The Anarchist in the Library: How the Clash Between Freedom and Control Is Hacking the Real World and Crashing the System

by Siva Vaidhyanathan

From Napster to Total Information Awareness to flash mobs, the debate over information technology in our lives has revolved around a single question: How closely do we want cyberspace to resemble the real world?

Genres: Nonfiction, Library Science, Technology, Politics, Sociology, Cultural

273 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Robertson Family Professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia.

Ph.D., University of Texas at Austin.

B.A., University of Texas at Austin.

Siva Vaidhyanathan is a cultural historian and media scholar, and is currently a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia. From 1999 through the summer of 2007 he worked in the Department of Culture and Communication at New York University. Vaidhyanathan is a frequent contributor on media and cultural issues in various periodicals including The Chronicle of Higher Education, New York Times Magazine, The Nation, and Salon.com, and he maintains a blog, www.googlizationofeverything.com. He is a frequent contributor to National Public Radio and to MSNBC.COM and has appeared in a segment of "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart. Vaidhyanathan is a fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities and the Institute for the Future of the Book.

In March 2002, Library Journal cited Vaidhyanathan among its "Movers & Shakers" in the library field. In the feature story, Vaidhyanathan lauded librarians for being "on the front lines of copyright battles" and for being "the custodians of our information and cultural commons." In November 2004 the Chronicle of Higher Education called Vaidhyanathan "one of academe's best-known scholars of intellectual property and its role in contemporary culture." He has testified as an expert before the U.S. Copyright Office on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Reviews

[jonathan berger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two or three years after publication large parts of this book feel heavily dated, but that's the problem with writing topical books. The first half is much stronger than the second, and it has the unpleasantly didactic and thesis-y feel of a punk-rocker-turned-academic, but Siva's ideas about the interaction and directions of technology and culture are essential.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't think this book is as dated as others do. The discussion of DRM and the p2p revolution is indeed dated, but still interesting, and the author's discussion of the purpose of copyright as a protective measure for both content creators and consumers is timeless. He beautifully lays out the implications of the corporate copyright machine and the complicity of Congress. He had me up until chapter 11, which is a disturbingly anti-American screed. Overall, a good read, though, and an easy one.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is from 2004, which means a lot of it can be read as a historical artifact - he spends A LOT of time talking about the issues surrounding music filesharing. He focuses on Napster and it's immediate successors, and this comes even before LimeWire.
What this book is, is a discussion of the philosophical tensions surrounding the internet. There are corporate and governmental interests about control that find themselves in opposition to some of the "baked into the cake" anarchistic tendencies of the internet itself. He's writing post-9/11 and the Patriot Act and the pressures that were put on libraries in particular and the internet in general - and reading this fifteen years later gives some distance on the issues, as well as making fresh some issues that maybe we've come to sort of just accept as "the way things are."
He's a media studies guy with a degree in American Studies, from Buffalo, NY. He taught for years at NYU and is currently at UVA. He's no slouch. The philosophical tug-of-war continues with the same parties lined up as he identified them 15 years ago - transnational corporations and governments on one side, and civil-libertarians, political dissidents, librarians, religious communities, and scientists and academics on the other.
His big concern is about how culture works and grows and matures, and if the throttles that patent and copywrite holders want to impose will have a stunting effect on cultural development. The answer is: probably. The US government has imposed a set of ideas about the world (neoliberalism, once more commonly called the Washington Consensus) and has picked a handful of transnational corporations to support. Some are liked by one party or the other, and a few are supported by both.
We need to have a solid discussion about the extent of copywrite and patent protections, and figure out how much we want to support creators, how much we want to free up information for the common culture, and how much we want to allow transnational corporations to gather wealth based on captured copywrites and patents.
He also raises an issue I have often wondered about in passing but never really dug into - what is the impact of diaspora communities on the government of the home nation? I deal with this in my own life as an adopted in member of a diaspora religious community - but this is only a marginal example. What influence does the diaspora Han Chinese and Indian communities have on the political life of the home state? Do those governments care? Curious.
He ends up defending a left-center cosmopolitan republicanism (all terms lower case on purpose), that is fairly predictable.
A pretty good book- will definitely read some of his more recent works on social networks.

[Lindsay Hickman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book shows its age and that is why it gets the rating I gave it. When it was published it had some fascinating ideas and examples of how Fair Use Copyright has changed and evolved over time and how it needs to continue to evolve to keep up with the Digital Age. By favorite part of this book is about the legal ruling on the book The Wind Done Gone, because it relates directly to something that I am studying currently in British Literature. It is really a fascinating tale that you should Google, but the short version is that the book published in 2001, was allowed to be published because it was labeled as a 'parody' of Gone With The Wind, by the courts. But if anyone reads the book it is nothing even close to a parody, instead it is an alternate account of the story of Gone With The Wind. Anyways, getting back to this book it was very interesting but it shows its age.

[Rebecca DeLucia · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Anarchy is not the ideal political state--far from it. But anarchists are onto something descriptively. Culture builds itself without leaders. Culture proliferates itself through consensus and revision. Culture works best when there is minimal authority and guidance. We must declare a desire for global cultural democracy."

though it suffers for sprawl, vaidhyanthan's analysis of the political climate in the US immediately following 9/11 is worth the trudge through some of its more outdated stock. It's not so much that the urgency of the ideas is out of date, but that the global cultural democracy vaidhyanathan calls for has been retrofitted with facial recognition software and mitmproxy, i.e. I might have read this more carefully had I not been busy customizing my ad experience for solicitous efficiency in the same place that facilitates my free video views and uploads.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author brings up very interesting ideas, discussing how culture and technologies are inherently anarchistic, and how oligarchies are constantly trying to harness these for control & profit, which may end up damaging or destroying them in the process. The 'anything goes' trading of Napster wasn't good for artist and content produces, but the tied-down DRM world is even worse in the long run.

He definitely knows his material, but the writing just isn't that clear. He compares things to "Anarchistic Libertarianism" like I'm supposed to instantly know the ramifications of the term. I'd read a paragrah and realize I have no idea what he was trying to say.

There's a great argument to make here, I just don't think Siva Vaidhyanathan presents it very well.

[helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four stars not because the writing is especially good, but because I think the content is pretty important. Not just for librarians, but for anyone who uses the internet, really. The Goodreads synopsis describes it as a "guide to one of the most important cultural and economic battlegrounds" — the battleground in question being the internet. I can't say I agree with everything he says, but it did get me to think about the nature of the Internet and creativity and control in different ways. The stuff on Napster seems dated now, so I skipped over those parts, but yeah, totally recommend reading it.

[Katie Daniels · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little more rambling and personal then most books I recommend on this subject, nevertheless "Anarchist in the Library" is an excellent look at the freedom of information issue. The author addresses how free flow of information effects far more then just the entertainment industry, discussing hard topics like terrorism, global trade, and human rights. He also looks at two the two opposing systems: anarchy and oligarchy and how both have the power to destroy our culture. He pleads for balance in all things, and ends by saying that he doesn't have the answers...

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

A decent treatment on whether information should be given freely (via an anarchist model) or carefully managed and controlled via copyrights and courts.

He starts with Napster, but quickly advances into theoretical plans and implications of both sides.

Informational copyright is one of the biggest legal issues of this generation. I would put this book on a top 10 of "Books a responsible citizen needs to read".

[tamarack · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was like a print version of Jesse Brown's Search Engine podcast. SE is something I enjoy listening to very much, and were Vaidhyanathan's book to come out in audio I'd be all over like white on rice. It was interesting, but unfortunately I didn't get to finish it before my library term was up and back to the shelves at FVRL it went.

[Benji · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sida Vaidhyanathan's assessment of intellectual property laws and the Internet's undercurrent of anti-copyright sentiment is superficial at best. His rhetoric around 'anarchy' as it applies to knowledge makes little sense, but he happily pushes ahead, forging imagined "anarchists" who want to go about changing our intellectual property regimes by the "wrong" means.

[lia · Rating 4 out of 5]

So far, this book is really incredible, but unfortunately, even though it's just a few years old--it's pretty dated, which is what happens I guess when you write about information or technology these days. Still, it is super recommended up to now.

[Madeline]

This sounds quite interesting, though I can only hope I won't be throwing it against the wall after the first page. I know a lot about Anarchy since I grew up in an "independent household" I suppose you could say.

[Catfish · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book and I refer to it often in papers I write. The author reminds us of the ideology behind a library and how if we're not careful our libraries will be nothing more than internet cafés. A great read if you're interested in filesharing technologies and libraries.

[Paul Callister · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent for helping see the big picture of change in the information environment. I use it in my Cyberlaw and Infosphere class.

[Genya · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a more nuanced than his previous, Copyrights and Copywrongs.

[Brendan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Should be required reading for all librarians. Great for anybody who's interested in intellectual property as a concept and whether it's valid.

[James Guillaume · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only book (I know of) that thoroughly explores the subject of infoanarchism. That being said, Vaidhyanathan is clearly more of a liberal than an anarchist.

[Júlíus · Rating 2 out of 5]

Insightful in a few places, but otherwise badly dated and tells the same tale as better writers have done since (and before).

[Elaina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is shockingly absorbing and engaging. High five to Vaidhyanathan.