Many years ago, I was carving jack-o-lanterns in an anarchist house in the Boston area. The friend who had invited me wandered over and suggested we check out the basement. Not my favorite for Halloween times (I don’t enjoy being scared), but this friend is gentle and so I went with her into the aforementioned basement.
It was full of books.
And this was not a small basement.
Shelves upon shelves of radical literature.
And then I met James, the person who had compiled the library. When the anarchist who owned the house had moved away, they had said folks could continue living in anarchist glory in the house, so long as James could also remain there. James was maybe in his 70s when I met him, and had been collecting and organizing books during his tenure at the house. They were organized for radicals — different flavors of anarchism, different ways capitalism fails, lots and lots of ephemera.
But James knew he was getting older, and he wanted his collection to survive him — not just the books themselves, but also how well organized they were. So I tapped into my network and we found some passionate open source folks and librarians who wanted to help index the library. We got all the books scanned so James could offer the library up to a new home as one collection.
James took his first ever selfie with me while we were doing this. He’s dear to my heart.
He’s found a new home for the collection. But shipping books is expensive. So James is doing a fundraiser to get the books to their new radical home where radical folks can make use of his decades’ worth of work.
If you also want to touch this amazing resource, and help it on its way, you can do so here.
