Library - High Desert Institute

One of the first requests we had at the Permaculture Mutual Aid Network, long before we built the new Emberfield community on TV, was the creation of a distributed off-grid library of valuable information that could be distributed to many lands as a form of local, off-grid internet of valuable content that’s relevant to the project of building these off-grid communities.

There is already a large community of people online compiling apocalypse libraries. CJ Trowbridge has covered this topic in depth both through blogging and in videos on tiktok. These public apocalypse libraries contain a lot of valuable information along with a lot of hysterical paranoid nonsense as you may well expect. What was needed was a curator, and this presented an enormous opportunity.

A significant portion of the content in the apocalypse library subculture is valuable and important. Many of these open-source documents and videos will be included in this new free, open-source library. One of CJ’s projects over the last year has been to leverage advanced degree in artificial intelligence to build a new permaculture AI librarian.

This AI Librarian helps identify topics that were not sufficiently covered in the initial collaborative off-grid library project. This led to an explosion in the size of the library and its degree of comprehensiveness. It also led to this library becoming a collaborative project which expanded beyond CJ’s ability to maintain alone, so this collaborative library project will move under the auspices of the High Desert Institute which will safeguard and expand the work on compiling all the vital information these communities need and making it easy for them to access it locally off-grid.

Original Research Contributions

The big change under the HDI auspices is the fact that original researchers will be able to contribute valuable information to this second-generation of the project. This will streamline the process of expanding and distributing this already-vast library of valuable off-grid content and information.

The Librarian

The librarian is a special off-grid artificial intelligence designed to help users conduct complex research in the local database as well as enabling things like on-demand fact checking. Check out the librarian’s page to see more about how it works.

The Cyberpony Express

The library as well as the librarian will run on a piece of local infrastructure called the Cyberpony Express. This system also includes special radio equipment for automatically monitoring things like emergency alerts and weather reports while also enabling long-range communications between intentional communities without needing any access to the internet.

Similar Project Examples

Anna’s Library, etc: there are many large repositories of books and information which aim to preserve and protect human knowledge in digital form. These include Sci-Hub, LibGen, Z-Lib, and more. While our library project is focused on collecting and distributing open-source, properly licensed content; many similar projects are focused instead on preserving all knowledge.
Appropedia: an encyclopedia of appropriate technology.
Ardbark: a large online library of content for preppers.
CD3WD Project: a non-profit initiative that provides free access to a vast library of technical documents and other relevant information to support sustainable development efforts.
Low Tech Magazine: a site about past and often forgotten technologies and how they can inform sustainable energy practices.
List of similar sites