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Spunk Library
File:Spunk Library logo.gif
Type of site
Archive
OwnerSpunk Collective
Created byIan Heavens, Chuck Munson
URLhttp://www.spunk.org/

The Spunk Library (also known as Spunk Press) is an anarchist Internet archive. The name "spunk" was chosen for the term's meaning in Swedish ("anything we want it to mean"), English ("courage or spirit"), and Australian ("an attractive person"), summarized by the website as "nondescript, energetic, courageous and attractive".[1]

According to anarchist librarian Chuck Munson, the library was began as Spunk Press in 1992.[2] The founding contributors – Ian Heavens, Jack Jansen and Practical Anarchy editors Munson and Mikael Cardell –originally met via online fora, namely Jansen's Anarchy Discussion email list. The Library was run by an editorial collective during the 1990s.[3] It is not intended to replace print publishing, but rather serves a shop window promoting anarchist book publishers, newspapers and journals.[4]

By 1995, it was already the largest anarchist archive of published material catalogued on computer networks, though it faced a media assault falsely accusing it of collaborating with terrorists such as the Red Army Faction, of providing instructions for bombmaking and of co-ordinating the “disruption of schools, looting of shops and attacks on multinational firms.”[5][6] The Library is largely inactive, with the mainpage last being updated in March 2002.[7]

The Rough Guide to the Internet described the Library as being "organized neatly and with reassuring authority".[4] Chris Atton, writing in Alternative Media (2002) hailed the site as an "advertisement for socially responsible anarchism with a significant intellectual pedigree", remarking that "[i]n a world where anarchism is still largely derided or maligned by the mass media, that is an important function" and drawing a comparison to Infoshop.org.[4]

References

  1. ^ "Spunk Library - the name". www.spunk.org. Retrieved 2008-04-25.
  2. ^ "Alasbarricadas interviews Infoshop founder, Chuck Munson", Infoshop.org, 2008-02-20.
  3. ^ "Spunk Library - Manifesto". www.spunk.org. Retrieved 2008-04-25.
  4. ^ a b c Atton, Chris (2002). Alternative Media. Thousand Oaks: Sage. ISBN 0761967710.
  5. ^ Wehling, Jason (1995-06-07). "'Netwars': Politics and the Internet". Green Left. Retrieved 2008-04-25. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ Owens, Lynn (2003). "Making the News: Anarchist Counter-Public Relations on the World Wide Web". Critical Studies in Media Communication. 20 (4): 335–361. doi:10.1080/0739318032000142007. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  7. ^ "Spunk Library - Anarchy, anarchist, and alternative materials". www.spunk.org. Retrieved 2008-04-27.
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