the question "How do we library that?".

Schedule

One: Tasks of the Contingent Librarian

Monday, September 19th, 2022

11:00-17:30 Introduction to the Special Issue (with Simon)

Pad:

To introduce ourselves we will use cards from Tasks of the Contingent Librarian:

52 cards on the table (e.g. bootlegging, indexing, scanning, reading, technologising the word, &c)
Choose a card that matches your curiosities and/or interests
Exchange a card with someone else, describing how you relate to the card
Exchange a card, relate that relation to someone else

Make a new card, what information does it need?

Tuesday, September 20th, 2022

11:00-18:00 Prototyping with Manetta & Joseph

Pad:

Wednesday September 21st, 2022

11:00-18:00 Introduction to Methods with Steve

Pad:

Two: Print Screen

Monday, September 26th, 2022

Pad:

Tuesday, September 27th, 2022

11:00-18:00 Prototyping with Manetta & Joseph

Pad:

Wednesday September 28th, 2022

11:00-18:00 Methods with Steve

Pad:

Three: Text, TBC

Monday, October 3rd, 2022

Pad:

Tuesday, October 4th, 2022

11:00-18:00 Prototyping with Manetta & Joseph

Pad:

Wednesday October 5th, 2022

11:00-18:00 Methods with Steve

Pad:

Four: Scribes Getting Personal ☞

Monday, October 10th, 2022

Pad:

Tuesday, October 11th, 2022

11:00-18:00 Prototyping with Manetta & Joseph

Pad:

Wednesday October 12th, 2022

11:00-18:00 Methods with Steve

Pad:

Five: Do e-books dream of electronic spreadsheets?

Monday, October 17th, 2022

Pad:

Tuesday, October 18th, 2022

11:00-18:00 Prototyping with Manetta & Joseph

Pad:

Wednesday October 19th, 2022

11:00-18:00 Methods with Steve

Pad:

🍁🍁🍁

Autumn Vacation

Six: Binding Along the Spine

Monday, October 31st, 2022

Pad:

Tuesday, November 1st, 2022

11:00-18:00 Prototyping with Manetta & Joseph

Pad:

Wednesday November 2nd, 2022

11:00-18:00 Methods with Steve

Pad:

Seven: A Textile, A Framework

Monday, November 7th, 2022

Pad:

Tuesday, November 8th, 2022

11:00-18:00 Prototyping with Manetta & Joseph

Pad:

Wednesday November 9th, 2022

11:00-18:00 Methods with Steve

Pad:

Eight: Paper Machines

Monday, November 14th, 2022

References:

https://wintermute.org/project/Rustic_Computing/

Pad:

Tuesday, November 15th, 2022

11:00-18:00 Prototyping with Manetta & Joseph

Pad:

Wednesday November 16th, 2022

11:00-18:00 Methods with Steve

Pad:

Nine: Readable, Writeable, Executable

Monday, November 21st, 2022

Pad:

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2022

11:00-18:00 Prototyping with Manetta & Joseph

Pad:

Wednesday November 23rd, 2022

11:00-18:00 Methods with Steve

Pad:

Ten

Monday, November 28th, 2022

Pad:

Tuesday, November 29th, 2022

11:00-18:00 Prototyping with Manetta & Joseph

Pad:

Wednesday November 30th, 2022

11:00-18:00 Methods with Steve

Pad:

Eleven

Monday, December 5th, 2022

Pad:

Tuesday, December 6th, 2022

11:00-18:00 Prototyping with Manetta & Joseph

Pad:

Wednesday December 7th, 2022

11:00-18:00 Methods with Steve

Pad:

Twelve

Monday, December 12th, 2022

Pad:

Tuesday, December 13th, 2022

11:00-18:00 Prototyping with Manetta & Joseph

Pad:

Wednesday December 14th, 2022

11:00-18:00 Methods with Steve

Pad:

@@ Line 19: / Line 19: @@
 * sharing knowledge is a social activity
 * book as program, program as library
+* fugitive libraries, the undercommons of libraries in the margins: https://placesjournal.org/article/fugitive-libraries/?cn-reloaded=1
 -->
-Libraries are complex, diverse social infrastructures. It's difficult to describe them without speaking in the generic plural "libraries", or specific singular "a library/the library"; as if they were all the same. Universalisms won't help in understanding what is situated about specific libraries, what makes them particular and important to their publics. For most of you reading this text, the word "library" could elicit images of a public library, built on values of open access to knowledge. You may know of one that has closed, or is now managed with [https://www.bibliotheca.com/ proprietory self-service software], or perhaps even an [https://www.bibliotecha.info/ open-source framework].
+Libraries are complex social infrastructures. It's difficult to describe them without speaking in the generic plural "libraries", or specific singular "a library/the library"; as if they were all the same. Universalisms won't help in understanding what is particular about libraries and collections of texts, or why they have value to their readers.
-But libraries do more than simply give access to knowledge. The sharing of texts is a social practice, bringing readers, writers and editors together in an exchange of positions, ideas, approaches and know-how. Libraries are more than just collections of texts, or containers in which they are kept. They are places where many actions are performed, including reading together, annotating, organising and structuring.
+Public libraries function more than simply as access points to knowledge. They facilitate many actions; including reading together, annotating, organising and structuring. As public libraries vanish, [shadow libraries] and [fugitive libraries https://placesjournal.org/article/fugitive-libraries/?cn-reloaded=1] appear in their wake, answering the call for replacement. How can we understand a library, and make it understandable to others? What are the access points to this library-in-the-making, and where do readers cross over?
 == Special Issue 19 ==