librarypunk

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

info@nycplan.org 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

This week we’re joined by Steph to talk about fashion and librarianship: how it works, how they intersect, and how fashion is interdisciplinary. We also learn about how you get into this gig!

Media mentioned
Good general article: Frederiksen, Linda. “Fashion by Design.” Library Journal, vol. 131, no. 10, June 2006, pp. 79–81. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=297645b9-2580-3b4f-bdae-8ee2344a2633.

Costume Institute article: Kazmi, Sahar. “A CENTURY OF FASHION: Library Collections Reflect the Evolution of 20th-Century American Style.” Library of Congress Magazine, vol. 13, no. 1, Jan. 2024, pp. 14–19. EBSCOhost, https://www.loc.gov/lcm/pdf/LCM_2024_0102.pdf 

ARLIS article: King, Lindsay M., and Russell T. Clement. “Style and Substance: Fashion in Twenty-First-Century Research Libraries.” Art Documentation: Journal of the Art Libraries Society of North America, vol. 31, no. 1, Mar. 2012, pp. 93–107. EBSCOhost, doi.org/10.1086/664912  

Library Journal's September By The Numbers focused on fashion libraries: “Fashion and Beauty.” American Libraries, vol. 56, no. 9/10, Sept. 2025, p. 11 https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2025/09/02/by-the-numbers-fashion-and-beauty/ 

All previous transcripts: https://podscripts.co/podcasts/librarypunk 

Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/qWPTurTnkT

Part 2 of our discussion with Jonny and Jez about SciOp, a torrent-focused data preservation project that encourages academics to help with the act of making data available. It’s distributed, it’s robust, and SciOp is working on making it easy to do.

contact@safeguar.de 

Contact Jonny: 

Fedi: https://elektrine.com/remote/jonny@neuromatch.social
Bsky: https://bsky.app/profile/jo.nny.rip

Media mentioned

https://sciop.net/

https://forum.safeguar.de/about

https://blog.sciop.net/2025-08-29/webseeds 

https://punctumbooks.com/titles/warez-the-infrastructure-and-aesthetics-of-piracy/ 

Safeguarding/sciop: collecting at-risk data in torrent rss feeds - Codeberg.org

- https://codeberg.org/safeguarding/sciop
- the scraping code, such as it is: https://codeberg.org/Safeguarding/sciop-scraping

- sciop the blog, such as it is: https://blog.sciop.net/

https://programminghistorian.org/

https://book.the-turing-way.org/ 

last episodes on federation:

https://www.librarypunk.gay/e/101-mastodon-bluesky-and-bullshit-part-1-feat-jonny-saunders/

https://www.librarypunk.gay/e/102-mastodon-bluesky-and-bullshit-part-2-feat-jonny/ 

Tools mentioned

webrecorder, browser trix

https://webrecorder.net/ 

https://webrecorder.net/browsertrix/

academictorrents - academic data tracker https://academictorrents.com/

aggregor mauve https://agregore.mauve.moe/ 

DRP - lumos https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/sites/datalumos/home

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_hash_table 

https://torrentfreak.com/controversy-as-rookie-admin-aspires-to-bittorrent-domination-080730/ 

ddos secrets https://ddosecrets.org/ 

Archive Team Warrior https://tracker.archiveteam.org/ 

How to contribute to sciop 

https://sciop.net/docs/quickstart/ 

Create account.

Create a torrent. [find how to link for how to create a torrent]

Upload. 

Get permission so they are visible to others. 

Seed.

All transcripts: https://podscripts.co/podcasts/librarypunk 

Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/qWPTurTnkT

We’re talking with Jonny and Jez about SciOp, a torrent-focused data preservation project that encourages academics to help with the act of making data available. It’s distributed, it’s robust, and SciOp is working on making it easy to do.

contact@safeguar.de 

Contact Jonny: 

Fedi: https://elektrine.com/remote/jonny@neuromatch.social
Bsky: https://bsky.app/profile/jo.nny.rip

Media mentioned

https://sciop.net/

https://forum.safeguar.de/about

https://blog.sciop.net/2025-08-29/webseeds 

https://punctumbooks.com/titles/warez-the-infrastructure-and-aesthetics-of-piracy/ 

Safeguarding/sciop: collecting at-risk data in torrent rss feeds - Codeberg.org

- https://codeberg.org/safeguarding/sciop
- the scraping code, such as it is: https://codeberg.org/Safeguarding/sciop-scraping

- sciop the blog, such as it is: https://blog.sciop.net/

https://programminghistorian.org/

https://book.the-turing-way.org/ 

last episodes on federation:

https://www.librarypunk.gay/e/101-mastodon-bluesky-and-bullshit-part-1-feat-jonny-saunders/

https://www.librarypunk.gay/e/102-mastodon-bluesky-and-bullshit-part-2-feat-jonny/ 

Tools mentioned

webrecorder, browser trix

https://webrecorder.net/ 

https://webrecorder.net/browsertrix/

academictorrents - academic data tracker https://academictorrents.com/

aggregor mauve https://agregore.mauve.moe/ 

DRP - lumos https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/sites/datalumos/home

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_hash_table 

https://torrentfreak.com/controversy-as-rookie-admin-aspires-to-bittorrent-domination-080730/ 

ddos secrets https://ddosecrets.org/ 

Archive Team Warrior https://tracker.archiveteam.org/ 

How to contribute to sciop 

https://sciop.net/docs/quickstart/ 

Create account.

Create a torrent. [find how to link for how to create a torrent]

Upload. 

Get permission so they are visible to others. 

Seed.

Transcripts: https://podscripts.co/podcasts/librarypunk 

Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/qWPTurTnkT

This week we’re joined by Hagen to talk about their new book on AI and labor/power/knowledge/eugenics. We also discuss some library Reddit developments. 

Media mentioned

https://juandavidcampolargo.substack.com/p/naperville-library-spy 

https://www.juandavidcampolargo.com/projects/naperlibspy 

https://www.commonnotions.org/buy/why-we-fear-ai

Transcript: https://pastecode.io/s/gesekv6i 

Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/qWPTurTnkT

It’s a fun one! We’re talking with Jessamyn about the public domain, new and old technology, blogging at the DNC, and lots of inside baseball.

Media mentioned

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jessamyn_West_(librarian)

https://www.librarian.net/stax/5566/the-mining-of-the-public-domain/

https://jessamyn.com/tweets/ 

https://tararobertson.ca/2016/oob/ 

Request to Verify Eligibility for Free Ebooks for the Print Disabled https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScSBbT17HSQywTm-fQawOK7G4dN-QPbDWNstdfvysoKTXCjKA/viewform 

Veii’s music: https://veii.bandcamp.com/

Who Owns this Sentence?: A History of Copyrights and Wrongs https://fit.princeton.edu/publications/who-owns-sentence-history-copyrights-and-wrongs 

Free Whistles
https://linktr.ee/3Dwhistles
My Justice of the Peace tumblr
https://vermontjp.tumblr.com/
Logan Airport chapel
https://discovermass.com/church/our-lady-of-the-airways-east-boston-ma/
Soul of a New Machine
https://www.tracykidder.com/the-soul-of-a-new-machine.html
Matteo Lane
https://matteolanecomedy.com/
My DNC blog
https://www.librarian.net/dnc/
Librarian at Burning Man
https://www.jessamyn.com/journal/02/burnlib.html
Flickr Commons Explorer
https://commons.flickr.org/Without a Net, Librarians Bridging the Digital Divide
https://www.librarian.net/digitaldivide/
Marrakesh Treaty
https://www.wipo.int/en/web/treaties/ip/marrakesh/index
Flickypedia
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Flickypedia
That's My Grandma Flickr Gallery
https://flickr.com/photos/flickrfoundation/galleries/72157722979767596/
Murkutu
https://mukurtu.org/
Barnard Zine Library
https://zines.barnard.edu/
Cleaning out mom's house
https://www.flickr.com/photos/iamthebestartist/albums/72157719713137030

Transcript: https://pastecode.io/s/684xqjj9 

Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/qWPTurTnkT

We’re back! We’re talking about weeding and library collections as government speech. 

Media mentioned

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/07/25/is-including-hidden-ai-prompts-in-academic-papers-gaming-the-peer-review-system-or-keeping-it-honest/ 

https://buttondown.com/wellsourced/archive/CREW-Method-Manual/

https://bookriot.com/little-vs-llano-county-fifth-circuit/ 

Transcript: https://pastecode.io/s/dgpnufmm 

Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/qWPTurTnkT

Companion zine for the episode: https://smazzie.itch.io/the-politics-of-weeding-and-little-v-llano-county-zine 

We’re talking with Kevin again about workers inquiry as an organizing tool and the example of the pamphlet The American Worker from 1947.

 

Twitter: https://x.com/AmericanWork47 

readingstruggles.info

notesfrombelow.org 

 

Media mentioned

The American Worker on COVER: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikphd5bNza4&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Ff9eaa73e-0b64-4316-a994-c97369b4e555.usrfiles.com%2F&source_ve_path=Mjg2NjY

“Searching for the American Worker” https://newpol.org/issue_post/searching-for-the-american-worker/

Culbertson, Anna W. “Our Labor, Our Terms: Workers’ Inquiry in Libraries,” in “Assemblage, Inquiry, and Common Work in Library and Information Studies,” eds. Melissa Adler and Andrew Lau. Special issue, Journal of Critical Library and Information Studies 4; https://journals.litwinbooks.com/index.php/jclis/article/view/175 (CC BY-NC)

In and against the state: discussion notes for socialists. https://libcom.org/book/export/html/31378 

Reading Struggles: Working-Class Self-Activity from Detroit to Turin and Back Again. https://www.readingstruggles.info/

Guerillas of Desire: Notes on Everyday Resistance and Organizing to Make a Revolution Possible. https://www.akpress.org/guerrillas-of-desire.html 

Transcript: https://pastecode.io/s/bgobg2t9 

Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/zzEpV9QEAG

This week we have Kay back on to talk about AI and what the refusal of AI means in terms of library practice and theory. 

Bsky: @kslater.bsky.social

Media mentioned

Kay’s article in Library Trends: Against AI: Critical Refusal in the Library

The AI Con (book) https://thecon.ai/ 

“Synthetic literacy” forthcoming from Dr. Kishonna Gray https://www.kishonnagray.com/ 

 

librarians doing infolit session part of that is telling the students how it will track you - privacy issues

https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2016/putting-critical-information-literacy-into-context-how-and-why-librarians-adopt-critical-practices-in-their-teaching/ 

https://infolit.org.uk/privacy-and-surveillance-in-the-classroom-responding-to-new-information-literacy-challenges/ 

https://acrlog.org/2020/11/13/privacy-consent-and-the-virtual-one-shot/ 

https://datalabelers.org/ 

https://www.fortinet.com/resources/cyberglossary/cia-triad

The People’s Platform (book) https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250062598/thepeoplesplatform/

Transcript: https://pastecode.io/s/g3d9cgmm 

Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/zzEpV9QEAG