In the last few days of our trip, as we walked all over Surabaya, I was thinking about the all libraries we had visited over those two weeks. I realised I was intuitively drawn to some of the collections more than others. Reflecting on this, I came to think about the collections in two categories: … More Institutional and emergent collections

On Monday evening, Ali and I gave a presentation about the Frontyard library and this research trip at C2O library. C20 did a great Instagram post summarising the discussion: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bc3u0ndheAV/ Diskusi bersama Frontyard Library (@frontyardorg) kemarin malam. Ruang kolektif yang mengelola perpustakaan, program residensi, kebun belakang, dan berupaya mengembangkan sistem nilai ekonomi dengan landasan prinsip … More Gram and links from C2O discussion

I just added SLiMs, the open source library management software used by a few of the libraries we’ve visited, to the Wikipedia page about library management software.

We visited the Indonesian Visual Arts Archive (IVAA) in Yogyakarta on Monday (2017-12-11). We just had time to do a brief interview with Melissa, Santosa, and another staff member (sorry! I missed that name :S). It’s a big, open space with high ceilings, specifically designed for this collection. There’s a glass dividing window between the … More Visiting the Indonesian Visual Arts Archive

Yesterday we visited Omah Lor Wellness Center, a permaculture farm, educational facility, and library under construction outside of Yogyakarta. Bebe and Dwi demonstrated how they were designing gardens, facilities, and businesses using permaculture principles and older ideas that they later found to align with these principles. On the way back, we talked more about permaculture … More Obtain a yield

On Thursday we visited the World Wide Web Foundation’s Open Data Lab in Menteng, Jakarta. I learned about them through Miko Cañares, who I met at The Impact of Civic Tech conference earlier this year. Miko was travelling this week, so we met Antya and Arthur. We sat on the beanbags in their workshop area … More Visiting the Open Data Lab, Jakarta

Ali and I are on the train from Jakarta to Yogyakarta. I’m reading the chapter Rigure in complexity in Robert Chambers’ 2017 book, ‘Can we know better?’ about knowledge and research in a development context—I discovered it in Miko’s (Open Data Lab Jakarta) twitter feed. I find it very relevant to design and civic tech. … More Reading on the train to Yogyakarta

you can always jugaad the technology, you can never jugaad the relationships Sophea, another frontyard janitors, told me this at our janitors getaway in April. She developed the principle or saying over many years, crystalising it with the Delhi Listening Group. “Jugaad” is a colloquial Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi word meaning something like ‘hack’, but … More You can always jugaad the technology, you can never jugaad the relationships