Project progress

Overall progress

Current estimate: around 85%.

This estimate remains qualitative and deliberately cautious. It does not measure what is built in the code (where the technical mapping is almost complete), but what is usable from A to Z by a library that did not have the project's designer on hand. It is a political framing, not a software-effort indicator. At this stage, most functions are in production: there is not much left to build, but still work to make every module fully robust, intuitive and reliable outside its original context.

Recent trajectory:

• 2024 — around 30%, first prototype carried by a pilot library;
• early 2026 — around 50%, prototype broadened but still fragile in use;
• April 2026 — around 60%, out of the prototype, first stable parts on the reader and circulation side;
• May 2026 — around 65 to 68%, multilingual email notifications, login by identifier, inclusive-language charter, network-administration model, new-library enrolment path completed, reader's and administrators' manuals published;
• late May / early June 2026 — around 70%, librarians' panel completed, reader card in production, personal-data protection compliance achieved (record of processing, legal documents in ten languages, dual European and Brazilian legal basis), email-provider migration nearly finished;
• mid-June 2026 — around 75%, network-administration screen, first federative circles, the capacity to "be a source" (governed OAI-PMH exposure), opening of the Authorities Workshop, duplicate detection and merging at the cataloguing stage, exemplar model, personal "my library" space;
• late June 2026 — around 85%, several structuring worksites enter or consolidate their entry into production: the network map and directory (including a "add my library" self-declaration), the catalogue's Work/Editions model (distinguishing the work, its editions and its translations), an audio-collection module (audio tracks, MusicBrainz identifiers, OAI exposure), a built-in ePub reader with reading resumption, a browser OCR demonstrator to pre-fill cataloguing, the launch of the network Gazette and the federation Letter, the complete life cycle of reader memberships (numbers, fee required to circulate, traced refusal), team welcome by invitation, collaborative evaluation of membership requests, and, on the operations side, encrypted off-provider backups with a restoration procedure and an acceptance test suite passing in continuous integration.

The project is usable day to day in the pilot libraries (Brazil and France) and already findable in the network. It is completing its consolidation to become fully reliable outside its original context. It is neither a prototype nor a frozen product: it is a production system close to maturity, whose generalisation is now within reach.

What works today

These features run in production in the pilot libraries, with real readers. That does not make them set in stone: their consolidation continues as they are put to the test.

Public catalogue. Search, book records, author records, records contextualised by library. Wish lists. Continuous navigation between catalogue, book and author.

Reader account. Account creation, login by email or by short identifier, forgotten password, profile editing, password change directly from the account. Account-status banner (active, warning, restricted). Personal public identifiers. Account deletion by the reader themselves, with no intermediary. A personal "my library" space brings together in a single place the current loans, the reservations, the on-site consultations, the wish list, the card and the profile: the reader has a single point of entry for everything that concerns them.

Circulation. Reservations, current loans, renewals, full and partial returns, history. Overdue management. Circulation rules configurable locally, editable from the interface without touching the code.

Librarians' panel. Automatic daily work (scheduled pickups, reservations to handle, overdues, expected returns). Bulk reservation management. Direct loan creation. Full and partial returns. Management of readers under restriction and lifting of restrictions. Circulation statistics per library. Internal and recurring tasks, with a shared catalogue of task suggestions across the network. Filters, pagination and two-step actions.

Reader card. Every reader can generate their own digital card, with an identification QR code (opaque token, no tracking) and a printable version (PDF or PNG). It works on mobile. It is the first piece of a mobile extension of the tool, conceived as a complement with its own capabilities and not as a degraded copy of the desktop.

Network map and directory. A geographic map makes the network's libraries (and the collectives probed or targeted) findable, in the ten languages. A collective can self-declare through a public "add my library" form, then moderated by the coordination before publication. Sensitive data (fine-grained address, email, phone) is never exposed by the public map views.

Email notifications in the recipient's language. For the main flows (reservations, loans, profile, group governance), emails go out in the reader's preferred language. Libraries can enable or disable each family of notifications independently. The migration to a more privacy-respecting email provider (no trackers) is complete.

Personal-data protection. Record of processing, legal documents in the ten languages, dual legal basis (European and Brazilian), rights of individuals implemented (access, erasure with anonymisation, portability), privacy sections specific to each library, configurable retention policy. A notice is sent by email before any data erasure. The project goes through no big-platform authentication (Google, Facebook and the like).

Multilingualism. Ten active languages in the application — Brazilian Portuguese (reference language), French, Castilian, Italian, German, English, Catalan, Esperanto, Dutch and Greek — with strict parity of translation keys enforced by continuous integration. Ten languages on the institutional site as well. A selector on every page, with no flags or country codes. Author biographies translatable independently.

Local visual identity. Each library has its own colours, fonts, background images, welcome message — without touching the code, by configuration.

Enrolling a new library in the network. A collective wishing to join can create an account, file an institutional request through an online form, receive a confirmation in its own language, and trigger an immediate notification to the coordination. Handling the request is now collaborative: a bilateral message exchange with the coordination, internal comments, and a decision by unanimous consent of the administrators, with mandate transfer possible. The path works in ten languages, with human support from the mentor libraries.

Network administration. The political model of coordination is inscribed in the tool: cooptation by unanimous consent, collective withdrawal by unanimous consent with a grace period, self-withdrawal always possible, a cross-cutting right of intervention on a local library traced in an immutable register legible by the coordinations concerned. The management screen is in service: network overview, membership requests, libraries, members, administration and reports.

Account security. Anti-brute-force protection at login. Automatic logout on browser close. Provisional password imposed at first login, to be changed immediately. Immutable audit of cross-cutting actions. The latest database security audit passed with no critical alert: the data-access protections were hardened and the sensitive points closed.

What is being consolidated

This is where the bulk of the remaining work is concentrated. These worksites work, but with accepted limits or ergonomics still being run in: they are usable, and their reliability outside the pilot libraries is earned through use.

Advanced cataloguing module. Detailed records by material type (books, pamphlets, periodicals, leaflets, audio, audiovisual, digital resources, dossiers, fanzines, archives). Simple mode and full mode. Metadata search by ISBN and at the National Library of Brazil. Drafts and publication, indexing and label printing. The exemplar model is in production. A Work/Editions model (inspired by FRBR) now distinguishes the work, its editions and its translations by expression: it makes the other editions of the same text visible and lays the base for fine-grained cataloguing. Duplicate detection, side-by-side comparison and merging in an editorial queue — field by field, logged — are in production. A browser OCR demonstrator pre-fills some records. Automatic availability reconciliation (with a nightly safety net) makes the counters reliable. The core works; some branches (upstream provenance, enriched authorities) remain to be consolidated.

Audio collections. A sub-module dedicated to audio documents: division into positioned tracks, credits at track granularity (voice, performance, composition), linkage to MusicBrainz identifiers, and exposure of those identifiers via OAI-PMH. The base is in production on the librarian side; the public showcasing of tracks is widening progressively.

Authorities Workshop. The project's fourth circle — open to comrades attached to libertarian memory without being affiliated with a member library — is in service. You create a network contributor account, submit proposals, and they apply once consent has been obtained. Working are the duplicate-merge proposals (persons and subjects), the biography translations, and the consent grammar (a proposal with no reasoned objection before its deadline applies by itself; an objection opens discussion, with no vote and no hierarchy). Still maturing are the guided-task panel and the opening to record creation and to the collectivity and subject authorities.

Library configuration. Identity, communications, regulations (PDF), team, modes of operation (catalogue, circulation, network, governance as independent axes). Team welcome is done by traced invitation. Stable in essentials; some sections (exchanges between libraries) remain in deployment.

Partnerships between libraries. Two libraries in the network can form a partnership: propose, accept, refuse or break it, with a notification to the contact concerned and an invitation to their common readers to consent. Reciprocal rights (transparency, digital sharing, mutualisation, inter-library loan) follow from it. The cycle works in production (a first real case between two pilot libraries); its ergonomics on both sides are being audited.

Federative circles. The network can organise itself into circles — affinity, geographic or linguistic groupings, with no hierarchy. Creating a circle, joining it, leaving it, welcoming a membership by consent (a reasoned objection opens discussion, with no vote and no hierarchy) works in production. It is the first concrete piece of the federative face.

Network Gazette and federation Letter. Two organs of network expression have been launched. The Gazette is a multilingual issue (ten languages) assembled monthly from sources and open contributions, curated by the coordination. The federation Letter is an opt-in newsletter (double consent, unsubscribe without login). The base exists and a first issue is in place; regular editorial use is getting under way.

Mutual aid and Commons. Federative tools for mutual aid (requests and offers of help between libraries) and for pooling reference documents are in service at a first level. Their perimeter widens at the pace of expressed needs.

"Being a source" (OAI-PMH exposure). A library can expose its catalogue to harvesting by other libraries, archives or tools, via the open OAI-PMH protocol. The opening is never a mere switch: it is governed (a bottom-up request approved by an administrator, or a top-down opening of the whole network voted by the libraries concerned, secret ballot and tacit consent at the deadline) and always temporary (manual closure, permanent alert banner). The engine and the OAI-PMH endpoint are in production.

On-site consultations. Requesting to consult a document without borrowing it, proposing a time slot, confirming or declining it, welcoming the consultation, reporting a missed consultation. The internal engine is delivered with its safeguards (impossible to have a loan and a consultation on the same document at once). The library-side and reader-side screens are in service, their ergonomics being refined; the dedicated notifications are still being completed.

Digital resources. Built-in reader for restricted PDFs and an ePub reader with reading resumption (position and progress remembered). External links, access metadata. A policy of clearly defined access modes (public PDF, restricted PDF, external link). The perimeter is widening progressively.

Membership fees. The life cycle of reader memberships is now complete: reader numbers, fee rules specific to each library, payment history, fee required in order to circulate, refusal handling. The engine works in the Brazilian pilot library. Activation for other libraries and automatic expiry notifications remain to be generalised.

What is being prepared

These worksites exist as design, sometimes as a prototype, but are not yet usable day to day. Their opening will be progressive.

The federative face of the network (continued). The circles, the Gazette, the Letter, the network map, mutual aid and the Commons already exist (see above). What remains are the assemblies of libraries (convocation, gatekeeper-free open agenda, facilitation, videoconference room) — whose specification is laid down and whose tables are ready, but which are not yet in service — and the common charter. A federative operating-principles document has been written to frame all this (the tool records without deciding, seeing is not acting, the graph is never a tree, silence counts as consent with an anti-blackball safeguard, no federal coercion, memory never erased…). This text has no authority: it proposes, and the collectives dispose. It will be put up for discussion in the network.

New-library welcome assistant. There is a constitution workshop: once a request is validated, the library has a configuration space organised in panels, backed by the real configuration, with team welcome by invitation. What is still maturing: a path truly guided step by step, with reasonable anarchist defaults, and the production as output of a skeleton of internal regulations immediately usable. Ergonomic refinement is planned for the second half of 2026.

Stocktaking (physical inventory). Verifying the actual presence of copies on the shelves through scan campaigns. A first engine was sketched then reset; the worksite is open but not yet usable day to day.

Acquisitions and provenance. The life of a library also runs through the entry of documents: desiderata, receiving a batch of donations before cataloguing. The provenance trace of each copy already exists; what is missing is the upstream flow. A framing is under way.

Imports from partners. Capacity to import records and collections from other libertarian libraries, archives, publishers. A partner-probing layer exists (HTML detection, OAI, SRU, JSON-RPC, OpenAPI). The reverse direction — exposing one's own catalogue as a source — is already in production (see "being a source" above); what remains deferred is productive large-scale import, until the cataloguing module fully stabilises.

Full inter-library loan. Preparation and tracking of temporary loans between network libraries, definitive exchanges of surplus documents. The sharing of digital documents between partner libraries already has its base pieces in production (access to a shared asset, request flow, dedicated notifications); what is missing is the complete path, exposed in a stable interface.

What does not exist, and is not among the near priorities

To manage expectations: here is what AnarBib does not do, and will not do in the near horizon.

No dedicated native mobile application. The web interface is responsive and works well on mobile, down to the display in installed mode (PWA, no app store, no trackers). A mobile extension with its own capabilities is being built: the reader card is in production, the ePub reader follows. A packaged native app, however, is not planned — it is a disproportionate maintenance cost for the real need.

No commercial SaaS. AnarBib is free software that libraries use. It is not a service with subscription, billing, paid support. The network helps one another; there is no company behind it.

No automatic fining. Overdues are flagged. Regularisations go through dialogue between the library and the reader. No automation of fine or penalty calculation.

No integration with proprietary ILS. AnarBib does not talk to PMB, BiblioCommons, Symphony, Ex Libris, or other commercial tools. Imports/exports go through open formats (JSON, MARC, OAI-PMH), not through proprietary connectors.

No analytics or algorithmic-recommendation features. No statistical monitoring of readers' behaviour. No "those who borrowed this book also liked" engine. The project politically refuses these logics.

Indicative calendar

This calendar is deliberately vague. Militant free-software projects have temporalities that are not those of a commercial publisher with its quarterly roadmap. The current, sustained development pace is possible thanks to the absence of third-party users to answer to in real time — it is a temporary window that will close as the network widens.

End of 2026: consolidation and ergonomic refinement of the freshly delivered modules (network map, Work/Editions model, audio collections, Gazette and Letter, memberships), closure of the on-site consultation worksite, consolidation of the cataloguing module, bringing the network assemblies into service, coverage of secondary email flows.

During 2027: progressive opening of productive imports from partners, full inter-library loan exposed in a stable interface, expansion of federative features (common charter) in the wake of the discussion of the federative principles.

2027 and beyond: generalisation beyond the pilot circle, opening to candidate libraries, public request for an industrialised instance.

These windows are not promises. They are intentions, subject to the availability of comrades and to the contingencies of the real.

How to stay informed

Matrix room — to chat live, follow announcements, ask questions: #anarbib:matrix.org

Codeberg repository — to follow the evolution of the code: codeberg.org/anarbib

Coordination email — for more formal questions or requests: contato@anarbib.org

This page is updated at every important milestone, and at least every three months. If you come back and the update date is older than that, do not hesitate to point it out.