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<h2>bootlegging</h2>
<p>see also <ahref="diversifying.html">diversifying through use</a>, <ahref="multiplying.html">multiplying form</a>, <ahref="republishing.html">republishing</a>
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<p>Most people think of bootlegs as cheap knock-off products that masquerade as the real deal; bootleg cigarettes, designer-label clothes, not-quite-right imitations of Disney products and the like. Bootlegging began during the prohibition era with the practice of illegally distilling and distributing alcoholic beverages, often literally concealed in the leg of a boot while being transported. Run an image search on the keyword “bootleg” and you’ll probably see all sorts of suspicious-looking products. But the way I want to speak of bootlegging is as a social act, a homage, and one that creates and celebrates a multiplicity of form. I’m referring in particular to the vibrant culture of music sharing in the 1970s that followed portable cassette tape recorders entering the market. These allowed fans to cheaply record live performances and share these recordings—also known as bootlegs.</p>
<p>Image: A “bootlegger” concealing a flask of an illegally distributed alcoholic beverage in the leg of a boot during the Prohibition era</p>
<p>Publications acquire difference through reproduction; sometimes intentionally, always circumstantially. A printed book always ends up in the hands of at least one reader. It is transported, pages are dog-eared and annotated, time weathers the paper and cracks the spine. Multiply this by many readers, and each printed copy starts to accumulate its own traces, losing resemblance to the rest of the edition and acquiring its own particular countenance and provenance through use.</p>
<p>Image: 1. Books are for use. The first law of S. R. R. Rangathan’s <i>5 Laws of Library Science</i>, 1931</p>
<ahref="tasks.html"target="verso">a link to tasks.html</a><br>
<ahref="diversifying_rvrs.html"target="recto">a link to diversifying_rvrs</a>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Image: “Deadheads” recording a live Grateful Dead concert, 1972
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<ahref="multiplying_rvrs.html"target="recto">multiplying form reverse</a><br>
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<imgsrc="./IMG/Woven_papyrus_sheet.jpeg"><p>This is the producing texts reverse page</p>
<ahref="tasks.html"target="verso">a link back to tasks</a>
<ahref="http://simonbrowne.biz/projects/from-the-books-slv-rbrr-000-099/"target="recto">From the books project</a>
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<ahref="https://pzwiki.wdka.nl/mediadesign/User:Simon/Trim4/Running_backwards_through_the_library"target="recto">Running backwards through the library</a>
<ahref="http://simonbrowne.biz/projects/from-the-books-slv-rbrr-000-099/"target="recto">From the books project</a>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<ahref="tasks.html"target="bottom">a link to tasks.html</a><br>
<ahref="republishing_rvrs.html"target="recto">a link to republishing_rvrs</a>
