What's collections?
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I see there's a feature being tested (?), something called collections
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/node
Probably too early to comment on any of it, but I worry this will be the beginning of a strong meta-narrative for the entire library, affirming some of the most persistent but nonsensical categories and stories about the anarchist tradition. Please tell me that's not the path we're going down here.
Different anon here. Also…
Different anon here. Also not pleased to see that. If librarians want to tell their story of anarchy, start a blog or something.
IDK what ya'll are crying…
IDK what ya'll are crying about, its a great idea. The fact there aren't more of them is whats unfortunate.
i notice that you don't…
i notice that you don't explain what is great about the idea.
the librarians' first attempt shows what's bad about it. how is stirner a classical anarchist? he never even used the word. nor does he have anything at all to do with the others on the list, who barely have anything to do with each other.
forcing authors and texts into neat categories stinks of the academy. i imagine the person behind it fancies themselves as a professor, if they're not already one.
pet rock collections
The Collections you reference for the moment are new and an experiment. There hasn't been much conversation about the subject for the English language project since the new Amusewiki feature came out. It's definitely a works in progress and I haven't made up my mind about it all yet. I'm not the librarian that created the first collection, so perhaps they would like to chime in here with some of their thinking as well. I think it would be a good idea to put the collections feature on pause while we chat about it.
Here are some questions that I was thinking about: What do you like / dislike about collections? Do you think that topics / tags are different than collections? If so, how? How do you define what a collection is? What kind of library collections are out there in the world to compare and contrast with? What are some other anarchist collections you might imagine other than the current "classical" one? If the collections feature seems too "academic" how can this be subverted?
I think categories like…
I think categories like Montréal Counter-Information, Puget Sound Anarchists, etc. could be good, to collect things together that were posted on specific sites.
the anarchist library is an…
the anarchist library is an archive of texts uploaded by thousands of anarchists over the last decade. whoever wrote the ''classical anarchism'' list is overriding that, saying (on the front page) THESE are the texts to read, and they're doing it in the name of the library as a whole.
the last new feature i saw on the library (''librarian's picks'') was great and long overdue. this new feature is shockingly bad. i imagine whoever wrote it thinks they're ''guiding the anarcho-newbie'' or something... i'd ask them why do they think anyone needs guiding? and why by you? what do you think might happen if you don't guide them? would it be such a bad thing if someone read something from outside the canon?
i mean, to begin with, the…
i mean, to begin with, the website should be called something like "ananarchistlibrary" and the domain with "the" in the beginning of it should be turned into a redirect. oh well. we can't have it all, folks.
there's already a metanarrative
TAL (like any other library) already makes choices defining how people understand the shape & history of anarchist ideas via its choices to include or exclude certain texts. those choices have already been controversial enough to produce a split years ago:
https://anarchistlibraries.net/history
this also implicitly answers the commenter wondering about "the", since that network was built specifically to challenge TAL's presumed authority
https://anarchistlibraries.net/libraries
plus of course there are countless offline libraries etc.
adding a handful of…
adding a handful of controversial texts into the mix of thousands of others is not the same as handpicking a dozen and saying, on the front page, THIS IS ANARCHY
THE vs AN
To be honest, when the library was founded it started off as THE Anarchist Library, but shortly after one librarian quipped that we made a mistake and it should have been called AN Anarchist Library. The person that mentioned this first is still part of the project, so this sentiment has been around since the very beginning. It has been discussed on social media over the years some as well. As for me, I like THE perhaps just because it has always been this way and AN just doesn't sound the same. The library split mentioned above is resharing this idea that librarians mentioned who are still part of the project, I think is a key takeaway and somewhat of a rebuttle to their version of "history".
if you're going to insist on…
if you're going to insist on running with this idea then at least put it into draft form until it's finished because as it stands you have a baby anarchist '''my first collection''' on your front page
No Godwin in this collection…
No Godwin in this collection? Why publish a draft on your front page? Or is that your final list?
I'm with the OP on this. …
I'm with the OP on this. You are "affirming some of the most persistent but nonsensical categories and stories about the anarchist tradition", nothing more.
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