Itinerant smallest libraries
It is already a while ago, when I met the great itinerant poetry librarian, which temporarily pitched up her tents here in Leipzig in Schreibmaschinencafe or Kassette. She charmed particular by very effective celebration of the typical librarian, wonderful interpretation of bureaucratic rules and regulations relating to admission as a member of her library, so more accurately, I filled out forms and was stamped in minute detail. After that you are a member of the library and may look at the poetic treasures. She transports them in a suitcase through the world, wherever she goes, preferably it leads her into semi-underground dives in which she hypnotizes the local audience with her poetic treasures that could originate from Hrabal-like waste paper collections. Currently she is in Romania, more precisely in Valcea, wherever that is …
Itinerantpoetrylibrarian
July 27, 2010
Series: Library in pop culture
This time a somewhat lesser known side project of the popular EA80, namely, Die Autos with a single from 1983 called “Niemals”. The other song on the single, namely, the great “Slaughter” was later covered by the Boxhamsters/EA80-branch Die Böse Hand. An early anticipation of running amok-in-school subjects … Come close to the library!
SLAUGHTER
come close to the head masters house
come close to the libary
see the slaughtered corpses all over the place
see the blood on the wall, which smells so bad
see the slaughter!
see the slaughter!
see the slaughter in the head master’s house!
the kids were there to do their job
-You can be assured, they like that job
just like sharon tate murder
see the slaughter …
they’re the class of ’77
they send goldfish to heaven!
yelling: slaughter, slaughter, slaughter!
July 27, 2010
Tough Digitization
15 years ago, there was suddenly a new profession in the library sector: that of the retro-converter (Conversator?) Converting the old card catalogs, towards the online catalog. Already since 1971, is another ambitious project forerunner of today’s digitization projects: the Project Gutenberg wanted to digitize the literary classics (which are no longer burdened by copyright) and make a ‘full text’ accessible. Now the federal government has taken a further step to the temporary market dominance of Google Books on behalf of the digitized, free-access library. A “German Digital Library” is to ‘network digitization projects of scientific and other public libraries, and secure the State monopoly on the middle-class access to knowledge. Those public digitization projects are being prepared for almost 20 years (eg as part of the Telematics for libraries Programme of the EU), however, Google was simply faster and more pragmatic. This German Digital Library should be embedded in the pan-networking project europeana. Projects of such dimensions are taking some time, of course, in the meantime you will probably still visit google-books, project gutenberg or the open-library project on archive.org …
Recently I suddenly developed an interest for the writer Salamon Dembitzer, whom I met in an old Leipzig anthology. It turned out, he once lived in my home town Kassel, and wrote for the local Newspaper. Similar as Samuel Agnon Dembitzer was an prolific writer, who has been recently re-published with two volumes (visa to America and Die Geistigenl, in Weidle Verlag) for the German book market. I was very happy when I found recently at Archive.org unpublished manuscripts of Dembitzer.
December 26, 2009
library donkey
book donkey wobbles, on his way to the reader. wait, maybe he’ll soon find you
November 19, 2009
radio kills the library star
About a year ago was founded in the Bahamas a radio station that is operated by the State Bahamas Library Service and the information literacy focuses particularly of the younger inhabitants of the islands. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be available over the Internet, which certainly represents a regrettable gap in the information available in the world. Altogether too few library channels. While the short-wave frequencies heavy fighting and considerable restrictions are suspended, there are over m3u or pls file formats such as an increasing number of free and pirate radio stations that are on the Internet listenable. A small selection of free radio stations congenial to me: (Hope someone pointed me to the library hyperfine pirate radio) … Oops, we’ve found one, a library radio: On Free Radio Olympia every Friday from 16 bis 18 clock: Local Library Ladies Lunch. It sounds good, but not yet got it belongs.
Free Radio Santa Cruz
Free Radio Olympia
Killed by Death Radio
Novi Radio Beograd
Radio Blau Leipzig
Radio FSK Hamburg
Fall Radio, Berlin
Pogoradio, Mannheim
Vienna Radio Orange
Radio Lora Zurich
Desi Radio (West London)
Resonance FM (London)
Fuzio Radio Budapest
Radio Uliczne, Wroclaw
Radio onda d’URTO Brescia (It)
Radio Panik (Brussels, Belgium)
Radio L’Eko des Garrigues (France)
West Africa Democracy Radio
November 19, 2009
Series: Library in pop culture
This time, Velocity Girl, a volumes from the vicinity of Washington DC, released on Sub Pop 1993rd Librarian Lisa enjoys the very real lines “i want to visit you at work, it is all quiet, it is so quiet at work”
Lisa Librarian
you know that we
will always be on this earth
I’d like to tell you something
but i have to think of something first
i try to see you
you try to know that this is true
and I’ve decided
i want to know exactly how you feel
it hurts so much
oh the dream has come true
are you sure it is you
you should not say it lisa
tell it to those other boys
I’m just caring baby
about the other girls and boys
oh i want to see you
i want to visit you at work
it is all quiet
it is so quiet at work
The letters have conspired against me
A strange deja vu experience I had recently re-reading Mr. Lublin’s Shop (Herr Lublins Laden), a novel by Samuel Agnon. The book is set in the twenties in Leipzig and a passage of it relentlessly reminded me of past work experiences in which I had to catalog books whose meaning was completely sealed to my eyes. At the same time it reminds me of recurring dreams, that deal with past jobs, and whose fate is always the same: total failure and getting out of control of the work flow. Agnon’s book is full of strange and funny daydreams, because the protagonist is sitting all the time in a hardware store without any customers. The construction of the narrative make me think of the Hitchcock movie “Rear Window”: The whole story takes place in only one room. The digressions and repetitions are somehow very reminiscent of Potocki’s “Manuscript found in Saragossa”. And the Leipzig that is portrayed here is a memorized place, where the figures are wandering about like ghosts, a past (also) Jewish Leipzig:
“One day I was sitting as usual in the house of the bookseller Thomas Caspar Marius and sons. Then they brought me a very, very old book, which was bound in pigskin leather, the senior Mr. Marius had found in one of the piles of books of the widow of a pastor from Eisenach, and Mr. Marius Sr. had said he was sure that this is a special book because before it had fallen into the hands of said pastor it was in the posession of a priest who was known in the history of the reformation , because his name is written on the book, and there is no doubt it was his signature, because the pastor used to write the Latin letters of his name in Hebrew. I looked at my book, but I found no access to its content. As I said to Mr Marius: “I can see, there are books that do not reveal themselves to those who catalog, unless you engage yourself with them thoroughly. At the moment, I do not have the time needed to do this, but tomorrow or the day after tomorrow I will occupy my mind with it. “I put that book down and turned to another. That evening Grete Hinnings came to my room. She put that book in front of me, and said: “I have brought you the book. Maybe you want to read inside in peace. ” I sat there silent. … And she went on: “In the house of Marius’ the heart is not free, because of the people coming and going.” …
The book which Grete Hinnings brought to me, in order I thoroughly investigate it was still like a puzzle without a solution. How often I opened it and searched through its pages, it was not for me to discover who composed it and who had printed it and where it had been printed. Once Mr. Caspar Marius senior asked me, if I had solved the riddle. I answered him: the letters, the paper and its contents, the name of the author, the printer and the place where it was printed are hiding from me, as if the letters have conspired against me, to hide their content. “
Wednesday, August 12 2009
Bibliotheque Brennnessel dans le jardin
A while ago it came to pass, that I sat with my neighbor over a cup of coffee in my garden plot in the southwest of Leipzig. We discussed about this and that and I decided, since my garden is already overflowing with books, to open a library in the garden, at least in thoughts and as a fictional place. Now I have about 100 books, a coffee grinder and espresso jug, and what else is actually needed for such a garden library? Especially my focus on nature as ruin (or garden / spoil), in which the writer Wolfgang Hilbig (he was born in a place not far to the south from Leipzig), with his countless tributes to overgrown nature and decaying fruit is the masterpiece thereof, fits quite well into my garden. Everyone is invited to visit me there, even if only in thought, however, I actually can be encountered there personally, particularly in times of, currently not quite frequent droughts.
Location: Tulpenweg 6, near Küchenholzallee, Leipzig
GardenRuin – a radio broadcast, coming directly out of a garden plot in Leipzig part one (in german)
Friday, July 24th 2009
Series: Libraries in pop-culture
For a start I feature a rather fine tune of the almost nearly forgotten Pop Group. When I got together 20 songs or similar stuff I’ll proceed it into a radio broadcast.
Kiss the Book
Searching for love in the library of a ghost town
finding Cleopatra tra tra
The child is singing that it’s written on your skin
Breaking out the butterfly
Kiss the walls of the glass house
Take the law into your own hands
White deaf and dumb
White deaf and dumb
Kiss the book (vow) kiss the book (revenge)
kiss the book (honour)
k-kiss (kiss the book) k-kiss the book
Searching for love in the library of a ghost town
Cleopatra Cleopatra Cleopatra Cleopatra
If only silence could sing
I’d find it written on your skin
If only silence could sing
I’d find it written on your skin
Walls have ears and arms too
Take the law into your own hands
White deaf and dumb
Friday, July 21st 2009
pains in the remote parts of the library
this is a critical library blog. it hails from leipzig, a city with a long library tradition. the authors are young aspiring Chinese library immigrants, as you already might have thougt. has nothing to do with borges and his book of sand, although there is a kind of category in the planning with book reviews, perhaps there about book of sand. my favourite role models for this are foreign library blogs, which result from a critical perspective onto the developments in libraries. censorship, international cooperation, social utopias, which are linked with the idea of the perfect library. Since I have participated in several one-person-libraries, info shops, etc. and I feel close with the do-it-yourself pathetics of the punk remains, I wish to review small publishers, fanzines and infoshops which I like, and also somehow repair their absence from the libraries and library mainstream.
Friday, July 16th 2009
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