The document discusses open-source and open-access systems as viable alternatives to proprietary vendor products for library management and discovery systems. It provides examples of critiques of the current commercial library technology ecosystem and its negative impacts. The document also imagines possibilities for open alternatives, such as increased reliability, customizability, and cost savings, though challenges like complexity and unequal labor are acknowledged. Specific actions proposed include talking to technical staff, using open-source software, reading contracts carefully, and discussing options with other professionals.

1. systems of revolt
open-source and open-access as
viable rivals to vendor products
@SimonXIX
simon.barron@protonmail.com

2. Marcel Duchamp, 1917/1964,
Fountain (reproduction of a work)
photograph taken by Simon Barron
at the Musée National d'Art
Moderne in Paris, France,
2017-03-03, licensed as CC-BY 4.0.

3. frames from Un chien
Andalou, 1929,
directed by Luis
Buñuel

4. frames from L’age d’or,
1930, directed by Luis
Buñuel

5. systems of revolt
open-source and open-access as
viable rivals to vendor products
@SimonXIX
simon.barron@protonmail.com

6. library
management
system
catalogue and discovery
interfaceinstitutional
repository
research data management
repository
digital asset
management
software
access control and
security
self-service
machines
printers and
photocopiers
loanable laptops
and mobile devices
microfilm and
microfiche
machines

7. “Our approach of critical systems
librarianship actively uses critical theory
and an awareness that we are positioned
within white supremacist capitalist
patriarchy to inform how we practice
systems work.”
Barron, S. and Preater, A. J., 2018. 'Critical systems librarianship.' In:
Nicholson, K. J. and Seale, M., eds., 2018. The politics of theory and the
practice of critical librarianship. Library Juice Press, Sacramento, p. 88.

8. critique
Caswell, M., 2018. 'Envisioning a Critical Archival Pedagogy.' In: Nicholson, K. J.
and Seale, M., eds., 2018. The politics of theory and the practice of critical
librarianship. Library Juice Press, Sacramento, p. 161.
act
imagine

9. critique

10. From: Breeding, M., 2018. Library Technology Guides.
https://librarytechnology.org/products/marketshare.pl
critique

11. From: Breeding, M., 2018. Library Technology Guides.
https://librarytechnology.org/products/marketshare.pl
critique

12. Logos are either public domain, CC-licensed by their
respective organisations, or copyright their respective
organisations and reproduced under fair use.
critique

13. “...oppressive and parasitic library
technology vendor ecosystem of
today...”
Popowich, S., 2018. ‘“Ruthless Criticism of All that Exists”: Marxism,
Technology, and Library Work’ In: Nicholson, K. J. and Seale, M., eds.,
2018. The politics of theory and the practice of critical librarianship.
Library Juice Press, Sacramento, p. 57.
critique

14. “...vendors now have so much power
in libraries their products show up in
our job descriptions, as though
systems don’t migrate or change.”
Galvan, A., 2016. ‘Architecture of Authority,’ Angela fixes things.
Accessed 2018-03-23 at
https://asgalvan.com/2016/12/05/architecture-of-authority/
critique

15. From Reidsma, M., 2016. ‘Algorithmic Bias in Library Discovery Systems’, Matthew
Reidsma. Accessed 2018-03-23 at https://matthew.reidsrow.com/articles/173.
Licensed as CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.
critique

16. “Our tendency to see technological change as
something outside our professional and social
relationships has made us primarily reactive, always
trying to catch up, rather than critically interrogating
technological change, which might allow us to regain
some agency and control over that process.”
Popowich, S., 2018. ‘“Ruthless Criticism of All that Exists”: Marxism,
Technology, and Library Work’ In: Nicholson, K. J. and Seale, M., eds.,
2018. The politics of theory and the practice of critical librarianship.
Library Juice Press, Sacramento, p. 50.
critique

17. imagine

18. D.1: Consider the public good, both in general and as it refers
to particular vulnerable groups, as well as the immediate
claims arising from their employment and their professional
duties.
D.2: Promote equitable access for all members of society to
public domain information of all kinds and in all formats.
Cilip, 2012. ‘Code of Professional Practice’. Accessed 2018-03-21 at
https://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.cilip.org.uk/resource/resmgr/CILIP/A
bout_Us/who_we_represent/Code_of_Professional_Practic.pdf
imagine

19. All information resources that are provided directly or
indirectly by the library, regardless of technology, format, or
methods of delivery, should be readily, equally, and equitably
accessible to all library users...
...libraries are an essential public good and are fundamental
institutions in democratic societies.
ALA Council, 2004. ‘Core Values of Librarianship’. Accessed
2018-03-21 at http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/corevalues
imagine

20. “[S]cholarly information and knowledge,
primarily articulated through scholarly
communications, is inherently a
commons.”
Lawson, S., Sanders, K., & Smith, L., 2015. ‘Commodification of the
Information Profession: A Critique of Higher Education Under
Neoliberalism’, Journal of librarianship and scholarly communication,
3(1): eP1182, http://dx.doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.1182
imagine

21. Open Definition 2.1
1. Open Works
An open work must satisfy the following requirements in its distribution:
1.1 Open License or Status
The work must be in the public domain or provided under an open license (as defined in
Section 2). Any additional terms accompanying the work (such as a terms of use, or patents
held by the licensor) must not contradict the work’s public domain status or terms of the
license.
1.2 Access
The work must be provided as a whole and at no more than a reasonable one-time
reproduction cost, and should be downloadable via the Internet without charge. Any
additional information necessary for license compliance (such as names of contributors
required for compliance with attribution requirements) must also accompany the work.
1.3 Machine Readability
The work must be provided in a form readily processable by a computer and where the
individual elements of the work can be easily accessed and modified.
1.4 Open Format
The work must be provided in an open format. An open format is one which places no
restrictions, monetary or otherwise, upon its use and can be fully processed with at least
one free/libre/open-source software tool.
from: http://opendefinition.org/od/2.1/en/
imagine

22. open-access licenses
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International (CC BY 4.0)
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike
4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)
CC0
imagine

23. Apache License 2.0
https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
GNU General Public License version 3.0 (GPL-3.0)
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html
MIT License
https://opensource.org/licenses/MIT
Mozilla Public License 2.0 (MPL 2.0)
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/MPL/2.0
Do What The Fuck You Want To Public License (WTFPL)
http://www.wtfpl.net/about/
imagine open-source licenses

24. Logos are either public domain, CC-licensed by their
respective organisations, or copyright their respective
organisations and reproduced under fair use.
imagine

25. imagine

26. still from Minnie the
Moocher, 1932, directed by
Dave Fleischer
still from Porky in
Wackyland, 1938, directed
by Robert Clampett

27. frames from Spellbound, 1945, directed by Alfred
Hitchcock

28. imagine

29. Innovative Interfaces Inc., 2016.
‘The Open Library Experience’.
Accessed 2017-01-21 at
https://www.iii.com/solutions/op
en-library-experience
imagine

30. imagine
reliability
advantages

31. “In the cryptography world, we consider open source necessary
for good security; we have for decades. Public security is always
more secure than proprietary security. It's true for cryptographic
algorithms, security protocols, and security source code. For us,
open source isn't just a business model; it's smart engineering
practice.”
Schneier, B., 1999. ‘Crypto-Gram’, Schneier on Security. Accessed 2018-03-26 at
https://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram/archives/1999/0915.html
imagine

32. imagine
customisability
advantages

41. imagine
extensibility and
interoperability
advantages

42. imagine
cost
advantages

43. imagine
complexity
disadvantages

44. imagine
toxic masculinity
disadvantages

45. imagine
distribution of
labour
disadvantages

46. “[t]he reification of ‘the commons’ as a site of
non-scarce, replicable and accessible
educational resources is to mistake the freedom
of things for the freedom of labor.”
Neary, M., and Winn, J., 2012. ‘Open education: Common(s), commonism and
the new common wealth’, Ephemera, 12(4), p. 409.
imagine

47. act

48. act
talk to your
technical staff

49. act
use open-source

50. Logos are either public domain, CC-licensed by their
respective organisations, or copyright their respective
organisations and reproduced under fair use.
act

51. act
read contracts

52. act
talk to others

54. frame from
Dimensions of
dialogue, 1982,
directed by Jan
Švankmajer

55. Barron, S. and Preater, A. J., 2018. 'Critical Systems Librarianship.' In:
Nicholson, K. J. and Seale, M., eds., 2018. The politics of theory and the
practice of critical librarianship. Sacramento: Library Juice Press, pp. 87-113.
Caswell, M., 2018. 'Envisioning a Critical Archival Pedagogy.' In: Nicholson, K.
J. and Seale, M., eds., 2018. The politics of theory and the practice of critical
librarianship. Library Juice Press, Sacramento, pp. 159-166.
Chełkowski, T., Gloor, P., and Jemielniak, D., 2016. ‘Inequalities in Open
Source Software Development: Analysis of Contributor’s Commits in Apache
Software Foundation Projects’, PLoS ONE, 11(4): e0152976.
https://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0152976
Doolin, B., 1998. ‘Information technology as disciplinary technology: being
critical in interpretive research on information systems’, Journal of
information technology, 13: 301-311.
Dryden, A., 2013. ‘The ethics of unpaid labor and the OSS community’, Ashe
Dryden, Accessed 2018-03-26 at
https://www.ashedryden.com/blog/the-ethics-of-unpaid-labor-and-the-oss-c
ommunity
Foucault, M., 1975/1991. Discipline and punish: the birth of the prison.
Translated from French by Alan Sheridan. London: Penguin Books.
Galvan, A., 2016. ‘Architecture of Authority,’ Angela fixes things. Accessed
2018-03-23 at https://asgalvan.com/2016/12/05/architecture-of-authority/
Kriss, J., 2016. ‘Anti-capitalist human scale software (and why it matters)‘.
Accessed 2017-01-13 at
https://medium.com/@jkriss/anti-capitalist-human-scale-software-and-why-i
t-matters-5936a372b9d#.f6ml8gkuv
bibliography
Lawson, S., 2018. ‘An ethics of care: what kind of open access do we want?’,
presentation delivered on 2018-03-16 at RLUK Conference 2018 in London,
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Lawson, S., Sanders, K., & Smith, L., 2015. ‘Commodification of the
Information Profession: A Critique of Higher Education Under Neoliberalism’,
Journal of librarianship and scholarly communication, 3(1): eP1182,
https://dx.doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.1182
Neary, M., and Winn, J., 2012. ‘Open education: Common(s), commonism and
the new common wealth’, Ephemera, 12(4), pp. 404-422.
Norris, V., 2007. ‘’Interior Logic’: The Appropriate and Incorporation of
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Reidsma, M., 2016. ‘Algorithmic Bias in Library Discovery Systems’, Matthew
Reidsma. Accessed 2018-03-23 at https://matthew.reidsrow.com/articles/173
Schneier, B., 1999. ‘Crypto-Gram’, Schneier on Security. Accessed 2018-03-26
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