User:Simon/Trim4/Thesis outline third draft

TASKS OF THE CONTINGENT LIBRARIAN

1. ACQUIRING TEXTS

• why do we need texts? what is their function?
  • technology of language and its evolution through orality > literacy
  • preservation of memory - language inscribed in oral traditions, and in writing
  • social - the recollection of this memory forms narratives that constitutes subjectivity
• ways of reading: browsing vs searching, skimming vs scanning
• access to texts (or lack thereof) - where do they come from?
• copyright law and authorship - Eva Weinmayr’s essay
• technical methods of digitising printed texts
  • scanning, processing text, redesigning, reprinting, make-do workflows
• personal experience of using libraries?

2. CLASSIFYING AND CATALOGUING THEM

• aspects of classification
  • social, linguistic, semiotic, political
  • collections of texts
    • professional, amateur, critical librarianship practices and how they relate to these aspects
• what connects the books and the readers
• how does locality relate to the collection?
• proximity
  • in the infrastructure of the library (the catalogue, the shelves, the folders, the interface)

3. MAKING TEXTS ACCESSIBLE

• conversion between formats for diverse reading needs
• knowledge distribution methods and networks (distinction between digital and analog methods is blurry as they are often combined)
  • social
    • distribution of objects arranged through a social network:
  • governmental
    • copyright law and its restrictions on distribution of knowledge
  • municipal
    • public libraries, social initatives (e.g. Leeszaal)
  • pirate
    • bootlegging, samizdat, warez, zine culture, unofficial/uncatalogued publications
• locality
• making it public vs making it private - the survival of the library
• pirate vs commercial models - what’s at stake?

4. CREATING A SYMBOLIC LINK BETWEEN TEXTS AND READERS

• a definition of the symbolic (Lacan’s example of a door and its uses outside of binary open/closed)
  • what are the conditions for this symbolic link to resonate and persevere?
• what strategies can be adopted to initiate and maintain this?
  • associating texts with the people who read, annotate, and discuss them
  • shifting power relations from top-down to bottom-up models of library infrastructure
  • promoting the sociability libraries through
    • collectively organised cataloguing and classifying systems
    • bootlegging and unofficial publishing practices
    • localised distribution methods