Cataloguing Utopia
Written by Harry Jelley
Around our globe, a web of radical libraries provide spaces to gather, share knowledge, and inspire social transformation. They are more than the zines, books, and pamphlets that they hold. They are places where blueprints for new, equitable worlds can be found, blueprints that are cut-up, shifted, and reshaped in conversation, debate, and organising.
In the 1in12 library you’ll find rare gems of anarchist magazines from the 1960s, poetry, plays, editions of Class War and Freedom, the anarchist weekly. There are DIY pamphlets, a whole zine collection, and, most importantly, a place for gigs, making art, watching films, and coming together as a community.
The 1in12 Anarchist Library Collective, is one of the many collectives that forms Bradford’s 1in12 club. Founded in the early 1980s and later evolving into a broader social centre, the club is a self-managed, members-run space that sometimes functions as a gig venue, an art spaces, a cinema, and whatever else the members want it to be.
This library shows how these spaces are more than rows of shelves, with nooks, and cupboards stuffed full of newspapers. It shows how libraries can be hubs of radical thought, resistance, and community empowerment., the 1in12 Library collective has committed itself to challenging systems of oppression and creating spaces that facilitate grassroots education, mutual aid, and collective action.
From the beginning there has been debate about how anarchist libraries operate in a way that reflects the values of the space. An early mooted idea was to do away with classification completely and let people discover the books by seeing which resonated with them; an idea that the librarians amongst the collective couldn’t get on board with. There needed to be some sort of cataloguing. Then began debates on what cataloguing was necessary, what cataloguing continued to enact the same violence of the state or iniquity of our society? Essentially, how can this library be better for the world not only in what it contains but also how it operates.
Radical libraries pop-up anywhere that there is grassroots activism and a need to preserve radical knowledge and a desire to encounter new, challenging ideas. Whether nestled in squatted buildings, community centers, or repurposed shipping containers, these libraries share common goals: to democratize knowledge, encourage readers to expand their understanding of what communities are possible, and support movements for justice.
You’ll find radical libraries all over the world. In Brooklyn, New York, the Interference Archive is available to everyone and aims to preserve ‘the collective history of those struggling for social change’, La Biblioteca Social Reconstruir in Mexico City was founded by a refugee from the Spanish Civil War who opened a public library with his collection, and Mosireen Archive in Cairo have created in online archive of footage from the Egyptian Revolution in 2011.
Libraries are never neutral spaces, they are always rooted in the political of their context, how the collections have come together, and who they are open to. Radical libraries position themselves as agents of social change. They serve as sanctuaries for marginalized voices and as training grounds for activism. Their collections preserve the histories of movements that mainstream institutions often ignore or sanitize.
You can join the 1in12 and access their library. You can be part of the active preservation and conversation around radical ideas. You can, if you’d like, head to the top floor of the 1in12, make a brew of ginger tea, pop the heater on, and grab a pamphlet from the shelf, settling in for a few hours of reading. It’s open every first Saturday of the month from now until the revolution.
