📚 Hello!
If you’re here, it’s probably because you attended IUG 2025, but either way, hello! Thanks for coming to and/or checking out my presentations. I always have a bunch of stuff I can’t share through the conference app so I’ll just drop all of it here. You’ll find the usual stuff like slide decks and notes, but there are plenty of links to other resources I bring up in during the talks. Feel free to poke around and enjoy yourself.
My contact information is below so, if you have any questions, you have plenty of ways to ask them!
✉️ Work Email: daniel.messer [at] lsslibraries [dot] com
✉️ Personal Email: cyberpunklibrarian [at] protonmail [dot] com
🗣️ Signal: CyberpunkLibrarian.01
🐘 Mastodon: CyberpunkLibrarian on Hackers.Town
Bricks Without Clay – A book about the PolarisTransactions database
A while back, I wrote a book about how the PolarisTransactions database works along with basic ways to pull data from it without losing your sanity.* This book is not for sale anywhere and if you ever do see it for sale, let me know, will you please? Because there’s no reason anyone should have to buy this book. It’s free, open source, copyrighted under Creative Commons, and can be passed around like a beach ball at a Phish concert… or like other things at a Phish concert.
Download Bricks Without Clay: Demystifying PolarisTransactions
*Sanity savings not guaranteed, all interactions with the PolarisTransactions database carry a risk of mnemonic upset. Do not use while operating heavy machinery. Check with your doctor to determine if the PolarisTransactions database is right for you.
Electric Libraryland: AI, Copyright, Ownership, and Tomorrow
Description: Libraries are standing at multiple intersections of change where the roads extend not only into different directions, but different dimensions. AI isn’t going away and it’s coming for your library, whether you like it or not. Indeed, ‘whether you like it or not’ is the mantra of AI development and innovation. There are questions about the legalities of licensing vs ownership, the foundations of copyright, and the ownership of the past. Let’s take a look at the landscape of Electric Libraryland, from traditional libraries to the underground. What happened, what’s happening, and what might happen tomorrow? And what might you need to know when tomorrow becomes today?
Slide Deck: Download as PowerPoint | PDF
Transcript: Download as PDF
SQL: Complete Patron Circulation History
Music
Aesop Rock – Mindful Solutionism – Songlink
Funan Beat Empire – Megacity – Songlink
The Unseen – Cultural Genocide
MC Frontalot – Secrets from the Future – Songlink
DJ Shadow – Urgent, Important, Please Read (feat. Rockwell Knuckles, Tef Poe, Daemon) – Songlink
Bad Religion – Slumber – Songlink
Bibliography & Recommended Reading
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Alber, Daniel Alexander, Zihao Yang, Anton Alyakin, Eunice Yang, Sumedha Rai, Aly A. Valliani, Jeff Zhang, et al. “Medical Large Language Models Are Vulnerable to Data-Poisoning Attacks.” Nature Medicine, January 8, 2025, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-024-03445-1.
Al-Sibai, Noor. “AI Safety Researcher Quits OpenAI, Saying Its Trajectory Alarms Her.” Futurism, December 4, 2024. https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-safety-researcher-quits-agi.
———. “OpenAI Researchers Find That Even the Best AI Is ‘Unable To Solve the Majority’ of Coding Problems.” Futurism, February 23, 2025. https://futurism.com/openai-researchers-coding-fail.
archive.is. “Police Ignore Standards after AI Facial Recognition Matches – Washing…,” January 13, 2025. https://archive.is/YCyHP.
Ashikuzzaman, Md. “Read-Write-Defend: A Guide to Cybersecurity in Modern Libraries.” Library & Information Science Education Network (blog), November 22, 2023. https://www.lisedunetwork.com/a-guide-to-cybersecurity-in-modern-libraries/.
Battersby, Matilda. “Academic Authors ‘shocked’ after Taylor & Francis Sells Access to Their Research to Microsoft AI.” The Bookseller, July 19, 2024. https://www.thebookseller.com/news/academic-authors-shocked-after-taylor–francis-sells-access-to-their-research-to-microsoft-ai.
Belanger, Ashley. “Meta Claims Torrenting Pirated Books Isn’t Illegal without Proof of Seeding.” Ars Technica, February 20, 2025. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/02/meta-defends-its-vast-book-torrenting-were-just-a-leech-no-proof-of-seeding/.
Bell, Karissa. “Apple Blog TUAW Returns as an AI Content Farm.” Engadget, July 9, 2024. https://www.engadget.com/apple-blog-tuaw-returns-as-an-ai-content-farm-225326136.html.
Bjarnason, Baldur. “The LLMentalist Effect: How Chat-Based Large Language Models Rep….” Out of the Software Crisis, July 4, 2023. https://softwarecrisis.dev/letters/llmentalist/.
Blistein, Jon. “Kathleen Hanna, Tegan and Sara, More Back Internet Archive in $621 Million Copyright Fight.” Rolling Stone (blog), December 9, 2024. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/tegan-sara-kathleen-hanna-internet-archive-lawsuit-letter-1235195841/.
Bowman, Emma. “Hackers Steal Information from 31 Million Internet Archive Users.” NPR, October 20, 2024, sec. Technology. https://www.npr.org/2024/10/20/nx-s1-5159000/internet-archive-hack-leak-wayback-machine.
Brador, Isabel. “Could Artificial Intelligence Help Catalog Thousands of Digital Library Books? An Interview with Abigail Potter and Caroline Saccucci | The Signal.” Webpage. The Library of Congress, November 19, 2024. https://blogs.loc.gov/thesignal/2024/11/could-artificial-intelligence-help-catalog-thousands-of-digital-library-books-an-interview-with-abigail-potter-and-caroline-saccucci.
Breeding, Marshall. “THE SYSTEMS LIBRARIAN – Libraries Under Cyberattack.” Accessed December 31, 2024. https://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/mar24/Breeding–Libraries-Under-Cyberattack.shtml.
Bridge, Sarah, and Anya Zoledziowski. “1 Million Books and 4 Months Later, Toronto’s Library Recovers from a Cyberattack.” CBC News, February 27, 2024. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-library-ransomware-recovery-1.7126412.
C, Indraji, Satishkumar Naikar, and Dominic J. “Use of Robotics and Artificial Intelligence for Enhancing Library Services.” Library Progress International 44, no. 3 (December 2024): 3002–2010. https://doi.org/10.48165/bapas.2024.44.2.1.
Cabanatuan, Michael. “Solano County, Calif., Libraries Online After Cyber Attack.” GovTech, July 29, 2024. https://www.govtech.com/security/solano-county-calif-libraries-online-after-cyber-attack.
CBC News. “Calgary Public Library Enters Second of 3 Recovery Phases with More Services Returning.” November 20, 2024. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-public-library-cybersecurity-breach-1.7388682.
CBC News. “Employee Data Compromised in Cyberattack at London Public Library.” January 3, 2024. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/london-public-library-cyber-attack-2024-data-breach-1.7073820.
Claburn, Thomas. “Microsoft CEO of AI: Online Content Is ‘freeware’ for Models.” Accessed December 28, 2024. https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/28/microsoft_ceo_ai/.
Cole ·, Samantha. “Your Bluesky Posts Are Probably In A Bunch of Datasets Now.” 404 Media, December 3, 2024. https://www.404media.co/bluesky-posts-machine-learning-ai-datasets-hugging-face/.
Communications, Grainger Engineering Office of Marketing and. “AI’s Challenging Waters.” Accessed January 20, 2025. https://cee.illinois.edu/news/AIs-Challenging-Waters.
Daniel, Lars. “Internet Archive Breached Again—Third Cyberattack In October 2024.” Forbes. Accessed December 31, 2024. https://www.forbes.com/sites/larsdaniel/2024/10/20/internet-archive-breached-again-third-cyber-attack-in-october-2024/.
De Kosnik, Abigail. “Piracy Is the Future of Culture: Speculating about Media Preservation after Collapse.” Third Text 34, no. 1 (January 2, 2020): 62–70. https://doi.org/10.1080/09528822.2019.1663687.
Doctorow, Cory. “Pluralistic: Penguin Random House, AI, and Writers’ Rights (19 Oct 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily Links from Cory Doctorow,” October 19, 2024. https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/19/gander-sauce/.
Dupré, Maggie Harrison. “Google’s Search AI Makes Disgusting Recommendation for Parents of Toddlers.” Futurism, September 11, 2024. https://futurism.com/google-ai-fecal-matter-balloon.
Enis, Matt. “Seattle Public Library Recovering from Ransomware Attack.” Library Journal. Accessed December 31, 2024. https://www.libraryjournal.com/story/seattle-public-library-recovering-from-ransomware-attack.
“Ex Libris Showcases AI Innovations Shaping the Future of Libraries in 2025,” January 9, 2025. https://librarytechnology.org/pr/30900.
Field, Hayden. “OpenAI Says It Needs ‘more Capital than We’d Imagined’ as It Lays out for-Profit Plan.” CNBC, December 27, 2024. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/27/openai-needs-more-capital-than-wed-imagined-moves-to-for-profit.html.
Flores, Jessica. “‘Why Would You Hack a Library?’: Bay Area County Still Struggling Months after Cyberattack.” San Francisco Chronicle, July 2, 2024. https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/solano-libraries-struggling-cyberattack-ransomware-19544215.php.
Futurism. “Google’s AI Insists That MJ Lenderman Has Won 14 Grammys,” March 5, 2025. https://futurism.com/google-ai-mj-lenderman-14-grammys.
Futurism. “Large Publisher Lays Off More Than 100 Employees After Striking Deal With OpenAI,” January 18, 2025. https://futurism.com/large-publisher-layoffs-openai.
G.O, Administrator. “Addressing Gender Bias to Achieve Ethical AI.” IPI Global Observatory, March 17, 2023. https://theglobalobservatory.org/2023/03/gender-bias-ethical-artificial-intelligence/.
Gordon, Cindy. “ChatGPT And Generative AI Innovations Are Creating Sustainability Havoc.” Forbes. Accessed January 9, 2025. https://www.forbes.com/sites/cindygordon/2024/03/12/chatgpt-and-generative-ai-innovations-are-creating-sustainability-havoc/.
Jabakhanji, Sara. “Investigation into Full Extent of Ransomware Attack on Toronto Public Library Still Underway.” CBC News, February 21, 2024. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-public-library-cyberattack-1.7120921.
Johnson, Ted. “OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Says Content Owners Need To Get ‘Significant Upside Benefit’ From New Technology.” Deadline (blog), May 16, 2023. https://deadline.com/2023/05/ai-chat-gpt-senate-sam-altman-1235368420/.
Koebler ·, Jason. “Archivists Recreate Pre-Trump CDC Website, Are Hosting It in Europe.” 404 Media, March 5, 2025. https://www.404media.co/archivists-recreate-pre-trump-cdc-website-are-hosting-it-in-europe/.
Lamar, Andre. “Hackers Attack Delaware Libraries, Seek Ransom. Here’s What We Know.” The News Journal. Accessed December 31, 2024. https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/local/2024/09/26/hackers-hit-delaware-libraries-what-we-know-about-cyber-attack-ransomhub-claims-responsibility/75360885007/.
Laurel, Capitol Technology University 11301 Springfield Road, and Md 20708 888.522.7486. “Artificial Intelligence and Its Unique Threat to Women | Capitol Technology University.” Accessed January 5, 2025. https://www.captechu.edu/blog/artificial-intelligence-and-its-unique-threat-women.
“Learning Lessons From the Cyberattack.” Accessed December 31, 2024. https://www.bl.uk/home/british-library-cyber-incident-review-8-march-2024.pdf/.
Lopatto, Elizabeth. “The Questions ChatGPT Shouldn’t Answer.” The Verge, March 5, 2025. https://www.theverge.com/openai/624209/chatgpt-ethics-specs-humanism.
M.A. Matienzo. “On Anarchivism: Perpetuating the Postmodern Turn Withn Archival Thought.” Accessed January 22, 2025. https://matienzo.org/storage/2002/2002-OnAnarchivism.pdf.
Magazine, Cybercrime. “Bookworms Beware: Hackers Launch Cyberattacks On Libraries Globally.” Cybercrime Magazine (blog), May 15, 2024. https://cybersecurityventures.com/bookworms-beware-hackers-launch-cyberattacks-on-libraries-globally/.
Mandler, C. “Three Mile Island Nuclear Plant Will Reopen to Power Microsoft Data Centers.” NPR, September 20, 2024, sec. National. https://www.npr.org/2024/09/20/nx-s1-5120581/three-mile-island-nuclear-power-plant-microsoft-ai.
Mangan, Dan. “Judge Sanctions Lawyers for Brief Written by A.I. with Fake Citations.” CNBC, June 22, 2023. https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/22/judge-sanctions-lawyers-whose-ai-written-filing-contained-fake-citations.html.
New Socialist. “AI: The New Aesthetics of Fascism.” Accessed March 4, 2025. https://newsocialist.org.uk/transmissions/ai-the-new-aesthetics-of-fascism/.
Olavsrud, Thor. “12 Famous AI Disasters.” CIO. Accessed January 5, 2025. https://www.cio.com/article/190888/5-famous-analytics-and-ai-disasters.html.
Oransky, Ivan. “Evolution Journal Editors Resign En Masse to Protest Elsevier Changes.” Retraction Watch (blog), December 27, 2024. https://retractionwatch.com/2024/12/27/evolution-journal-editors-resign-en-masse-to-protest-elsevier-changes/.
Person, Chris. “Someone Has To Save The Film And TV That Studios Won’t – Aftermath,” February 18, 2025. https://aftermath.site/ricky-jay-defector-archive-preservation.
———. “The Person Saving The Media You Love Is You – Aftermath,” April 26, 2024. https://aftermath.site/the-person-saving-the-media-you-love-is-you-vhs-decode-domesday-duplicator-ld-decode-laserdisc.
Rivers, Heather. “London Library System Nears Full Recovery Four Months after Cyberattack.” lfpress. Accessed December 31, 2024. https://lfpress.com/news/local-news/london-public-library-still-recovering-from-cyber-attack.
Robertson, Adi. “Mark Zuckerberg: Creators and Publishers ‘Overestimate the Value’ of Their Work for Training AI.” The Verge, September 25, 2024. https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/25/24254042/mark-zuckerberg-creators-value-ai-meta.
Sherwood, Harriet. “British Library Begins Restoring Digital Services after Cyber-Attack.” The Guardian, January 15, 2024, sec. Books. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/jan/15/british-library-begins-restoring-digital-services-after-cyber-attack.
Stahie, Silviu. “Library of Congress’ Email System Compromised for Nine Months by Unknown Hackers.” Hot for Security. Accessed December 31, 2024. https://www.bitdefender.com/en-us/blog/hotforsecurity/library-of-congress-email-system-compromised-for-nine-months-by-unknown-hackers.
Tangermann, Victor. “ChatGPT Crashes If You Mention the Name ‘David Mayer.’” Futurism, December 2, 2024. https://futurism.com/the-byte/chatgpt-david-mayer.
———. “DeepSeek Failed Every Single Security Test, Researchers Found.” Futurism, February 1, 2025. https://futurism.com/deepseek-failed-every-security-test.
———. “Fury Erupts After Netflix Used AI to Clone the Voice of a Murdered Influencer for a True Crime Doc About Her Death.” Futurism, February 19, 2025. https://futurism.com/netflix-clone-voice-ai-true-crime-doc.
———. “There Are Now Zero Women on OpenAI’s Board.” Futurism, December 1, 2023. https://futurism.com/zero-women-openai-board.
———. “Zuckerberg Says It’s Fine to Train AI on Your Data Because It Probably Has No Value Anyway.” Futurism, September 27, 2024. https://futurism.com/the-byte/zuckerberg-fine-train-ai-data-no-value.
The Independent. “The View Panelist Cites ‘Hunter deButts’ in Bizarre Defense of Joe Biden’s Pardon,” December 3, 2024. https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/hunter-debutts-joe-biden-pardon-b2658300.html.
Timmer, John. “It’s Remarkably Easy to Inject New Medical Misinformation into LLMs.” Ars Technica, January 8, 2025. https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/01/its-remarkably-easy-to-inject-new-medical-misinformation-into-llms/.
“Toronto Public Library Cybersecurity Report.” Accessed December 31, 2024. https://torontopubliclibrary.typepad.com/board-meetings/2024-02-26/21-cybersecurity_report.pdf.
Trevithick, Matthew. “London Library ‘almost Fully Recovered’ from Ransomware Attack, CEO Says.” CBC News, March 4, 2024. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/london-library-ransomware-almost-recovered-1.7131984.
Weatherbed, Jess. “Latest Turing Award Winners Again Warn of AI Dangers.” The Verge, March 5, 2025. https://www.theverge.com/news/624485/turing-award-andrew-barto-richard-sutton-ai-dangers.
Wilkins, Joe. “Police Use of Facial Recognition Backfires Spectacularly When It Renders Them Unable to Convict Alleged Murderer.” Futurism, February 2, 2025. https://futurism.com/police-facial-recognition-backfires-convict-murderer.
———. “The Smarter AI Gets, the More It Start Cheating When It’s Losing.” Futurism, February 22, 2025. https://futurism.com/the-byte/ai-cheating-chess.
A Room With a View of Polaris and a Pond
First things first. You need to know where the title of this talk comes from and you owe it yourself to watch this.
Okay, that out of the way, here’s some information about the Views in the Polaris database.
Slide Deck: Download as PowerPoint | PDF
SQL: You can create a View with the following code and template.
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO
CREATE VIEW Polaris.Polaris.ViewName
AS
INSERT SELECT STATEMENT HERE;
GO