If you could magic a library or online archive into existence, where all the work of tracking down texts from various different libraries and hard-to-find corners of the internet was done for you, what would it look like? And what would it be called?

Also, are there any cool existing libraries that come close to your dream library?

I'll quote a few that I know of below.

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Joseph A. Labadie Collection

One of the oldest, largest, and most comprehensive collections of its kind, with materials on anarchism, anti-colonialist movements, antiwar and pacifist movements, atheism and free thought, civil liberties and civil rights, ecology, labor and workers’ rights, feminism, LGBTQ movements, prisons and prisoners, the New Left, the Spanish Civil War, and youth and student protest.

The collection includes books, pamphlets, periodicals, and more, and is noteworthy for its printed ephemera and holdings of posters, photographs, sheet music, pinback buttons, and scrapbooks. It also includes important archival and manuscript material, as well as recordings of speeches, debates, oral histories, and protest songs. 

New material is added regularly through both purchase and donation, with the goal of filling gaps in the historical record, building on existing areas of strength, and meeting the current and emerging needs of researchers, instructors, activists, and others who use the Labadie Collection in the Special Collections Research Center. 

History

The Labadie Collection is named for Detroit labor organizer and anarchist Jo Labadie, who donated his personal library of books, pamphlets, newspapers, magazines, and memorabilia to the university in 1911. In 2000, we received a large donation of research materials from the National Transgender Library and Archives, adding to our already strong holdings.

Materials in the collection

• Labadie Collection in the catalog

Finding aids and indexes

• Online finding aids
• Index of Ephemera Files (Subject Vertical Files)
• Archives and Manuscripts
• Scrapbooks and Photo Albums
• Single Manuscripts
• Single Letters

Digital collections

• Anarchism Pamphlets
• Labadie Photograph Collection
• Pinback Buttons
• Political Posters
• Selma Inter-religious Project Newsletter

Online exhibits

• Birthing Reproductive Justice: 150 Years of Images and Ideas

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MayDayRooms

Our archive focuses on social struggles, radical art, and acts of resistance from the 1960s to the present: it contains everything from recent feminist poetry to 1990s techno paraphernalia, from situationist magazines to histories of riots and industrial transformations, from 1970s educational experiments to prison writing.

We proceed from the understanding that social change can happen most effectively when marginalised and oppressed groups can get to know – and tell – their own histories “from below.” Our archival collections challenge the widespread assault on collective memory and the tradition of the oppressed. We aim to counter narratives of historical inevitability and political pessimism with living proof that that many struggles continue.

We run a public programme including archival projects, publications, film screenings, “scan-a-thons” for digitising archival material, workshops, talks and discussion, reading groups, and social nights, all of which encourage active and collective engagement with history of social movements.

• Upcoming Events
• Blog

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Feminist Library

The Feminist Library is a large collection of feminist literature based in London. We are a library and community space and support research, activist and community projects.

In 2020 The Feminist Library celebrated 45 years of archiving and activism. Mainly volunteer run, we have created and looked after one of the most important collections of feminist material in the UK, and provided an inspiring learning and social space for thousands of people.

• Events
• Blog

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Touchpaper Anarchist Library

Touchpaper is an anarchist library in South London.

Only the best in subversive publications from around the world, with distro publications for contribution, library books which can be borrowed with a small deposit, and an extensive archive of anarchist ideas put onto paper.

They also have texts available to buy and plans to host an archive online.

• Radar Page
• Book Club Events Page

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The Anarchist Library

• E-mail: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])
• Live chat: See /special/webchat
• Wiki: bookshelf.theanarchistlibrary.org

theanarchistlibrary.org is (despite its name) an archive focusing on anarchism and anarchist texts.

Within the scope of our use of the term “anarchism” we have been quite broad, but broad does not mean infinite, and basically shrinks down to a set of ideas against the State and capital. This immediately rules out the so-called “anarcho-capitalism”, “anarcho-nationalism” and similar crap.

What is so special about this site?

The library provides a high quality online web browser version of the text along with various other formats, like PDFs, plain text, HTML, EPUB, and XeLaTeX. We actively encourage the DIY printing and the distribution of the texts, so there is no need to ask us for permission to use the texts.

The site provides a way for distributors and friends to change the layout of the PDFs and to create collections of an arbitrary number of texts (1 or more). See the bookbuilder page.

The site also provides an advanced search engine.

All these features come with some responsibility for the people who want to contribute to the library. We ask that uploaders contribute a logical representation of the text, with headings, emphasis, quotation blocks, etc. marked up appropriately. The site provides some tools (inside the web interface) to make this process easy, but some attention and some care is still required. Please be sure to read the manual if you plan to join the project for the mid- to long-term.

• Librarian Picks
• SHH! THIS IS A LIBRARY! forums
• Wishlist

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Anarhija

We live in the age of the inflation of the word. Its presence is so ubiquitous, its quantity is so overwhelming that its value tends to be zero, carrying no meaning. Technology has made publishing easy and inflated. The idea this library is built upon is not to collect everything coming out from the internet, but instead to save from this deluge meaningful, purposeful, useful texts, texts with live ideas, texts which could be printed and which wouldn’t feel off on the tables of an anarchist distribution. The outcome of this endeavour is still unclear.

This project was forked from theanarchistlibrary.org by some substantial contributors embarrassed by what is being published there. The archive has been cleaned up, new texts are being added, the mess of topics sorted out as much as possible.

That said, this library goes elsewhere. It is not going to be an echo chamber of news or “social” sites, nor a catch-all site. The selection strives to be strict. There is no place for blog posts, rants, academic exercises, internet fights. It is not meant to please everyone. Instead, be assured that it is the product of the passion and the efforts of few individuals.

The library is in English because English is the modern lingua franca. As a side effect, texts coming from the USA are over-represented while other very interesting regions are under-represented, if not missing at all. This is a major problem.

There is no automated submission process. If you think a text deserves to be published here, please contact [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]).

This library wants to be a tool, or a weapon if you prefer. Its purpose is to provide quality anarchist literature to individuals and to distributions, focusing on printing and diffusion of anarchist ideas, also serving as a long term hosting solution for valuable texts.

Please contact [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]) if you think a text should not be here.

This project is part of the net of anarchist libraries.

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Sprout Distro

Sprout Distro is an anarchist zine distro (distributor) and publisher based in the occupied territory currently known as the United States.

We distribute zines (see: "What is a Zine?" if you are new to zines) as a way of contributing to the increased proliferation of anarchist projects and resistance. We primarily distribute zines via this website and in person at zine fests, book fairs, and other such events. We make all the zines we carry available as PDFs for folks to download, print, and distribute themselves.

About Our Distro

Our distro mainly focuses on anarchist tactics and skill-building. This means that we have a lot of zines on direct action, organizing, starting projects (ex: collectives, study groups, prisoner support projects), decision-making, street tactics, security, affinity groups, how we relate to each other, etc.

Get In Touch

We welcome feedback from folks, suggestions of zines to carry, new ways to distribute zines, and other projects we should know about. Contact us here.

• Archive.org Page

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Steal This Wiki

A collaborative update and rewrite of Abbie Hoffman's seminal work, Steal This Book. Plus, a collection of related books and essays e.g. books analysing this project's yippie anarchist roots.

• Table of Contents

Introductory Texts

• About This Project
• General Guidelines
• How to Improve This Project
• Rejected, Censored and Controversially Accepted Texts

Collaborative Texts

• Website Visitors Guestbook
• Reach Out

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The Library of Unconventional Lives

An archive for collecting together stories of lives lived in unconventional ways. Which could mean something as simple as what it’s like to live on a narrow boat. Or it could mean someone hitchhiking round the world because it was the only way they knew how to process a tough childhood with their sanity intact.

• Table of Contents

Introductory Texts

• About This Project
• How to find and use this archive
• How to improve this project
• Rejected and controversially accepted texts

Collaborative Texts

• Website Visitors Guestbook

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The Ted K Archive

The biggest online archive of texts related to Ted Kaczynski.

The suggested reading heavily leans pro-tech and left-anarchist, though it's a fine open-ended question whether the website should have just been a weird collection that people privately shared.

You can find a full index of the archive here:

The Full Table of Contents

The archive is split into eight main categories:

• Introductory Texts has tips on how to use and improve the website, plus more.
• Original Texts are texts that were first published on this website. Feel free to contribute your own essays.
• Primary Source Documents on Ted K can help researchers understand events as they happened, rather than relying on reflections from years later.
• The Collected Works of Ted K includes the largest online collection of Ted K’s books, essays, stories, translations, and drawings, plus more.
• Analyses of Ted’s Ideas & Actions includes political and literary analyses, podcast transcripts, plus more.
• Suggested Reading contains some potentially valuable lessons that can be drawn from the story of Ted K’s life. Plus, the history of political violence related to Ted K and leftist political groups in contrast.
• Broader Topics is a wide range of texts that simply shows what else the political violence researchers and true crime fans who frequent this website are reading and find interesting discussing.
• The Criminal Justice System covers everything from; reading on the legislators who advance prison reforms, to the terrorists and freedom fighters who get prosecuted as criminals, to stories of poor people getting arrested for dumpster diving food to feed their family.

Introductory Texts

• About This Project
• The Ted K Archive's One-Year Anniversary
• How to Find and Use the Archive
• How to Improve This Project
• Rejected and Controversially Accepted Texts

Collaborative Texts

• Website Visitors Guestbook
• Readers Favorite Texts
• A Collaboratively Edited Discussion on Anti-Tech Politics
• Frequently Asked Questions about Ted Kaczynski
• Wishlist of Texts

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