librarypunk

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.

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

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:

Here are some details on NYC PLAN's recent assembly event:

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

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