Libpunk - doing it for itself

First there was my rather tongue-in-cheek post in June 2008 about how DIY-anarcho-librarianship could be called Libpunk if those educators were going to start spouting off about Edupunk, Steampunk, Edupunk, Libpunk? .  I gave a list of examples of library folk doing it for themselves and not waiting to be handed tools or permission, and because I had to come up with something I defined Libpunk as:

Librarians using non-proprietary products and groupings not based on institutional alliances to practice their craft and communicate their practice.  Open, collaborative enterprises based not on making money, but often on increasing social capital or extending knowledge

Then Amy Buckland offered to make me a Libpunk sticker for my laptop, so the Libpunk Cafe Press store was born. I’ve seen a couple of the products in the wild, like Stephen Francouer in New York’s  messenger bag and Krista Godfrey in Canada’s  laptop ..which made me smile..

Ann Gambles in the UK riffed on Libpunk in a slideshare presentation she did just for fun, Libpunk0.01 .

Then a mob of library school students were a bit excited about the whole idea and started a Libpunk wiki, but there is not a lot on it. And there is this Czech Libpunk wiki page that I have no idea about : )

The idea sat around in its dark shaded bedroom in an adolescent funk for a while, but it’s finding its voice again and morphing (yay!) with the new Libpunk Radio Show that started last week, the Libpunk Friendfeed room and the Libpunk Twitter account.  Sarah Glassmeyer and Kendra K are the energy behind the empowering and snotty upsurge, but they are not alone, with more people joining in during the last week.

If you want to do some do-it-yourself definition of what Libpunk may be, go and enter the Libpunk Essay Competition on the Libpunk.info site – except it’s not really a competition, but like , totally is … and you could even do an interpretive dance instead …anyhow according to the site the aim is to “figure all this shit out”…and whichever way you choose to do it can only be right …but …

Just.get.out.there.and.do.it .  Don’t wait around for someone to tell you it’s OK – poke, prod and dream and make your own path then share…

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