https://chat.whatsapp.com/FDnzeUw4k6C6uBNQsqzohj
Programme for the week: http://pad.constantvzw.org/p/letsbuildalibrarytogether
WEDNESDAY
Notes Library
*- scan the notes
*- catalog the calibre
*- invite others to bring their own (via facebook)
*
Library Facebook Page
everyone invite one person
a plan of the room and plot/print it. annotate the plan.
a poster for the opening (of the library)
imaginary proposals: e.g. leave shoes outside, access question, who has a key, wifi..
what is the space by the content? different elements: music sheets, comic, notes..
how does connect all together? visible? legible?
visibility of the capacities.
research groups:
- notes
- changes in a regime of the use, the way how the library will be used
- shift in content (curation of the book of the month, students/user content...)
TUESDAY
Welcome librarians, librarians welcome!
Shadow Libraries:
http://www.ubu.com
http://libgen.io
https://monoskop.org/
https://monoskop.org/log/
https://library.memoryoftheworld.org
https://ebooks.wtf
http://sci-hub.cc/
https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/
http://www.jstor.org/
https://njal.la
Digitisation:
manual: https://www.memoryoftheworld.org/blog/2014/12/08/how-to-bookscanning/
ScanTailor: https://github.com/scantailor/scantailor
OCR: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_character_recognition
Abbyy: https://www.abbyy.com/en-eu/finereader/
Calibre http://calibre-ebook.com/download
Sharing over the local network: preferences > sharing over the net > launch server > test server
letsharebooks plugin https://www.memoryoftheworld.org/blog/cat/tools/
Bugreporting Letssharebooks plugin: https://github.com/marcellmars/letssharebooks
https://monoskop.org/Kittler/Index
https://monoskop.org/Architecture
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Memory of the world -- borrowed from a Unesco programme. Providing access to all knowledge to all humanity ! Ref. Henri Lafontaine, global librarian gathering. Starting to think about the world, first time in history it was possible to think 'The World'
Public Library --
HYPE festival 2012
library.nu shut down that year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library.nu
going from the idea that 'everything could be on the Internet' to ... maybe not.
sparked the idea to do a Public Library project. Wanting the festival to become a library.
The repository got copied to Library Genesis. http://libgen.io/ MM: "The winner takes it all because of the network effect".
Important: Libgen offers a complete download, not just single books.
Public Library manifesto https://www.memoryoftheworld.org/blog/2014/10/27/public-library/
Putting the political relevance of the library at the same level as Wikipedia.
Connecting to the idea of the institutionalised version of Public Library, a space where it is ok to have all the books you want.
Paradox: PL was possible, but was actively made impossible. (defunding, copyright)
The end-to-end catalog https://www.memoryoftheworld.org/blog/2012/11/26/end-to-end-catalog-2/
Could the librarian be a robot?
Why is Amazon, Google not a library ... they have algorithms but no librarians.
When everyone is a librarian, library is everywhere.
The Library as an event.
One terrabyte of kilobyte age: http://blog.geocities.institute/
Some special collections. For different reasons, for example:
*KOK http://kok.memoryoftheworld.org/ creating a workflow as a collective process. Commissioning someone to create a scanner (like the one in the library here)
*Hermans library https://herman.memoryoftheworld.org Radicalized while in jail. Accused of having killed a guard, solitary confinement for life. There is a room for Herman in the castle.
*The written-off collection
*...
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MONDAY
Tomislav Medak:
An explosion of access in the digital. Public libraries as a response to reading culture, trading books. When reading and books were not accessible, Public Library was 'born'. Coincidence with movable type. Books cheaper, available.
What is the meaning of literature? Social impact? Who controls?
Commercial aspects ... who can afford?
2 revolutions: French revolution - 'everybody is equal, everybody is free' (but only once enlightened).
moving the work of enlightment from church to state -- public library
2nd revolution: right to self education, reading rooms - Public Libraries. ref. chartist movement. Right to vote. Efforts failed ...
Access to knowledge without financial barriers.
Digital age: Public libraries have become the losers, they do not have the same abilities, PL are not allowed to fulfill their role. Economic model of dissemination radically changed.
Institutional crisis.
Memory of the world: interest in user created libraries -- shadow libraries.
Example: When studying ... some books, old, various languages, not a lot in English. Needed friends with access. Now: you can reach many materials through shadowlibraries
At the same time, public libraries defunded, closed, less staff -- a double crisis.
Shifting modes of dissemination, PL need to pay a lot of money to give access (it is expensive to have legal access to digital materials, especially academic language).
So ... how can we think of PL differently in this context? Expand their mission? What types of material should be there?
Marcell Mars:
Easy to forget how things we took for granted, are achieved. Often it takes political struggle.
Memory of the world tries to remind us of that. Histories of institutions, how did they get here?
How did architecture begin?
Invitation: in times of crisis we can self-organise, we can make our own library (cooperatives)
Amateur librarian:
*--> a course in amateur librarian: a skill-set and knowledge that we're devising a curriculum around
*--> there are many areas where technologies challenge professions, so we'll introduce a couple of tools to become an amateur librarian and to claim public library --> our articulation should be convincing, our project strong
https://library.memoryoftheworld.org 50.000 books :-)
Emancipatory potential in re-claiming public library; there was emancipatory potential in the early interet -- and some of the traces are still around, so we want to re-claim them too
Memory of the world at the crossing of Internet and Public library.
We are amateur librarians:
Design, advanced internet users, philosophers, media theory, artists, ...
"If you do it as art, you get away with it. If you say it is political, you get in jail"
Friday: Open up the library ...
Anoushesh
Took some courses, got interested in Memory of the world. From the US -- very strict. Circulation of books, fascinated: we can scan books! Now building a library at Kunstverein. How to think physical vs digital library, and what about access.
Vladimir
Part of study to go to libraries, in Austria much bigger in scale, open-minded and welcoming. Before it was difficult to get the information because of limite acces, whereas nowadays there's much rubbish and 'noise' --> filtering function, verifiability.
Dejan
Researcher at IZK... very situatued in our library here...
Dejan loves Memory of the world :-)
how to transform this space? part of the contribution/promise to IZK. a big challenge/test... which kind of intervention we will get here in institutional setup of IZK.
An inhabitant. This place is one year old.
Milica
Will be with us in a certain way !
Thomas
a classical musician. make collection after finding/searching/browsing the internet. the notes (items).
finding them on different websites, writing his own, ...
making folders, sorted by composer in order to find them. mainly pdfs, sometimes as midi as well, writes in Sibelius
Alex
How can a library work in a digital context. As an architect interested in those questions, important they come together. Detail/additional info is in library. books and magazines (part of research). Library as provider of thicker context to information you find in the internet.
Kristian
Did not use a library so much. Downloads pdfs for music, amateur accordionist and violin player. "of course illegal". Is it a big room with a thousand of books? But what if it is a website?
Emirhan
No real connection to libraries? Interested in what happens when physical libraries close, and shift to digital spaces? Curious about where we will get after 5 days. MM: maybe a combination could work.
Dani
Was at art school before architecture, where he used the library frequently --> it was a small room packed with books, but there's so much more to a library as space than finding books: it's a space where you can work on information, socialize around it, study together. Library as a safe space.
(starbuck does not cut it)
Michael
Studies architecture. Not just pdfs, digital files but also handwritten stuff. Notes from my friends! Archpoint-x
Would be interesting to open up to larger audiences. Who is running it? Let's find out! (started by Kleinraum? It collapsed ... someoe else took over, new url ... now re-vived)
http://www.archpoint-x.at/
Stephanie
First library was primary school library, for a small girl a small space was big space, but she knew all the books in there. The next library was university library, where scale is different -- you go to the digital catalog where you search for books -- you can't know every book in the library, it's location is only traceable through catalog. Staatsbibliothek -- keyword search, but no content. Ways of searching information is different in different libraries.
READING TIP: Paper Machines: About Cards & Catalogs, 1548-1929 by Markus Krajewski (https://library.memoryoftheworld.org/b/PaRC3gldHrZ3MuNPXyrh1hM1meyyaqvhaWl-HTvr53NRjJ2k)
Libraries are about how to organise books in a space. What to do with too many books? Catalogs become interface to the physical arrangements. Bound books vs. a catalog vs. cards/loose leafs.
Uka
Since the library has become digitized ... interested in how to combine digital with physical books. Reading physical ones are better
Digital not accurate, question of trust.
Reading: Library as infrastructure
Adding a grain of salt at what is happening to libraries changing their core mission.
Shannon Mattern book: The New Downtown Library: Designing With Communities (https://library.memoryoftheworld.org/b/NzncXQbIu--CWQU3e9Und13TWDccInN8N5p0prDW5Sis-WMM)
Dewey: into many businesses.
mutually reinforcing material and intellectual practices = infrastructure
"knowledge solutions business". Compare with now: library is not that far from Amazon (in principle). In practice, that might not be the same.
What is infrastructure
- where to find what, how to find it
Shifting the attention from 'what' to 'how'.
relation to structure. both material and symbolic.
Epistomology = the science of knowledge. How do we know? In libraries: usually expressed through classification.
Libraries with swimming pools!
Notes on the Erection of Library Buildings
Carnegie: investing in workers education. Carnegie mellon
Patrons vs. users vs. clients vs. readers
technical resources vs. low-tech, non technical
Libraries are not just about information.
viewing library as platform = poor men's amazon (so you can shut it own soon after, because Amazon is doing it better anyway)
Libraries picking up the slack:
- Libraries become social service providers
- Libraries are representing 'civic mindedness'. Heterogeneity. Not just mind but also body.
A sense of scale:
150 million books ever published (this guess by Google)
35 million books scanned by Google
3 million books scanned by archive.org (mainly public domain, + 70 years after death of the author)
10 million books on Amazon
2 million books on Libgen (also fiction)
50.000 books memory of the world, Monsokop, aaaargh
3000 books (Marcell)
1000 books (Femke)
100.000 non-fiction books available in English
600-700 books self-scanned by Liberated books project KOK
40 million scientific articles on sci-hub
Ecology = a sytem of systems. that's her point: ethical, infrastructural, epistemilogical, social ... systems are co-dependent.
"architectures" -> systems
http://www.mondotheque.be/wiki/index.php/Amateur_Librarian_-_A_Course_in_Critical_Pedagogy