CallingAllLibrarians

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Calling All Librarians

"Archives are not built so that we can remember, but rather to allow us to forget"
- Istvan Rev.

The promise of universal access to all human knowledge is a triple edged sword. Between the militaristic fantasy of 'Total Information Awareness', the uncharted legal territories of the intellectual 'commons' and the realpolitik

• f the world-as-content-management-system sits a librarian. The hackers kicked

down the walls of the old public libraries, threw open the most esoteric and precious collections and started building new structures, but now they've spent their anger these infrastructures look fragile, disconnected, a pile of dry leaves, already doused in petrol by the recording industry, ready to burn as soon as international governance throws a match.

Librarians have been here before, and as we are all required to take responsibility for our information resources - material, intellectual, and genetic, this tradition of information professionals can teach us a lot.

CALL FOR DISCUSSION

What is actually going on?

A large, disorganised group is coming together to discuss libraries. Initially, how to share physical resources: books, films, media, zines, flyers and other collections. Underlying this is a concern with managing exchange, while preserving the independence and unique taxonomies of the individual collections. So far there have been conversations, some informal exchanges, exploration of possible uses of software, existing distribution networks and tentative plans for future developments. But this is really the start.

What shall we do?

There is an almost overwhelming amount to be done here - from figuring out metadata exchange formats, adapting and writing software, to sharing information about paper preservation techniques and shelf design. This is a call for discussion. There will probably be lots of problems brought to the table, and one or two possible solutions. If you have something to demonstrate, discuss or request, bring it to the FM@dia conference, Prague, on the Thursday 10th June, 2004, at 2:30pm. in the NoD, conference hall.

Who is involved?

Anyone who wants to be, but so far the writers of this call for discussion are aware of the following groups:

• The Distributed Library Project (http://dlpdev.theps.net), global.
• Burundi datalab (http://www.burundi.sk), Bratislava, Slovakia.
• The East London Specialist Archive (http://elsa.org.uk), London, UK.
• The 1in12 Centre Library (http://1in12.go-legend.net/library.htm), Bradford, UK.
• Beograd PGA organisers (http://www.pgaconference.org/), Beograd, YU
• The London Action Resource Centre (http://www.londonarc.org), London, UK.
• The University of Openess Library (http://uo.theps.net/UoLibrary), London, UK.
• The Antisystemic Library (http://www.antisystemic.org), London, UK.
• Mute Magazine (http://www.metamute.com), London, UK.
• Freedom Press (http://vega.soi.city.ac.uk/louise/freehome.html), London, UK.
• The Sumac Centre (http://www.veggies.org.uk/sumac/), Nottingham, UK.
• The LUX (http://lux.org.uk), London, UK