DistributedLibraryProject
From UoWiki
The Distributed Library Project is a library catalogue that allows anyone to nominate their own collection of books as a library, and themselves as a librarian. The software was developed intially in West America, see communitybooks.org . The London DLP is based at the UO in Limehouse, at the domains http://dlp.theps.net and dlpdev.theps.net
Here are some links:
- Software: http://www.thoughtcrime.org/software/dlp
- Nodes: http://dlpdev.theps.net/ListOfExistingDlpNodes
- Uo Limehouse campus node: http://dlp.theps.net/userinfo.php?user=UoLimehouse
- LondonActionResourceCentre node: http://dlp.theps.net/userinfo.php?user=LARC
- See Also: UoLibrary, AntiSystemicLibrary
[edit] Development
- DLP Development Site http://dlpdev.theps.net
- NLDN - Network for the Development of New Language
[edit] Notes
The original blurb for the library is as follows:
> The distributed library project is part of an experiment in sharing information
> and building community. Unfortunately, the traditional library system doesn't
> do much to foster community. Patrons come and go, but there is very little opportunity
> to establish relationships with people or groups of people. In fact, if you try to
> talk with someone holding a book you like - you'll probably get shushed. The
> Distributed Library Project works in exactly the opposite way, where the very
> function of the library depends on interaction.
> http://www.thoughtcrime.org/software/dlp/
an incensed librarian comments:
> "Unfortunately, the traditional lavatory system doesn't do much to foster community.
> Patrons come and go, but there is very little opportunity to establish relationships
> with people or groups of people. In fact, if you try to talk with someone using the
> toilet you like - you'll probably get shushed. The Distributed Lavatory Project works
> in exactly the opposite way, where the very function of the lavatory depends on
> interaction."
> http://openstacks.lishost.com/os/archives/000563.html
Librarians and computer programmers have a lot in common. They have an intimate relationship to knowledge and information, taxonomies and flows of intellectual property, technologies of storage and retrieval. Both disciplines have a familiarity and ease with these ideas and contexts that give them the canny, reassuring air of being native to information, and of course, inform their information politics.
Although some notable Free Software pundits are also rabid, gun-toting libertarians, they do tend to have very sophisticated and often highly politicised attitudes towards intellectual property and privacy.
Similarly, Librarians seem to have the same sophistication, and a similar politicised attitude towards information distribution. A recent example of these attitudes in action is the campaign of librarian Ann Sparanese to ensure that Michael Moore's book 'Stupid White Men' was published, rather than pulped. Once the American Librarian's Association was informed of the plan to pulp the book after September 11th, they started a vigorous campaign to defend its publication. The fact that publishers are still dependent on the purchasing power of libraries gave them a lot of leverage, the publishers submitted, and, of course, made a lot of money publishing Moore's book.
This, and other examples suggest that librarianship often comes with an innate sense of responsibility - not necessarily 'social responsibility', but an awareness of the importance of the role in regulating access to information - a vital and contested resource. In some cases this responsiblity is manifested as social responsibility, possibly because the 'public library' is one of very few points at which the 'public' are granted the right to access information, civic documents and public records, the Internet and other resources.
The image of the library as a privileged, regulated space where knowledge is passed on impartially and in silence has not been accurate for many years, although this is still the dominant norm. In attempts to appeal to a wider public in the early 80's, many libraries opened social spaces, diversified their purchasing to non-english language books, music and video resources, and became hubs of localised activity and education.
In any case, the public library, might never have been the silent, austere institution, stalked by authoritarians waiting to shush noisy readers. Before moveable type and the printing press standardised grammar, spacing between words and spellings, libraries would have been unquiet places full of mumbling readers, speaking the letters as they read, understanding the text only by pronouncing and listening to themselves reading it from the page.
[edit] Problems with the DLP
The DLP as it stands is an anti-amazon, or maybe it can be seen as division of amazon.com that has been outsourced to voluntary workers, cataloguing their own libraries
- f amazon purchases, using bar-code scanners bought with their own meagre capital to make their self-imposed labour more efficient.
Until the AntiSystemicLibrary comes into being, the DLP will remain stuck here.
see also:
