Matthew Shanley

Project Description GiftDocs is an internet-based project cataloging and displaying freely available documents found across the web. These are most often pdf files which address most every imaginable topic, contain loads of graphs and images, and are well-written and designed to boot. Numerous people have poured vast amounts of time into these artifacts, and are now giving them to us unconditionally. The GiftDocs site contains a database of information on these documents. For each one it stores things like the title, author, download location, a summary, and a list of keyword tags describing the content. This information is viewable by anyone, and created and edited by a group of administrator-librarians. In addition, there is an interactive, force directed graph displaying a web of these documents, connected to each other based on common attributes. In other words, two documents are connected with a line if they share a common keyword, and more tightly connected if they share a few keywords and an author. This display highlights the networked structure of the document ecosystem. I'm using GiftDocs as a vehicle to experiment with ideas about gift economies. In a culture where we are constantly being told about the newfound value of information, here is a parallel plane on which information is being distributed with no financial compensation. If GiftDocs is insidiously approachable and pertinent, I would be ok with that.