163 - Organize Your Library

This week we’re joined by Mariame to talk about zines in NYC in the 80s, DIY, youth culture, organizing, middle age, yelling at clouds, and building models of the world we might want to live in. Support needed: https://www.mightycause.com/story/Rebuild25 REBUILD provides free therapy for justice-involved and formerly incarcerated people of color. Media mentioned Black Zine Fair https://blackzinefair.org/ Black Zine Fair - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Zine_Fair Bad Seed #1 Miriam Linna Zine Juvenile Delinquent Fanzine Kicks Norton Cramps | eBay  Parterre Box opera zine about + archive - https://parterre.com/about/ Sojourners for Justice Press https://sojourners4justice.press/ Black Zine Fair https://blackzinefair.org/ Black Zine Fair - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Zine_Fair The City In Our Hands https://urbanomnibus.net/2026/04/the-city-in-our-hands/  Transcript: https://pastecode.io/s/g1q7f3d8  Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/qWPTurTnkT

We have Katie Freeway on to talk about self-publishing comics and music, algorithms, baseball, the importance of creativity, handshakemogging, SEO, Resident Evil, if cats are kinda gay, transsexualism, and more!   Buy Katie’s album: https://anti-spectacular.bandcamp.com/album/i-am-this-flesh  Patreon for I Don’t Sleep Well and other comics: https://patreon.com/hausofdecline  https://bsky.app/profile/hausofdecline.bsky.social https://www.instagram.com/hausofdecline/ Media mentioned Beetlemoses comics https://www.instagram.com/beetlemoses/?hl=en  Nick Vost comics https://www.instagram.com/nick.vost/?hl=en Henry Darger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Darger  Gerard Donelan comics https://www.instagram.com/donelancartoons/ Bad Gays podcast https://badgayspod.com/  Doc and Raider comics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_and_Raider  Transcript: https://pastecode.dev/s/ukla4gan  Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/qWPTurTnkT

We’re joined by Dan again to talk about Carnegie libraries, which expanded into a larger discussion of consensus, hegemony, and the future of philanthropy/public funding. We also introduce Maoist Dusty Rhodes. Media mentioned Stevenson, S. (2010). The Political Economy of Andrew Carnegie’s Library Philanthropy, with a Reflection on its Relevance to the Philanthropic Work of Bill Gates. Library & Information History, 26(4), 237–257. https://doi.org/10.1179/175834910X12816060984359  Giesbrecht, H. (2025). Sense and Social Control in Vancouver's Carnegie Free Library, 1901–1910. Urban History Review 53(2), 111-129. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/970361 . Levine, M. (2016). Andrew Carnegie and Bill Gates: Philanthropy and oligarchy, then and now. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 86(1), 1–9. https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fort0000150  WEB Du Bois anecdote about Carnegie: https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/flashbks/black/mcgillbh.htm (decades later, the Foundation refused to publish some Du Bois work on Reconstruction. Du Bois is an interesting foil to Carnegie, with his pitches for a People’s University—which Andrew Douglas and Shannon Mattern both write about).  Raber, D. (2003). Librarians as organic intellectuals: a Gramscian approach to blind spots and tunnel vision. The Library Quarterly, 73(1), 33-53. (More of a riff but provocative and the most explicit engagement with Gramsci on libraries theoretically).  Muskism https://www.harpercollins.com/products/muskism-quinn-slobodianben-tarnoff?variant=43838135402530  Other Dan Greene recommendations Black, A., & Pepper, S. (2012). From civic place to digital space: the design of public libraries in Britain from past to present. Library trends, 61(2), 440-470. Harvey, C., Maclean, M., Gordon, J., & Shaw, E. (2011). Andrew Carnegie and the foundations of contemporary entrepreneurial philanthropy. Business History, 53(3), 425-450. Oehlerts (1991) Books and Blueprints: Building America's Public Libraries. (More about architecture but some business stuff) Mattern (2018) “Fugitive libraries.” Places Journal. (Shannon has a bunch of good stuff) Transcript: https://pastecode.io/s/6p8i4fby  Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/qWPTurTnkT

We’re doing a movie night, where the National Archives and the city of Philly stock footage are main characters. We also pitch our own Hallmark movie directed by Bruce LaBruce about mismanagement set at the Mütter Museum.  Transcript: https://pastecode.io/s/q6fbce2p  Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/qWPTurTnkT

We’re talking about that bad article on critical confabulations in archives. We talk about history as a process, the archive, gaps in our knowledge, language as a conveyor of reality, and The Watermelon Woman.  Media mentioned THE ARTICLE: Critical Confabulation: Can LLMs Hallucinate for Social Good? https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.07722 Guillaume Cabanac, “How a Tortured Conference Becomes a Series: An Analysis of Conference Manipulations” IEEE Xplore  https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11363742  Research repository ArXiv will ban authors for a year if they let AI do all the work, TechCrunch  https://techcrunch.com/2026/05/16/research-repository-arxiv-will-ban-authors-for-a-year-if-they-let-ai-do-all-the-work/  The Watermelon Woman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Watermelon_Woman  Keith Haring Unfinished Painting: https://mymodernmet.com/artificial-intelligence-finishes-keith-harings-unfinished-painting/ Patrick Wyman, Lost Worlds https://www.harpercollins.com/products/lost-worlds-patrick-wyman?variant=43084775817250  Predatory States: Operation Condor and Covert War in Latin America, Patrice McSherry https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/predatory-states-9780742568709/  Dorothea series on patron privacy https://ischool.wisc.edu/continuing-education/tech-crash-course-data-information-privacy/  Transcript: https://pastecode.io/s/3oy0sgqw  Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/qWPTurTnkT

Our second live show! Only Justin could make it to ALA but we’ve got THREE great guests plus very good audience questions. We talk about AI through discourse analysis, refusal, STS, and more.  Guests’ writings Transcending Binaries of Agency through Librarians’ Discursive Constructions of AI https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/961342  Discourses of fear around AI and their implications for library and information science: https://publicera.kb.se/ir/article/view/47548  I Bought Slop: A Conversation on the Accidental Purchase of AI-Generated Material https://acrlog.org/2026/02/09/i-bought-slop-a-conversation-on-the-accidental-purchase-of-ai-generated-material/  ChatGPT Can’t Envision Anything: It’s Actually BS-ing - ACRLog  https://acrlog.org/2023/07/21/chatgpt-cant-envision-anything-its-actually-bs-ing/  A ChatGPT generated post (and a first year librarian’s thoughts) - ACRLog https://acrlog.org/2023/01/31/a-chatgpt-generated-post-and-a-first-year-librarians-thoughts/  “Against AI:Critical Refusal in the Library,” from Library Trends: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/968497  “Relationality Over Neutrality: On Technology,” from Information Technology and Libraries: https://ital.corejournals.org/index.php/ital/article/view/17581  Media mentioned Why We Fear AI: On the Interpretation of Nightmares https://www.commonnotions.org/buy/why-we-fear-ai  Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism https://nyupress.org/9781479837243/algorithms-of-oppression/ Imagination: A Manifesto by Ruha Benjamin https://www.ruhabenjamin.com/imagination-a-manifesto  Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves – In the Library with the Lead Pipe  https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/ Resurrecting the Black Body: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/resurrecting-the-black-body/paper  Investigating the 'Feeling Rules' of Generative AI and Imagining Alternative Futures https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2025/ai-feeling-rules/  Outsiders-within-Library and Information Science: Reprioritizing the marginalized in critical sociocultural work https://asistdl.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/asi.24449  Libraries, Librarians, and the Discourse of Fear https://www.jstor.org/stable/4309528  Transcript: https://pastecode.io/s/08pir9wg  Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/qWPTurTnkT

Media mentioned Radical Infrastructure | University of California Press  https://luminosoa.org/books/m/10.1525/luminos.261 (Open Access) Radical Infrastructure 2023 paper: Radical Infrastructures NMS - BRITT S. PARIS   Podcast w/ 404 Podcast: The Physical Politics of the Internet with Britt Paris  Muskism book https://www.harpercollins.com/products/muskism-quinn-slobodianben-tarnoff Railroad Luxemburg: Rosa Luxemburg’s Theory of Infrastructure and its Consequences for a Public Service Internet https://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/1461  The Accumulation of Capital: A Contribution to an Economic Explanation of Imperialism https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1913/accumulation-capital/  Why We Fear AI: On the Interpretation of Nightmares https://www.commonnotions.org/buy/why-we-fear-ai  What is Communalism? The Democratic Dimension of Anarchism https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-what-is-communalism    Become a member of AAUP: https://www.aaup.org/join QLL librarypunk team: https://givebutter.com/qqlls-pride-campaign-2026-rg3yn3/librarypunk-loves-qll/sadieg1   Transcript: https://pastebin.com/i21ttpMM  Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/qWPTurTnkT

We’re back after a break! We’re talking about our backburner episodes. Episodes we haven’t gotten to yet, guests we’d like to have on. Also: the AI booing at commencements which was very funny.  Media mentioned Violet’s AI zine https://violetbfox.info/against-ai/ Exposing Ex Libris zine https://librarianswithpalestine.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/ExLibris1Color.pdf Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Fight-Like-Hell/Kim-Kelly/9781982171063 The Fall: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460791/ The Great Book Robbery: https://www.palestine-studies.org/en/node/1636018 American Animals: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6212478/ All transcripts: https://podscripts.co/podcasts/librarypunk  Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/qWPTurTnkT

We’re talking with Abby and Hal about NYC Public Library Action Network (PLAN)! Learn about what they’re doing, how you can help, how you can copy them, and what’s working for them by having a community-led library advocacy group that is separate from the library itself.  How can people get involved? nycplan.org  Email your city councilmember https://actionnetwork.org/letters/city-council-we-demand-half-a-percent-of-the-overall-city-budget-for-libraries   May City Council meeting [email protected] for agendas Media mentioned Mamdani failed to deliver on the campaign promises that NYC PLAN pushed him to make. Here's a roundup of coverage in case it helps: NYC PLAN (Newsletter, Feb. 17th, the day after the preliminary budget release) Mariame Kaba Mayor Mamdani Breaks His Promise to NYC Public Libraries (Feb 18th) NEW! The Dreaded NYC Library Budget Dance Continues… (March 23rd) Seven Stories Press: Guest Post: Hal Schrieve on the Fight to Fund NYC Libraries (Feb 27th) WNYC: WNYC_Budget Cuts.mp3 (Feb 20th) The City: Mamdani Promised a New Era for Parks and Libraries. His First Budget Falls Short. (Feb 19th) Literary Hub: New York Mayor Mamdani is breaking his promise on library funding. (Feb 19th) Gothamist: Taking page from Adams, Mayor Mamdani proposes NYC library cuts (Feb 19th) La Voce di New York: Mamdani Proposes Cuts to Public Library Funding–Despite Campaign Promises (Feb 20th) New York Daily News: Budget shortfall may close the book on Mamdani’s library funding promise FOX 5: Clip_Budget Cuts.mp4  (Feb 19th) The New York Post: Mamdani wants to slash NYC library budgets by $30M— despite calling similar cuts by Adams ‘cruel’ (Feb 20th) Here are some details on NYC PLAN's recent assembly event: https://nycplan.org/peoples-assembly-march-21-2026/ And a slide deck from part of the event: Public Library Funding in NYC (Queens, March 2026) https://www.librariansequalliteracy.org/ All transcripts: https://podscripts.co/podcasts/librarypunk  Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/qWPTurTnkT

We’re joined by the authors of Organize Your Library to talk about library labor, the future, the ALA union drive, and more!   Media mentioned Organize Your Library! Developing the Collective Power of Library Workers https://alastore.ala.org/oryrlib ALA union letter: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1v8ACD_ltC3ZW1JBJX6qdheD11xq7tBdR/view  ALA union announcement: https://afscme31.org/news/american-library-association-employees-forming-union-afscme  WNBA players association agreement signed https://www.wnba.com/news/wnba-wnbpa-tentative-cba-deal-2026  NYC Plan https://nycplan.org/ All transcripts: https://podscripts.co/podcasts/librarypunk  Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/qWPTurTnkT