As part of our new experimental digital archiving project leftove.rs we will be running regular meet-ups to explore different ways to building databases and models for archival distribution, and reusing material.
Samiz-Dat Library
Wednesday 21st November
7-9.30pm
For this first session will focus on Samiz-Dat (formerly, Dat Library- https://github.com/samiz-dat/samiz-dat). Built on Dat Protocol (peer-to-peer protocol for syncing folders of data), Samiz Dat distributes libraries across many computers so that many people can provide disk and bandwidth, sharing the labour and responsibility of archival infrastructures. During the session we will be looking at installing Samiz-Dat both as a desktop app and a command line program so that any level of technical ability can get involved. Bring digital libraries of your own or use some of MDR’s digitised collections to built one.
Please bring a laptop with either MacOS or Linux distribution.
If you would like to come please email rosemary@maydayrooms.org so we can get an idea of numbers.
56a Scanthon
Thursday 6th December
Pop in any time between 7-10pm
(56a Infoshop, 56a Crampton Street, SE17 3AE)
In early December we will be combining two of our favourite things, 56a Infoshop and scanning! Come along to 56a for an evening of scanning, Raspberry Pi Mazi libraries (mazizone.eu) and more anarchist ephemera than you can eat.
Please bring a laptop if you have one as we don’t have enough computers to go around.
MediaWiki Workshop
Thursday 20th December
7.00-9:30pm
&
Thursday 27th February
7.00-9:30pm
As part of our new experimental digital archiving project leftove.rs we will be running regular meet-ups to explore different ways to building databases and models for archival distribution, and reusing material.
Join us for an evening of collective editing, tagging and learning about all things MediaWiki. During this session we will be starting to build an online repository of MayDay Rooms digitised archival material, and exploring how the wiki software can help us forge collections between materials and histories.
Open to all. Please bring a laptop and email rosemary@maydayrooms.org if you wish to attend so we can get an idea of numbers.
Find out more about Mediawikis here: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/
Scanaton with Statewatch
Thursday 14th March
7.00-9:30pm
Come join us for an evening of scanning, Raspberry Pi libraries and lots of pamphlets from Statewatch’s magnificent archive of subversive material. From the collection will be particularly focusing on publications from the Time Out Workers Strike in 1980.
Come and find out about the radical history of Time Out before it became rubbish!
Please bring a laptop if you have one, but still come if you don’t!
You can browse Statewatch’s collection here (https://statewatch.omeka.net)
Call for Submissions
MayDay Rooms is looking to commission an archival guide to accompany digital archiving project Leftovers. The aim of the guide is to help people explore, make links between and expand on areas of the online collection. We are very open to the form that this guide might take. They can be thematic, oblique, tangential, straight, myopic or expansive!
We are particularly interested in proposals that incorporate:
multimedia engagement; shows an interesting and dynamic approach to historical and archival research; proposes new ways of reading and navigating digitised material or links historical material in the online collection to current and future struggles.
For more information on how to apply click here
Deadline for application is 7th May
We will be having an open evening on 25th April between 6.30-8.30pm to give people who wish to apply a opportunity to look through our collections and work-in-progress digital archive and see what you might want to work with.
Scanathon and Cataloging Evening: Irish Struggles after 1968
Wednesday 15th May, 7-9pm
Now more than ever it is important to understand the past struggles of our Irish comrades. We invite to an evening of scanning, cataloguing and searching through our archival collection of political ephemera from post- 1968 struggles in Ireland. We will be focusing on material relating to revolutionary-socialist, national liberation, civil rights and women’s struggles, including an array of great material such as: Free Citizen: The Newspaper of People’s Democracy, Unfree Citizen, Banshee: Journal of Irishwomen United, Belfast Women’s Collective, Belfast Workers Research Bulletin, Troops Out Movement and much more…
GLC Scanathon with GLC Story Project 1981-86
Thursday 25th July, 7- 9pm
Before it’s abolition by the Thatcher Government in 1986 the Greater London Council (1981-1986) was a significant experiment in municipal socialism. It’s legacy is still important today not just for understanding the history of the left in London but also the direction of the current Labour leadership. Come sift through material from: the People’s Planning Unit, City Limits Magazine, Arts and Recreation Department, Police Monitoring and Research Unit, Women’s Committee and much more, and help us digitise and catalogue this important material.
The GLC Story will be there to give content to the material and retell the history of the institution, and its relationship to communities and social movements of the time. The GLC Story is an intergenerational oral history project. Listen and see their work here: www.glcstory.co.uk.
Big Flame Scanathon
Tuesday 22nd October, 6:30-8:30pm
In this months scanathon we will be swapping our weekend newspapers for Liverpool’s favourite revolutionary socialist broadsheet, and our twitter disputes for Big Flame’s internal discussion documents. Find out what Big Flame were saying about Wages for Housework, Black autonomy, Lotta Continua, how they reported on one of our most militant periods and more. Join us as we delve into and digitise this amazing archive and uncover the history of Britain’s libertarian left.
Find out more about Big Flame at:
http://maydayrooms.org/archives/big-flame/
Leftovers Workshop
Saturday 7th December, 11am-6pm
For the last year MayDay Rooms in collaboration with 0x2620 Berlin have been working on a digital archiving platform that is attempting to aggregate various sources of radical political ephemera together on one platform (https://leftove.rs). This includes a substantial part of the MDR collection but also takes from other publicly available sources. We now have a large body of material (around 15,000 items) and have been experimenting with different ways of structuring this collection and think through different ways of distributing the archive and further integrating the materials. The purpose of this workshop is bring people together working in a similar area, learn from their experiences (be that technical set-up or theoretical contributions) and help our platform grow.
Full workshop description can be found here
The workshop is closed but if you are particularly interested and wish to attend please emailrosemary@maydayrooms.org