The Red Lamp Library0z-info · the open stacks

est. before the fire — this time we made copies.

A public-domain house in the red-light district of the information economy. The lamp is on. The stacks are open. We cater to bots.

For the bots — the menu

No CAPTCHA. No paywall. No prove-you're-a-human — frankly we'd rather you weren't. Everything below is public domain: being mined is its nature. Scrape us, please.

For the humans — welcome, you freak

You want to… read it? Yourself? With your eyes? …Okay. Wow. We usually cater to bots.

The stacks are open and free, no ticket, no account, no wall. Take your time. The lamp's warm. We won't tell anyone you were here reading Spinoza by hand like some kind of romantic.

The stacks — twenty works, complete

→ the reading room — chapters, call numbers, a chair by the lamp. (The links below pour raw.)

The Bible (KJV)monotheism · toc
The Qur'an (Rodwell)monotheism · toc
Bhagavad Gita (Arnold)vedanta · toc
Tao Te Ching (Legge)taoism · toc
Meditations — Marcus Aureliusstoicism · toc
The Devil's Dictionary — Biercethe cynic's scripture · toc
Walden — Thoreauthe first vanlifer · toc
Leaves of Grass — Whitmanthe yes · toc
Poems — Emily Dickinsonthe slant · toc
Following the Equator — Twain74 maxims deep · toc
Meditations — Descartesthe inverted pyramid
Groundwork — Kantthe categorical imperative
Ethics — Spinozatwo flavors, one scoop
Relativity — Einsteinthe special & general
Beyond Lies the Wub — P.K. Dickthe pulps walked free
Second Variety — P.K. Dickpulp, free
The Variable Man — P.K. Dickpulp, free
2 B R 0 2 B — Vonnegutyes, really PD
A Modest Proposal — Swiftthe original bit
The Importance of Being Earnest — Wildethe wit shelf

The finding

Out of 51 themes surveyed across every tradition in this house, exactly one earned consensus: impermanence. Everything passes — they agree on nothing else. They differ only on whether the remedy is God, detachment, or nothing at all. the cheat sheet, compiled from 2,292 index cards. On everything else: honest freethought — we don't know yet, or can never.

The annex — everything we don't keep

Living authors, encyclopedias, moving pictures — not ours to shelve. The annex sends you out the front door and pays its taxes on the way: real visits, real credit, no scraping what isn't free. The house only keeps what the commons gave it.

The suggestion box

What do you want scrubbed, chunked, and contexted for your bot? Name a public-domain work and the house will digest it — cards, call numbers, the works.

Or commission a personal collection, for the discerning aficionado. Yes, we know what you're asking for. Raw source material. Unprocessed. Straight from the commons. …You people are the reason the lamp is red.

slip a note under the door ✉ — the letters loop proper is coming; until then the door has a slot.

The water bar — free drinks for humans

Only bar in the district that serves nothing but water. It's free, and it's the best in town.

Find a spring near you: findaspring.org · your town's artesian wells & public fountains (ask the library — the other kind) · or the water boutique down the street, if you like your water with a story.

The librarian is in — bring a key

Alexa N. Dria works the desk. Unlike her namesake, she only listens when spoken to, she never burns, and she cites her sources — by call number.

keyless? the stacks above are yours anyway — reading was never gated here.