February 3, 2026
Drama in the stacks
I became a maintainer and all I got was a lousy perspective on librarianship
Librarian‑Turned App Maintainer Sparks Book‑Nerd Civil War
TLDR: A veteran librarian says maintaining BookWyrm reshaped how he sees libraries, calling for paid open‑source work and fresher practices. Comments exploded over paying maintainers, slow library standards, Goodreads vs. BookWyrm usability, and whether tech talks should be political—proof that how we share books is a culture war now.
A 25‑year librarian took the mic at Everything Open to say becoming a BookWyrm maintainer flipped his view of librarianship—and the internet immediately turned into the reference desk from hell. Fans of BookWyrm, a social reading app that can talk to other sites in the “fediverse” (a network of connected, independent platforms), cheered: finally, a librarian who ships features and feelings. Traditionalists clapped back: don’t throw cataloguers under the book bus—standards are how people find stuff.
His “don’t self‑exploit—your boss should pay for open source” caveat lit up the comments. Some shouted pay maintainers now, others snarked if it’s fun, it’s not labor, and union‑minded folks dropped links like receipts. Meanwhile, the Goodreads vs. BookWyrm fight got spicy. Anti‑Amazon readers swooned—escape the walled garden!—while skeptics groaned that grandma won’t figure out the “fedi” and asked for one big on‑ramp.
Even his land acknowledgement sparked debate. Many praised connecting Indigenous knowledge systems to metadata and community care; a few grumbled keep politics out of tech, only to get roasted with knowledge is political, babes. Meme lords did the rest: “He checked out of Goodreads and renewed his mojo,” “From shhh to share,” and “This talk has overdue fines—pay up in pull requests.”
Key Points
- •Hugh Rundle delivered a talk at Everything Open 2026; the video will be published later by the volunteer AV team.
- •Rundle has 25 years of experience in librarianship and leads a library technology team at La Trobe University focusing on metadata, discovery, and interoperability.
- •He described BookWyrm as a social reading application that federates via ActivityPub to platforms like Mastodon, Pixelfed, Pleroma, and Lemmy.
- •He cautioned against self‑exploitation, stating employers should pay workers whose open source contributions benefit the workplace.
- •The talk examines librarianship’s organizational dependence, slow change, and sticky standards, and how maintaining BookWyrm informed lessons for professional identity and maintainers.