Retrospective: The Occult Library — Two Years On
Celebrating two years
January 1st, 2026, marks the two-year anniversary of the launch of The Occult Library. We are extremely proud of the work we’ve accomplished in service to the community, and it has been spectacular to see this project grow and evolve. We’d like to look back at some accomplishments, and goals moving forward.
First, a word of thanks is in order...
We’d like to extend gratitude to our staff and volunteers who have spent hours of time working towards the success of the project at no cost other than energetic passion for their work and community. From bibliographic data to blogs, collections to conversations, we’ve developed a great camaraderie along the way, and we are grateful for their work.
Most especially, we are eminently grateful to our readers and users. This project was created for you, and your support, feedback, curiosity, and excitement have kept us moving forward eagerly. The fact that the site has successfully been of service to so many different folks has been an indicator of our efforts. We look forward to exploring the ways in which we can grow to serve the community further. Thank you from us all!
We are also deeply thankful to all who joined us in written conversation, support & visibility, and in allowing us to share their work on the page.
Thanks to our staff, volunteers, and readers!
Though the concept for The Occult Library had long been gestating, tangible work began in mid-winter of 2023. Locating the need for a comprehensive space for the occult literary & multimedia community, our founder Daniel Yates began to construct the framework for a website. This was created with a vision for a dynamic database serving the occult community of which we are a part.
Soon, Daniel recruited the assistance of professional librarian Danny Scopelliti to assist with nascent bibliographic collections, ideas, and site structure. The early days included late hours, much conversation, brainstorming, and a pinch of good fun.
Not long after, our colleagues Sylvia & Tristan Eden of Leodrune Press kindly obliged us the opportunity to obtain commissioned art for the site. Their unique and instantly recognizable work lent us a specific visual identity and stylistic continuity.
Site art from Leodrune Press (Sylvia & Tristan Eden)
After a period of visibility-building, the site was launched on January 1 st, 2024, to much fanfare. Soon, we began releasing a series of blog posts detailing our founding impulses, direction, and expectations. These were well-received, and the site began experiencing strong use early on.
As our bibliographic tasks for cataloging grew and expanded, we reached out to the community for further volunteer assistance. Another career librarian, Taylor Akers, took up the task of devising a practical bibliographic schema for normalization, continuity, and user ease. Taylor also devised a manual for other onboarding volunteers to utilize. We then began to expand our database, cataloging not only publishers, but artists, craftspeople, films, podcasts, and even periodicals & zines.
The latter of which would not have been possible at such a level of quality without the assistance of our zine-hunter extraordinaire, Ben Pitcher. Ben’s work has been instrumental in the development of our periodicals section. His work capturing and detailing issues of Michael Howard’s The Cauldron journal has energized the community.
The Cauldron cataloging thanks to staff member Ben Pitcher
We even expanded this past year to include tarot and oracle decks, and our volunteer Jamie May was vital to seeing this part of the site emerge. Jamie’s passion for this arena has been a special addition to the team.
In all, we have created a unique community resource that encapsulates not only a bibliographic database, but an active participation in the community through interview conversations, highlights of craftspeople and artists, and active collaboration with folks who constitute our sphere. We have no plans for slowing down, and the coming year promises to bring many wonderful features and explorations. We look forward to expanding our activities in the realm of community, catalogs, and conversations, and we are eager to share these with you.
One founding notion of the Occult Library is the idea of a site that is browsable in the sense that a bookstore is browsable: folks can enter our site, explore the ‘shelves,’ and find something pertinent to their work that may have gone unnoticed. This applies to practitioners, scholars, researchers, and curious alike. We have been delighted to hear of folks who, through this quality, have uncovered works special to them, and highly relevant to their personal work. In the coming year, we look forward to hearing from you, as well as serving our community while exploring ways to enhance our serviceability.
The library is nothing without its users. It also must be greater than the sum of its parts. In turn, we always strive to remain on the pulse of community aspirations, needs, and spaces for service. Thank you for the wonderful and exciting two years. We wish you a healthy and creative new year, and we can’t wait to share our latest progress with you.
Sending all our best for the New Year…
— The Occult Library staff