site user guide
A guide to finding what you want on libcom, and navigating the site.
There are many of ways to find what you are looking for on libcom.org.
Generally speaking the majority of site content can be found in the main sections which are listed in the dark grey bar at the top of the page. These are explained in detail in our guide to our sections.
Information about the site can be found in notes, linked from the footer.
Information about you (if you have registered) is under 'My account'.
Other useful tools are our categories, which include regions, sectors and tags. You can read more about these in our categories guide.
Perhaps most usefully, you can use the search box at the top-right of the page, or why not install our Firefox search plug-in so you can search direct from your browser. You can also search from here.
Categories
Content on libcom.org is divided up in several ways. The main types of categorisation are: sections, regions, sectors and tags.
More detailed descriptions of these categories is given in the pages listed below.
Sections
Sections are the different areas of libcom.org which index different types of content. The main sections are news, history, thought, organise, library, the forums and notes.
These are linked to at the top of every page, and can also be accessed from the home page http://libcom.org.
Regions
Most of our content is classified by the geographical region to which it is most relevant. These are divided into Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Oceania, North America, South America, UK and Western Europs.
Sectors
Our content is also classified by the industrial or work sector it is about. We have thirteen main sectors: claimants and unpaid, communications, construction, education and learning, energy, health and medicine, manufacturing and materials, media and culture, military and law enforcement, public and third sector, retail and food, services, and transport.
Tags
Tags are more specific classifications which group content into different topic areas. Tags group together articles according to any number of features, including the subject of the articles, the country or city they are about, key events, individuals, corporations, decades or centuries.
Sections
A quick guide to finding the information you want on libcom.org.
Short descriptions of each of the main sections - Forums, History, Library, Listings, News, Notes, Organise and Thought - and the type of information they each contain, as well as related sections elsewhere.
If you are looking for a particular piece of information, use the search function at the top of the page.
Home
The front page of the site, which contains links to all the other main sections
News
News and analysis. Focussing on grassroots struggles of workers and communities, but also providing a libertarian look at big national and world events and how they impact on ordinary people.
Related: Features - big news features, General forum - discussion of current affairs
History
A people's history website, with concise articles about history, from about 800BC up until yesterday!
Listed by date, subject and region, articles are mainly about historical events as they affected ordinary working people, and the actions of large masses of people during those events. There are also biographies of people involved in those events, as well as some important world figures, and grassroots histories of whole countries.
The articles are mostly written to a standard format, and are mostly under 2,000 words. Where the word limit is insufficient to cover an issue in detail, links and references for more information are provided.
Related: Library - Longer, or further reading texts in a mix of formats, Thought - the ideas formed due to the past
Thought
A series of short introductory texts to various ideas and issues. Articles are mostly to a standard format and under 2,000 words. Where this is insufficient links to more information are provided.
Related: Glossary - explanations of frequently-used terms, Introductory thought forum - for basic queries, Thought forum - for in-depth discussion, Library - archive of many theoretical texts
Organise
Tips and advice for organising and taking action. A series of concise articles divided by the type of organising. This section covers everything from the basics of setting up a group, running a successful campaign, organising your workplace and taking strike action, and much more. Includes a personal section with helpful advice on issues such as debt, bullying and dealing with the police.
Related: Organise forum - discuss with people, News - people organising now, History - the past lessons of organisation
Library
A large archive of left and anarchist texts, including material for reference and further reading for articles on History, Thought and Organise. It contains a lot of material that libcom.org group does not agree with, but it is there because we feel that it is interesting or useful in some way.
The articles are in many different formats, from short 500 word pieces and leaftets to PDFs of books with hundreds of pages. It is sorted by author, group and format, and where relevant by subject, or region for historical material. Many of these articles were taken from elsewhere on the 'net, including the endpage archive, AF North, Anarchy Archives, prole.info and Class Against Class. If you find an article you wrote or put on-line, but which isn't credited, please contact us.
For introductory texts various topics or events we would recommend looking in Thought or History first.
Related: Thought, History
Forums
Discussion boards for debate, information-sharing, upcoming events, talking about current affairs, networking, advice and general chit-chat. It is divided by topic, with some - thought and history and organise - being more serious than others - libcommunity, with a more irreverant atmosphere. It also contains regional forums for local events and issues.
Related: History, Listings, News, Organise, Thought - different sections of the forums relate to other sections of libcom.org
Notes
Notes are pages, like this one, which contain technical information or features about this website itself.
How to use the libcom library
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The libcom library contains over 10,000 articles. If it's your first time on the site, or you're looking for something specific, it can be difficult to know where to start. Luckily, there's a range of ways you can filter the library content to suit your needs, from casual browsing to researching a particular topic.
Casual browsing
Every article is tagged with relevant keywords. Clicking on these will take you to a chronological list of all the content with that keyword, with the most recent at the top. So if you're reading a biographical article and click on the 'biographies' tag, you'll be taken to a list of all the biographical content on libcom.
Beneath each article there is also a list of five related articles under the heading 'More like this'. This is based on all the tags on the article, comparing them with other articles. It's a great first port of call if you're looking for something similar to what you've just read. And of course any article you click through to will also have its own 'more like this' recommendations.
The library index
The starting page for navigating the library is the library index. This page shows a chronological list of the latest library content, with the most recently added at the top. At the top right of the site is a search bar, which can be used to search the library (once your results come up, you can filter by 'library' using the controls in the right hand column). But also, you'll notice five other tabs, which contain powerful ways to search the library content.
Authors, people and groups
The authors tab, as the name suggests, allows you to search through the library by author. This includes individual authors and groups. Articles are also labelled with authors if they are about the person or group, as well as if they were written by them. This is very helpful if you know what you're looking for, or even for casual browsing keeping an eye out for interesting-sounding groups or names you recognise. The first thing you'll see is a short list of featured authors, but if you click on 'index' you can navigate an A-Z list of all the authors in the libcom library.
Sectors
The sectors tab allows you to navigate content by industrial sector. If you're looking for content on a particular industry, this is a great place to start.
Tags
The tags tab contains a list of featured tags, and clicking on 'index' opens up an A-Z index of all the tags on the site. If you're looking for something specific, this is a good way to narrow down your results.
Map
The map tab does what it says on the tin: all library content is overlaid onto an interactive Google map. The box above allows you to filter the content by tag, so for example entering 'strikes' would show all the library content about strikes on the map.
Bookmarked
Finally, the bookmarked tab shows popular content that other users have bookmarked. You can bookmark library articles yourself by clicking the 'bookmark this' link at the bottom of each article. You can find your bookmarked articles via the 'my account' link on the menu at the top of every page.
We hope you find this guide useful. Any comments, questions or feedback can be posted in the feedback forum. The libcom library is an ever-expanding resource and we're keen to make it as useful and accessible as possible.
Using e-book readers or kindles with libcom.org
A guide for making the most of libcom.org for users who own e-book readers/kindles/tablet computers etc.
E-readers or kindles can be a great way of reading, especially long texts, off-line.
Some of our articles are already in e-book formats suitable for e-readers. Check out our PDFs, epub and mobi file archives.
It is easy to put articles and texts from libcom.org onto your e-book reader, by following these 3 simple steps.
1a. Simply copy the text in your internet browser (such as Internet Explorer or Google Chrome) from the article title to the end, and paste it into a blank document in a word processor program, such as Microsoft Word.
1b. For PDF files go straight to step 2.
2. Save the document to your computer.
3. Upload the document to a free e-book reader conversion website, like www.2epub.com (or put it into a free conversion program like Calibre) and choose the kind of e-book file you want to turn it into (such as .epub or .mobi for kindles).