Each member of Radiohead is being a librarian for a day

Radiohead have launched a new project, the ‘Radiohead Public Library’, which will house an extensive collection of audio, visual, and physical media related to the band. To commemorate its launch, each of the band’s members are serving as librarians for the day, “presenting a curated selection of archival material across the band’s social media channels (as well as their own Radiohead Public Library cards)”, according to a press release.

The Radiohead Public Archive, launched on Radiohead.com, allows fans to create their own library card and membership number, and offers an organised archive of the band’s artwork music videos, live and TV performances, B-sides, and compilation tracks. On top of that, they’ll be sharing the band members’ ‘office chart’ playlists from the In Rainbows, The King of Limbs, and A Moon Shaped Pool recording sessions. Previously out-of-print merchandise will also be custom made on demand.

As a press release explains, the archive was created to centralise a lot of material that was often shared in low quality, bootleg forms on the web. “The internet as a whole has never been a reliable resource for detailed or even accurate information re: Radiohead,” it reads. “Many sites that attempted to provide some measure of service have long since gone dark as well. The overall effect has been ‘Radiohead’ search results that yield random and/or abbreviated shards: songs and album titles unaccompanied by detailed artwork or any additional context, low quality videos preceded by advertisements and shuffled via algorithms, and so on.”

To mark the Library’s opening week, Colin and Jonny Greenwood, Ed O’Brien, Philip Selway, and Thom Yorke will be acting as librarians, starting today (January 20) and ending on Friday (January 24). The band have also added a number of Radiohead rarities to streaming services: the band’s 1992 debut, EP, Drill, the 2005 track “I Want None of This”, originally from the charity compilation Help!: A Day in the Life, and the 2011 TKOL RMX 8 remix EP.

Check it out at Radiohead.com, and see our exclusive photos from Thom Yorke’s solo US tour.