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.