👋 Welcome!
Thanks for checking out my presentations! I try and make sure everyone with an interest has access to my materials, extras, goodies, and helpful information. So along with the usual slide decks and notes, you’ll find extra info that’ll help you discover even more about my topics. My contact information is below so, if you have questions, feel free to throw me an email, or a message on Mastodon, or hit me up on the IUG Discord!
✉️ Email: cyberpunklibrarian [at] protonmail [dot] com
🐘 Mastodon: CyberpunkLibrarian on Hackers.Town
💬 Discord: cyberpunklibrarian – Want to join the IUG Discord? Drop me an email or a message on Mastodon!
Tales from the Dark Side: Lessons Learned from a Life in Shadow Libraries
Description: Circulation, acquisitions, online catalogues, patron management, statistics and analytics. Your ILS helps you manage all of these things and so much more. But there’s a flip side to the library world, where laws are skirted if not completely ignored. This is where you’ll find shadow libraries. From quasi-legal to illegal, shadow libraries provide access to materials regardless of propriety. For many people around the world, a shadow library may be the only way to obtain a book, movie, or academic paper.
And, as it happens, shadow libraries deal with many of the same issues and tasks that we find in traditional ILS administration. It’s like a ‘mirror universe’ episode of a sci-fi show – while the reflection isn’t perfect, there are lessons we can learn from the other side and, hopefully, use those lessons to improve our library systems.
Slide Deck – Download as: Keynote | PowerPoint | PDF
Transcript – Download as: PDF
SQL Code – List of Items Checked In Through In-House Check In – IUG Forums | GitLab
Shadow Libraries
- Anna’s Archive
- Library Genesis
- Sci-Hub
- Z-Library (Tor Link. Requires access to Tor and I recommend the The Tor Browser to do this.)
Terminal City Ricochet
Also available on The Internet Archive.
Punk
- D.O.A. on YouTube or on your preferred streaming platform
- Dead Kennedys on YouTube or on your preferred streaming platform
People
- Roy Tennant (yes, his website is an IP address)
- Michael Stephens
- Abraham Wald
Recommended Reading
- MARC Must Die by Roy Tennant (Republished on the Library Journal website.)
- You Can’t Stop Pirate Libraries by Elizabeth Nolan Brown
- Shadow Libraries: Access to Knowledge in Global Higher Education edited by Joe Karaganis
- The academic publications of Dr. Balázs Bodó, University of Amsterdam
- Shadow ILL Services: How Scholarly Pirate Websites and Hacking Affect ILL by Kaitlin Kehnemuyi & Sylvie C. Larsen (See above for my contact info if you want a copy.)
- Anna’s Archive Scraped WorldCat to Help Preserve ‘All’ Books In the World by Ernesto Van der Sar
- Transformers: Exodus by Alexander Irvine
Drawing Down the Data: An Introduction to the PolarisTransactions Database (Or, The Mystery of the Checked Out Item)
Description: The PolarisTransactions database is a massive repository of information about almost everything that’s happened in your Polaris system since the time you went live. Within those tables you can find the answers to complex questions about circulation, patron activities, item and bibliographic records, and so much more. From the statistical to the historical, this is the database that answers all those weird questions dreamed up by administrators and curious librarians.
Unfortunately, this database can be confusing because it’s a sea of references, cross-references, codes, types, and sub-types. So let’s take a look at PolarisTransactions and discover not only how it works, but more importantly, how to make it work for you and your library.
Slide Deck – Download as: Keynote | PowerPoint | PDF
SQL Code – The Mystery of the Checked Out Item: Walkthrough
Polaris SQL Repositories
There are two major repositories of Polaris SQL queries available online for reference and use within your own systems. The primary repo, that’s easiest to use and search, can be found on the IUG Forums in the Polaris SQL Repository. I also maintain a GitLab repo called Useful Polaris SQL that collects code from myself and other ILS admins. When I update the GitLab repo, I always drop the same queries on the Clearinghouse. So they’re usually in sync.
PolarisTransactions – A diagramme of basic layouts and connections
Click/tap on the image for a larger size.
The Polaris Database Repository Help File (Compiled HTML)
The Polaris Database Repository Help File is updated with every version of Polaris and is available as a Compiled HTML (.chm) file. You can download the latest file (version 7.5) as of the IUG 2024 conference. (Innovative Supportal login required.) But keep in mind you’ll want to get the file that matches the version of Polaris you’re currently running. You can find them all on the Supportal.
Bricks Without Clay
You see, no one else was writing a book about the PolarisTransactions database, so I figured I would. It’s full of code, examples, randomness, jokes, and information about navigating this weird and wonderful database. It’s totally free and copyrighted under Creative Commons By-NC-SA 4.0, so feel free to share it with your friends. More info below, or you can just, ya know, download the book!
Bricks Without Clay: Demystifying PolarisTransactions – Download as: PDF | ePub | Mobi
TV Detectives