+ Tasks of the Contingent Librarian
+ diversifying through use
+ bootlegging
+ multiplying form
+ producing texts
+ republishing
+ being kind to the reader
+ + + + + + + + + + + + diff --git a/sketches/site3/multiplying.html b/sketches/site3/multiplying.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd2f095 --- /dev/null +++ b/sketches/site3/multiplying.html @@ -0,0 +1,47 @@ + + + + + +
multiplying form
+see also bootlegging, diversifying through use, producing texts, republishing +
+The jam band The Grateful Dead were followed around the United States by a legion of die-hard fans, proclaiming themselves “Deadheads”. Cheaply available cassette recorders allowed them to tape concerts and then share recordings amongst each other. Thinking of this, I’m reminded of John Cage’s motto, “Everything you do is music, and everywhere is the best seat.” Each position in the audience produces a slightly different recording, and this multiplicity of form connects the audience not only with the music, but with each other.
+There are files in the library that are of the same text, but they have travelled different paths to get there, accumulating difference through methods such as annotation and material transformation. And so, they have different materialities, lending weight to the argument that a text is not identical with itself; that there is no such thing as a unique, singular, original “work”, but instead many different versions of texts, born through the accidents of their creation.
+Image: “Deadheads” recording a live Grateful Dead concert, 1972 +
+ flipside+ + + + + + + + + + + + diff --git a/sketches/site3/multiplying_rvrs.html b/sketches/site3/multiplying_rvrs.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5352188 --- /dev/null +++ b/sketches/site3/multiplying_rvrs.html @@ -0,0 +1,44 @@ + + + + + +
This is the multiplying reverse page
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + diff --git a/sketches/site3/multiplying_snippets_01.html b/sketches/site3/multiplying_snippets_01.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e2b047a --- /dev/null +++ b/sketches/site3/multiplying_snippets_01.html @@ -0,0 +1,60 @@ + + + + + +10.10.19 +
A few notes on what I'm doing at the moment:
+bootleg library
+The "bootleg library" is a pirate library I've set up that is available over the Hogeschool Rotterdam local network. It's basically calibre-web https://github.com/janeczku/calibre-web at the moment, and I'm bootstrapping the instance (as opposed to developing the software before release) because I'm interested in what type of culture can develop around its use, and therefore what type of sociability comes from this type of library. If you find yourself near one of their buildings (and still have access to the network), you can visit the library at this address:
+ +http://145.24.131.15:20190/
+ +I think I might have mentioned the way in which I'm thinking about the library, which is kind of like a community garden. The collection is not very big (there's always lib gen, sci-hub et al if you just want to download a particular book), and I'm trying to highlight the embodied knowledge available within my local network of people by encouraging uploaders to tag the books with a reference of the referrer (the uploader themself or another person). Kind of like an ex-libris that lets you know something about the book if you know the person. Other than this rule, I'm also asking people to upload texts that they are familiar with, wish to share, and feel that they represent them in some way. This is with the aim of associating texts more closely with readers, rather than writers, and to therefore somewhat reduce the authoritarian position of the author.
+ +The library is also physical; so far I have created a small selection of printed books (all made at PZI), and have them available to be borrowed, read and annotated, as long as they are returned. I'm interested in what type of transformations may happen to the texts in this way, and whether the para-text that evolves could somehow become a part of new publications.
+ +material translations of texts
+If the library is a community garden, then the texts are the seeds, and the form of the books within it can mutate and change from generation to generation depending on the way the garden is tended, by myself or other gardeners. Starting with Burrough's idea of the written word as a virus that makes the spoken word possible, I'm exploring what can happen when texts are treated as biological elements that can grow and evolve. I'm thinking about this evolution as "material translations", not in a linguistic sense, but to see what happens when texts travel through different material representations.
+ +Which leads me to what I wanted to ask you about... + +
I'm interested in exploring new ways of working with texts as a departure to the tool I'm most familiar with; the Adobe CS. Apart from weasyprint and flat https://xxyxyz.org/flat, I haven't worked with many more F/LOSS graphics software, but I'm quite interested in finding out more, and adding a material diversity to the community garden of a library I've made.
+ +I thought I'd ask you for some help with this as you are quite skilled, passionate and involved in using F/LOSS graphics, and could probably point me in the right direction in terms of workflow. First of all, are there any you'd recommend for laying out long documents? I'm also quite interested in ones that might be used to design layouts from texts available on Etherpad (another ambition of mine is to see if I can create publications from the pads we use).
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + diff --git a/sketches/site3/note.html b/sketches/site3/note.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a454759 --- /dev/null +++ b/sketches/site3/note.html @@ -0,0 +1,44 @@ + + + + + +*A note to the reader:
+This text has been written with the intention to be materialised in a very specific form; a set of A6-sized index cards, contained in a box. Please read it while holding the cards in your hands, shuffling and reordering them, making your own text as you read. +
These cards list the tasks performed on the site of contingencies, the bootleg library. Tasks are described on the obverse, and related images and references are on the reverse. +
+ Tasks of the Contingent Librarian+ + + + + + + + + + + + diff --git a/sketches/site3/producing.html b/sketches/site3/producing.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..92c50a0 --- /dev/null +++ b/sketches/site3/producing.html @@ -0,0 +1,53 @@ + + + + + +
producing texts
+see also annotating, glossing, understanding texts +
+Historically, the word “text” comes from the Proto-Indo-European word teks-, meaning “to weave, to fabricate, to make; make wicker or wattle framework”. The written word is a text, and so is a conversation, both represent the exchange of shared concepts woven into the fabric of communication. There is also an exchange between written and spoken texts; discussions which influence writing, and writing which sparks conversations. +
The digital library creates texts through its catalogue, where the metadata for each entry comprises a paratext[1] that not only adds meaning to the core text, but also influences how a reader will discover it in the collection by fields such as tags and description. Metadata which is downloaded and entered automatically comes from online commercial sources has a particular promotional tone. Those who write metadata should do so subjectively; descriptions based on personal significance represent the text and the readers, equivalently. +
The library is sustained through producing texts. +
Image: Papyrus, an early writing surface made from woven reeds +
+-
+
- ↑ Genette, G. (1997) Paratexts: thresholds of interpretation. Literature, culture, theory 20. Cambridge ; New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press. + +
This is the producing texts reverse page
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + diff --git a/sketches/site3/republishing.html b/sketches/site3/republishing.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4743616 --- /dev/null +++ b/sketches/site3/republishing.html @@ -0,0 +1,46 @@ + + + + + +republishing
+see also bootlegging, diversifying through use, multiplying form +
+Samizdat publishers considered a printed text to be officially published if it came in an edition of at least 5 copies. The library considers this to be excessive, and reduces that number to 1. One copy of a text can be shared and enriched by the accumulated annotations of many readers. A one-to-many-publishing model distributes texts to the widest possible public. The library instead insists on a many-to-one model, drawing many readers to one text. Republishing the one text many times creates a multiplicity of form, and subsequently a multiplicity of publics in each instance.
+Image: Staff working at Publication Studio, London. Publication Studio is a federated publishing network with studios located worldwide. Books ordered from the shared catalog are printed and bound one-at-a-time by the closest studio. Differences in availability of paper and machinery at each studio means that the materiality of each instance of a printed text will vary depending on where and how the books are made.
+ + flipside + + + + + + + + + + + + diff --git a/sketches/site3/republishing_rvrs.html b/sketches/site3/republishing_rvrs.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fac4ef7 --- /dev/null +++ b/sketches/site3/republishing_rvrs.html @@ -0,0 +1,43 @@ + + + + + +
This is the republishing reverse page
+Tasks of the Contingent Librarian
+The library is closed, the shelves are empty, the librarian has gone. All that is left is a set of index cards contained in a box. At the top of each card is a verb introducing the tasks performed within the space and duration of a particular, situated social infrastructure called the “bootleg library”. The reverse includes references and images that illustrate each task. +
This text was written with, by and for readers during library sessions. We wrote on cards by hand, we typed words in a collaborative writing environment. We wrote them together; humans and machines; texts were blended into a mix of keystrokes in changesets too complex, and dependencies too layered to determine singular authorship. These texts were never objects, always processes[1]. +
Participation from readers became a vital element in the practice of librarianship. The library grew, and we sustained it through conversation and correspondence. We wrote together in threads and strings; and so we created and maintained a space for publication. In the journey from private to public collection, texts were intermingled and rematerialised, gaining provenance and diversification through use. The readers are in the pages of the books, in the metadata of the library and on these cards, where traces of their presence remain. +
This text will never be complete. It describes a particular, situated library, one that does not exist anymore, but resembles those that came before it and those that will succeed it. This set of cards is also a library, a collection organised into a structure that directs readers towards the interior, towards the texts it contains. This set is a book, a hyper-index, forever pointing outwards to other books, libraries, readers and writers. Text, library, book and index all come together in this particular material form to comprise a manual, a thing to be manipulated in the hands of readers. +
Cards invite shuffling, re-organising, flipping over, distributing, annotating, laying out. An A6 card like the one you’re holding now fits comfortably into the palm of one’s hand, and can be easily turned as it is gripped between the index finger and thumb. +
Cards have two sides. Arranged on a table, only one side is visible, and proximity determines connections. Held in the hands and flipped like a book, new relationships between the verso and recto pages emerge. The reader becomes the writer anew, determining what to keep or discard, what to edit or leave as is; the author of the sequence, connections and hierarchy between tasks. +
+-
+
- ↑ Barthes, R., ‘From Work to Text’, in Barthes, R. and Heath, S. (1987) Image, music, text. London: Fontana Press. + +