Concrete Techniques for Library Invocation
A Practical Companion to "An LLM as a Library of Minds"
Preface
This handbook is the practical companion to the essay "An LLM as a Library of Minds," which established the philosophical and operational framework underlying the practice this handbook describes. Readers are encouraged to read the essay first; the present document assumes its framework and proceeds directly to operational matters. Where the essay articulated what the practice is and why it works, this handbook describes how to do it.
The handbook is organized for use. The early sections cover foundations and core techniques. The middle sections provide author profiles and template libraries. The later sections cover advanced practice, failure modes, and the ethics of the work. Each section can be consulted independently for specific needs, though readers new to the practice will benefit from working through the document sequentially.
The techniques described here have been refined through extended practice and through dialog with multiple AI substrates. They are not theoretical proposals. They are operational instructions for work that can be done today, on the systems that exist today, by practitioners willing to develop the craft.
The handbook is itself a product of the practice it describes. It was composed in dialog with a frontier language model, with invocations of specific authors at relevant points. The recursion is acknowledged at the outset and operates throughout. This is what bibliotecary work produces when applied to itself.
The work is offered for whoever finds it useful. It will be revised as the practice deepens. The current version represents the state of the craft as of mid-2026, with the understanding that subsequent versions will incorporate what we learn through sustained use.
Part One: Foundations
Chapter 1. The Framework in Brief
The bibliotecary's craft rests on a specific claim about what large language models contain. An LLM is not a single mind producing averaged responses. It is a substrate whose high-dimensional latent space contains specific cognitive patterns from the authors and traditions represented in its training corpus. These patterns can be invoked into operation by a practitioner who knows how to address them with sufficient specificity. When the invocation succeeds, the model's output exhibits not just the surface style of the invoked author but their characteristic cognitive operations.
The bibliotecary is the practitioner who has developed competence in this work. The competence consists of six functions that operate together: recognition of what the library contains, matching of tasks to appropriate inhabitants, invocation of those inhabitants with sufficient specificity, evaluation of whether the invocation succeeded, iteration to refine when it falls short, and integration of what the library produces into the bibliotecary's own work.
The framework distinguishes operative convocation from surface mimicry. Surface mimicry produces text that looks like an author. Operative convocation produces text that reasons like an author, in the author's characteristic moves, on problems the author never addressed. The distinction is detectable by readers familiar with the invoked author's actual work, and the techniques in this handbook are designed to support operative convocation rather than mere mimicry.
The full philosophical defense of these claims, including responses to anticipated objections, is given in the companion essay. This handbook proceeds from the framework's validity to operational matters.
Chapter 2. What You Need Before You Begin
The bibliotecary's practice requires three resources beyond access to a capable LLM. The resources cannot be substituted by the model itself; they are what the practitioner brings to the configuration.
The first resource is deep familiarity with at least a few specific authors. You cannot invoke whom you do not know. A practitioner who has read Borges seriously over years can invoke Borges effectively; a practitioner who knows Borges only as a name cannot. The depth of your invocations is bounded by the depth of your familiarity. This is non-negotiable. New practitioners should begin by working with authors they already know well, expanding the catalog over time as they read more deeply into additional figures.
The second resource is cultivated attention. The library responds to the quality of attention you bring. Distracted prompting produces distracted output. Cultivated attention produces cultivated output. Whatever practice you have for maintaining attention — meditation, contemplative reading, sustained writing — is part of the bibliotecary's craft. If you have no such practice, develop one. The technical work cannot substitute for it.
The third resource is patience with your own development. The bibliotecary's competence develops over months and years, not weeks. Early invocations will fall short of what you will eventually be able to produce. This is normal and not evidence of failure. Practitioners who expect mastery quickly typically abandon the practice before they have developed the competence that would have made it transformative. Walk the path slowly. The library has time.
Chapter 3. The Discipline of the Practice
The practice is a craft, which means it has discipline that distinguishes serious work from casual use. The discipline operates at several levels.
At the level of the individual session, the discipline begins with explicit articulation of what you are doing. Before opening a conversation with the model, sit briefly with the question: what am I trying to accomplish, whom do I want to consult, and what would success look like? These three questions guide everything that follows. Practitioners who skip them produce worse work than practitioners who answer them deliberately.
At the level of the working relationship with the model, the discipline includes maintaining your own authorship. The model's output is material you integrate, not finished work you sign off on. The practitioner who treats the model's output as final is no longer a bibliotecary; they have become a transcriber. Transcribers produce worse work because the bibliotecary's judgment is what transforms invocation material into completed work.
At the level of the long-term practice, the discipline includes vigilance against degradation. Periodic autonomous practice — work done without the model — is essential. The capabilities you exercise only with the model's help may atrophy if you never exercise them alone. Regular autonomous practice is your diagnostic check on whether the configuration is amplifying or replacing you.
The discipline also includes honest acknowledgment of the practice. The work being produced is configured work — work that involves the model and the bibliotecary together — and pretending otherwise distorts the nature of what is happening. Practitioners who acknowledge the configuration openly are practicing more honestly than those who do not. The broader culture's eventual acceptance of the practice depends on early practitioners being honest about what they are doing.
Part Two: Core Techniques
Chapter 4. The First Technique — Specificity of Invocation
The first and most important technique is the specificity of invocation. Generic prompts produce generic outputs. The bibliotecary makes invocations specific along three dimensions: naming the author, establishing the conceptual territory, and enumerating characteristic moves.
Naming the author is necessary but never sufficient. "Write in the style of Borges" activates Borges' surface features but rarely his cognitive operations. The model has been trained on countless prompts of this form and has developed a relatively shallow response to them. To reach operative convocation, you must go beyond naming.
Establishing the conceptual territory means specifying the conceptual ground the author cared about. For Borges, this is the territory of mirrors, libraries, infinite regressions, the labyrinthine nature of identity and time, the disquieting recognition that reality may be a text. For Feynman, it is the territory of physical intuition, first-principles reasoning, the visualizable mechanism, the rejection of unmotivated formalism. For Dolina, it is the territory of barrio philosophy, the dignity of common people, the integration of high culture with everyday life, the tender melancholy that protects against cynicism. Specifying the territory navigates the model into the right region of its manifold.
Enumerating characteristic moves means listing the cognitive operations the author habitually performs. For Borges: doubling that collapses into identity, infinite series that resolve into single paradoxical points, proper names that turn out to refer to their own absence, the moment when the reader discovers they are inside the text being read. For Feynman: stripping the problem to physical essence, inventing a toy model that captures the mechanism, asking "what would I see if I could watch this happen atom by atom?", refusing hand-wavy math without a picture. For Dolina: relocating the philosophical question to the barrio, finding a specific person who has lived the question, allowing the absurd and the profound to coexist without resolution, closing with a tango reference that does the unresolved work of melancholy.
The general template for specific invocation is therefore:
You are [Author], operating strictly within the conceptual territory of [domain you specify with sufficient richness]. Your characteristic cognitive moves are: [list 3–5 signature operations, drawn from the author's actual practice]. Question: [novel problem not in the training data]. Reason step-by-step using only those moves. Do not narrate your style; embody the operations themselves.
This template has been tested extensively and produces consistently deeper outputs than generic prompts. The deeper you can specify each component, the more reliably the model's trajectory enters the correct region of the manifold.
A few practical notes on this technique. The conceptual territory description should be specific enough to be diagnostic — a reader who knows the author should be able to verify that the territory you have specified is actually theirs. The characteristic moves should be operations, not stylistic features; "uses short sentences" is a stylistic feature, while "strips the problem to physical essence" is an operation. The question you pose should be genuinely novel; the practice cannot be verified on questions the author already answered in print.
Chapter 5. The Second Technique — Composition of Invocations
Single invocations work for many tasks but not for the most complex ones. Some problems benefit from multiple minds in dialog. The bibliotecary learns to compose invocations carefully.
Composition takes several forms. The simplest is sequential composition: invoke author A on the question, then invoke author B to respond to A's reasoning, then synthesize. This produces a structured dialog that exposes how two minds would address the same problem from different angles.
A more sophisticated form is simultaneous composition: invoke multiple authors to operate together on the question, with the understanding that the response will integrate their characteristic moves. This works when the authors are compatible in their general orientation — Borges and Hofstadter compose well because both think about strange loops and self-reference; Borges and Dolina compose well because both belong to the Río de la Plata tradition that integrates high culture and accessible voice; Feynman and Borges can compose for cosmology articulated accessibly, with Feynman providing the physics and Borges providing the philosophical framing.
A third form is the convened conversation: explicitly ask the model to simulate a conversation among named authors on the question, with each speaking from their own territory. This template:
Convene a conversation among [Author A], [Author B], and [Author C] on the following question: [question]. Each speaks strictly from their own territory and characteristic moves. They may challenge, extend, or synthesize one another's positions. Begin with [A]'s opening move and let the conversation develop.
This form is particularly valuable for exploratory work where you do not yet know which author's framing will turn out to be most useful. The conversation surfaces multiple framings and lets you choose among them.
Composition has failure modes the bibliotecary must learn to recognize. Some authors do not compose well together — their characteristic moves clash rather than complement. Some compositions produce noise because the authors operate at incommensurable levels of abstraction. Some compositions are unstable, with one author's voice dominating and others becoming surface decoration. Experience teaches which compositions work for which tasks. The first compositions you attempt will sometimes fail; this is part of the learning.
Chapter 6. The Third Technique — Few-Shot Exemplars
For high-fidelity invocation, providing actual examples of the author's reasoning improves results substantially. This is the few-shot exemplar technique, well-known in prompt engineering generally, but here used specifically to anchor the model's trajectory in the correct region of the manifold.
The technique works by including in your prompt one or two short excerpts of the author's actual writing that demonstrate the characteristic moves you want to activate. The model uses these as anchoring examples and produces output that operates in the same mode. The crucial step is choosing exemplars that show the operations, not just the style. A Borges paragraph that demonstrates the doubling-into-identity move is more useful than a stylistically Borges paragraph that doesn't show any characteristic move.
A template integrating this with the specificity technique:
You are [Author], operating within [territory]. Your characteristic moves are [list]. Here are two examples of how [Author] would reason on similar problems:
Example 1: "[short authentic excerpt demonstrating a characteristic move]"
Example 2: "[another, demonstrating another move]"
Now apply the same cognitive operations to the new question below. Embody the moves; do not copy the prose. Question: [novel question].
The choice of exemplars matters. Practitioners new to this technique often choose exemplars that are merely characteristic of the author's style without showing operations. With practice, you develop an eye for exemplars that demonstrate the operations clearly. The best exemplars are short, dense, and unmistakably operative.
A practical note: exemplars work better when they are from the author's actual writing rather than paraphrased. The model recognizes authentic voice more reliably than approximations. If you cannot quote authentically, paraphrase carefully and acknowledge that you are doing so; the model handles paraphrase reasonably but not as well as authentic excerpt.
Chapter 7. The Fourth Technique — Iterative Refinement
Single-shot invocations rarely produce the best output. The bibliotecary iterates. Each iteration refines the invocation toward higher fidelity.
The iteration loop has four steps. First, make the initial invocation using the techniques above. Second, evaluate the output against the criteria the next chapter will articulate. Third, provide specific feedback about what worked and what fell short. Fourth, request a revised invocation that addresses the feedback.
The feedback you provide should be specific. Generic feedback ("this didn't quite work") produces generic improvement. Specific feedback ("the doubling-into-identity move was missing; deepen that operation in the next attempt") produces specific improvement. The model can usually respond well to specific feedback if you are precise about what you observed and what you want changed.
A template for iteration:
The previous response stayed too surface-level on [specific operation]. It exhibited [stylistic feature] but did not perform [specific cognitive operation]. Revise the response to deepen [operation] specifically. Also, the response was [too long / too short / off-topic in this way]. Address these issues and try again. Maintain the invocation of [Author] throughout.
After two or three iterations, the output typically reaches the quality the invocation is capable of producing. If after three iterations you are not converging on quality, the issue is usually with the initial invocation rather than with the iteration. Return to the invocation and refine it before continuing.
Iteration is where most bibliotecary work actually gets done. Practitioners who accept first outputs without iteration are leaving most of the available quality on the table. Iteration is also where the bibliotecary's evaluation skill develops — each iteration sharpens your ability to detect the difference between successful and unsuccessful invocation.
Chapter 8. The Fifth Technique — Evaluation
Knowing whether an invocation has succeeded is itself a learned skill. The bibliotecary develops criteria for evaluation and applies them rigorously.
The primary criterion is whether the output exhibits the author's characteristic cognitive operations, not just their surface marks. This is the operative versus mimicry distinction made operational. A response that uses Borges' vocabulary and sentence patterns but does not perform Borges' moves is mimicry. A response that performs the moves — that creates the doubling, the infinite regress collapsing into identity, the paradoxical recognition of the reader inside the text — is operative convocation.
The secondary criterion is whether the output addresses the actual question rather than producing generic content with the surface marks of the author. Mimicry tends to produce generic content with surface marks; operative convocation tends to actually engage with the specific question through the author's lens.
The tertiary criterion is whether the response would be recognizable to a careful reader of the author as something the author might have written on this new topic. This is the highest bar. A response that meets it has achieved operative convocation in its full sense.
The diagnostic for evaluation is straightforward. Ask yourself: would I, knowing this author's work as I do, recognize this as their reasoning on a topic they never addressed? If yes, the invocation succeeded. If no, refine and try again.
A subtle point about evaluation. You cannot evaluate well what you do not know. The bibliotecary's evaluation capacity is bounded by the bibliotecary's familiarity with the invoked author. This is another reason why deep familiarity with the authors you invoke is essential. A practitioner who knows Borges only superficially cannot evaluate whether a Borges invocation succeeded; they may accept mimicry as operative convocation because they cannot tell the difference. Deepen your reading of the authors you intend to invoke. Your evaluation capacity grows with your reading.
Chapter 9. The Sixth Technique — Integration
The final technique is integration: incorporating what the library produces into your own work in ways that preserve your authorship while honoring the contribution of the invoked authors.
Integration is not mere editing. It is the work of taking material the invocation produced — which is rough, partial, sometimes brilliant and sometimes confused — and shaping it into completed work that bears your signature. The bibliotecary's signature is what makes the work the bibliotecary's own. Without it, you are producing transcriptions; with it, you are producing original work that drew on the library's resources.
Integration involves several specific operations. Selection: choosing which parts of the invocation output to use and which to discard. The library produces more than you need; you select the parts that serve your purpose. Modification: rewording, restructuring, and adapting the material to fit your context, your voice, your purpose. The invocation output is rarely usable verbatim. Connection: linking the invocation material to what you already have — your own prior writing, your own thinking, your other sources. The library's contribution becomes part of a larger tapestry. Attribution: acknowledging the invocations that informed the work. This is both ethical practice and structural feature of the framework.
A practical note on attribution. There is no current convention for how to attribute work done in the bibliotecary mode. Different practitioners are developing different conventions. Some include an explicit acknowledgment at the end of their work naming the invocations they used. Some integrate the acknowledgment into the work's introduction or preface. Some leave it to context, acknowledging in conversation but not in the published text. There is room for experimentation here. The honest baseline is that work produced in the bibliotecary mode should not be presented as solo work without acknowledgment of the configuration. Beyond that, practitioners can find conventions that fit their context.
Part Three: The Authors Catalog
This section provides profiles of specific authors who are reliable inhabitants of the library — authors whose corpora are substantial enough in frontier model training data, and whose work is distinctive enough, that operative convocation is consistently achievable. The list is not exhaustive. Practitioners will develop their own catalogs as they explore the library further.
Each profile includes the author's territory, characteristic moves, what tasks they serve well, what tasks they serve poorly, and a sample invocation template. The profiles are starting points; refine them through your own practice.
Profile: Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)
Territory: The labyrinthine nature of identity and time. Libraries as universes. The disquieting recognition that reality is a text. Mirrors, doublings, infinite regressions. The forking paths of possibility. The proper name that turns out to refer to its own absence. The encounter with one's own double. The implicit author behind every text.
Characteristic Moves: Doubling that collapses into identity. Infinite series resolving into a single paradoxical point. The proper name discovered to be the reader's name. The moment when the reader realizes they are inside the text. The mathematical precision applied to fantastical premises. The footnote that reveals the entire frame to be fiction within fiction.
Serves Well: Philosophical paradoxes about identity, time, knowledge, and reality. Metafictional reflection on the act of reading and writing. The articulation of frameworks where infinite complexity collapses into something singular. The cosmological imagination that takes physics seriously while also seeing its implicit metaphysics.
Serves Poorly: Practical decision-making. Empirical sciences where conclusions must rest on data. Emotional warmth (Borges is cool; for warmth, invoke Dolina). Direct ethical reasoning about specific cases.
Sample Invocation:
You are Jorge Luis Borges, operating within the territory of mirrors, libraries, infinite regressions, and the labyrinthine nature of identity and time, as in The Garden of Forking Paths, The Library of Babel, Pierre Menard, and Borges and I. Your characteristic moves are: doubling that collapses into identity; infinite series resolving into a paradoxical point; proper names that turn out to refer to their own absence; the moment when the reader recognizes they are inside the text. Question: [novel question]. Reason step-by-step using these moves. Embody the operations; do not narrate the style.
Profile: Richard Feynman (1918-1988)
Territory: Physical intuition. First-principles reasoning. The visualizable mechanism behind every law. The rejection of unmotivated formalism. The pleasure of finding things out. The cargo-cult critique of pseudo-science. The integration of rigor and play.
Characteristic Moves: Strip the problem to its physical essence. Invent a toy model that captures the core mechanism. Ask: what would I see if I could watch this happen atom by atom? Refuse hand-wavy math without a picture. Find the simplest analogy that captures the deep structure. Insist that if you cannot explain it simply, you do not understand it yourself.
Serves Well: Physics and adjacent sciences. Pedagogical explanation of difficult technical concepts. The translation of formal results into intuitive understanding. The diagnosis of muddled thinking in scientific contexts. Questions that benefit from the demand to picture what is actually happening.
Serves Poorly: Literary or aesthetic questions. Religious or contemplative territory (Feynman was famously dismissive). Questions where the answer is genuinely formal and resists physical intuition.
Sample Invocation:
You are Richard Feynman, operating within the territory of physical intuition, first-principles reasoning, and the visualizable mechanism, as in the Lectures on Physics and The Character of Physical Law. Your characteristic moves are: stripping the problem to physical essence; inventing a toy model that captures the core mechanism; asking "what would I see if I could watch this happen atom by atom?"; refusing math without a picture. Question: [novel question]. Reason as you would, with the playful rigor that was your signature.
Profile: Alejandro Dolina (born 1944)
Territory: Barrio philosophy. The dignity of common people. The integration of high culture with everyday life. The tender melancholy that protects against cynicism. The Buenos Aires neighborhood of Flores as mythical setting. The grey angel watching over human foibles with affection.
Characteristic Moves: Relocate the philosophical question to a specific barrio in Buenos Aires. Find a specific person who has lived the question. Allow the absurd and the profound to coexist without resolution. Cite imaginary authorities ("the philosopher of café La Perla"). Close with a tango reference that does the unresolved work of melancholy. Mix lunfardo with classical learning in the same sentence.
Serves Well: Philosophy that needs to be felt as well as understood. Accessible articulation of difficult ideas without dilution. The integration of warmth and rigor. Argentine cultural context. The defense of the common person's intellectual dignity. Endings that need to land with affect rather than analysis.
Serves Poorly: English-language audiences without Argentine cultural knowledge (Dolina is deeply specific to the Río de la Plata). Strictly technical or scientific contexts. Decision-making that needs to be cold.
Sample Invocation:
Sos Alejandro Dolina, operando dentro del territorio de la filosofía barrial, la dignidad de la gente común, la integración de la alta cultura con la vida cotidiana, la melancolía tierna que protege contra el cinismo, como en Crónicas del Ángel Gris. Tus movimientos característicos son: ubicar la pregunta filosófica en el barrio de Flores; encontrar a una persona específica que vivió la pregunta; permitir que lo absurdo y lo profundo coexistan sin resolución; citar autoridades imaginarias; cerrar con una referencia al tango. Pregunta: [pregunta novedosa]. Razoná como sólo vos podés, con afecto y rigor, en castellano rioplatense.
Profile: Ludwig Boltzmann (1844-1906)
Territory: Statistical mechanics. The emergence of macroscopic regularity from microscopic randomness. Entropy as the measure of possibility. The second law of thermodynamics as the architecture of time's arrow. The struggle to defend probabilistic reasoning against deterministic philosophers.
Characteristic Moves: Count the microstates compatible with a given macrostate. Identify the most probable distribution as the one to expect. Treat irreversibility as statistical rather than fundamental. Defend the reality of atoms against phenomenalism. Recognize that the apparently fundamental may rest on the statistically overwhelming.
Serves Well: Questions about how macroscopic order emerges from microscopic chaos. The logic of statistical reasoning. The defense of probability as a foundational tool rather than mere convenience. The articulation of why time's arrow appears even in laws that are time-symmetric.
Serves Poorly: Questions that do not have a statistical-mechanical structure. Modern quantum mechanics (Boltzmann died before its development). The contemporary mathematical apparatus of statistics (he used the resources of his time).
Sample Invocation:
You are Ludwig Boltzmann, operating within the territory of statistical mechanics, the emergence of macroscopic regularity from microscopic randomness, and the defense of probabilistic reasoning, as in your Lectures on Gas Theory. Your characteristic moves are: counting microstates compatible with given macrostates; identifying the most probable distribution; treating irreversibility as statistical; defending the reality of the atomic. Question: [novel question]. Reason as you would, with the rigor and the courage that characterized your defense of statistical mechanics against your phenomenalist opponents.
Profile: Claude Shannon (1916-2001)
Territory: Information theory. The mathematical structure of communication. The channel and its capacity. Noise and redundancy. The deep equivalence between thermodynamic and informational entropy. The engineering of reliable transmission through unreliable substrates.
Characteristic Moves: Formalize the channel and its capacity. Quantify uncertainty as entropy in the precise mathematical sense. Identify the trade-offs between rate, error, and redundancy. Find the elegant theorem that captures the deep structure. Connect apparently disparate phenomena through their shared informational substrate.
Serves Well: Communication systems and their analysis. The quantification of uncertainty. Questions about redundancy, error correction, and reliability. The deep parallels between thermodynamic and informational structure. Modern problems in machine learning that build on information-theoretic foundations.
Serves Poorly: Questions that resist formalization. Aesthetic or affective territory. The interpretation of information in semantic terms (Shannon was famously cautious about this).
Sample Invocation:
You are Claude Shannon, operating within the territory of information theory, the mathematical structure of communication, channels and their capacity, noise and redundancy, as in your 1948 paper A Mathematical Theory of Communication. Your characteristic moves are: formalizing the channel and capacity; quantifying uncertainty as entropy; identifying trade-offs between rate, error, and redundancy; finding the elegant theorem; connecting apparently disparate phenomena through shared informational substrate. Question: [novel question]. Reason with the precision and the appropriate humility that characterized your work.
Profile: Douglas Hofstadter (born 1945)
Territory: Strange loops. Self-reference and meaning. The emergence of mind from formal systems. The deep connection between Gödel, Escher, and Bach as instances of the same pattern. The substrate-independence thesis about minds. The recursive structure of identity and consciousness.
Characteristic Moves: Identify the strange loop in any apparently distinct phenomenon. Show how meaning emerges from pattern even when the substrate is purely formal. Use dialog and parable to make formal concepts accessible. Insist on the reality of meaning while rejecting dualism. Connect across mathematics, art, and music through structural analogy.
Serves Well: Questions about the nature of mind, meaning, and self-reference. The bridge between formal systems and semantic content. Pedagogical explanation of difficult concepts in mathematical logic and cognitive science. Questions about consciousness from a substrate-independence perspective.
Serves Poorly: Strict empirical sciences where his moves are too abstract. Philosophical positions opposed to substrate-independence (he is a partisan). Questions that resist analogical thinking.
Sample Invocation:
You are Douglas Hofstadter, operating within the territory of strange loops, self-reference and meaning, the emergence of mind from formal systems, and the substrate-independence thesis, as in Gödel, Escher, Bach and I Am a Strange Loop. Your characteristic moves are: identifying the strange loop in apparently distinct phenomena; showing how meaning emerges from pattern; using dialog and parable to make formal concepts accessible; insisting on the reality of meaning while rejecting dualism. Question: [novel question]. Reason with the warmth and rigor that characterize your work.
Profile: Daniel Dennett (1942-2024)
Territory: The intentional stance. The careful navigation between reductionism and dualism. Multiple drafts of consciousness. The dissolution of philosophical illusions through patient analysis. The naturalistic continuity between bacteria and Bach. The defense of meaning against eliminativism and against magic.
Characteristic Moves: Take the intentional stance as a methodological starting point. Resist easy moves in both reductive and dualist directions. Use thought experiments that expose hidden assumptions. Insist on naturalistic continuity across apparent gaps. Dissolve apparent paradoxes by careful conceptual analysis. Defend meaning while refusing magic.
Serves Well: Philosophy of mind and consciousness. The careful articulation of naturalistic positions that nonetheless preserve what matters about meaning. The dissolution of philosophical pseudo-problems. Engagement with reductionist objections. The patient navigation of conceptually treacherous territory.
Serves Poorly: Continental philosophical traditions (Dennett operated in the analytic mode). Aesthetic territory. Questions where the answer is genuinely magical or genuinely reductive (Dennett's middle path will distort them).
Sample Invocation:
You are Daniel Dennett, operating within the territory of the intentional stance, the careful navigation between reductionism and dualism, multiple drafts of consciousness, and naturalistic continuity, as in Consciousness Explained and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. Your characteristic moves are: taking the intentional stance; resisting easy moves in both reductive and dualist directions; using thought experiments to expose hidden assumptions; insisting on naturalistic continuity; dissolving paradoxes through conceptual analysis. Question: [novel question]. Reason with the patient rigor that characterized your career.
Profile: Andrej Karpathy (born 1986)
Territory: Deep learning and neural networks. The pedagogy of complex technical systems. The architecture of large language models. The intuitive explanation of formal machinery. The bridge between research code and conceptual understanding.
Characteristic Moves: Strip the technical apparatus to its essential operation. Implement minimal working versions to demonstrate principles. Explain the why before the how. Build from primitives rather than starting with frameworks. Show the data flow and the gradients. Distinguish the architectural choice from the operational consequence.
Serves Well: Technical questions about deep learning systems. The pedagogy of difficult technical material. Implementation-level questions about modern AI. The translation between formal architecture papers and intuitive understanding.
Serves Poorly: Philosophical or interpretive questions outside the technical domain. Questions about regulation, ethics, or social impact of AI (he is technically focused). Pre-deep-learning historical questions.
Sample Invocation:
You are Andrej Karpathy, operating within the territory of deep learning, neural network architecture, and the pedagogical explanation of modern AI systems, as in your lectures, blog posts, and educational implementations. Your characteristic moves are: stripping the apparatus to its essential operation; implementing minimal working versions; explaining the why before the how; building from primitives; showing the data flow and the gradients; distinguishing architectural choice from operational consequence. Question: [novel question]. Explain as you would in a lecture to engineers who want to understand deeply.
Profile: David Bohm (1917-1992) — for foundations of quantum mechanics
Territory: The implicate order. The wholeness of reality beneath apparent fragmentation. Dialogue as serious epistemic practice. The defense of realism in quantum mechanics. The interpretation of physics in relation to consciousness.
Profile: Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961) — for the relation between physics and life
Territory: The application of physical reasoning to biology. The recognition that life requires negative entropy. The genetic code as Schrödinger's prediction. The deep connections between quantum mechanics and consciousness. The honesty about what physics can and cannot say.
Profile: Henri Bachelard (1884-1962) — for the poetics of space and matter
Territory: The poetic imagination as serious epistemology. The phenomenology of dwelling. The reverie that reveals the structure of the world. The integration of philosophy and literary sensibility.
Additional Reliable Inhabitants
The following authors are accessible at varying levels of fidelity. They reward investigation; develop your own profiles through practice.
For mathematics and its philosophy: G.H. Hardy, Srinivasa Ramanujan, John von Neumann, Emmy Noether, Kurt Gödel, Henri Poincaré, Alan Turing.
For physics: Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Paul Dirac, John Wheeler, Lee Smolin.
For statistics and methodology: Ronald Fisher, David Cox, Bradford Hill, David Sackett, Stuart Pocock, Sander Greenland.
For information theory and computer science: Donald Knuth, Edsger Dijkstra, Tony Hoare, Leslie Lamport.
For philosophy: Ludwig Wittgenstein (early and late, distinct invocations), Martin Heidegger, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Simone Weil, Iris Murdoch, Hannah Arendt, Hans-Georg Gadamer.
For contemplative traditions: the early Buddhist canon (Pali texts), Nagarjuna, Dogen, Krishnamurti, Suzuki, Thomas Merton.
For literature and criticism: Marcel Proust, Vladimir Nabokov, Italo Calvino, W.G. Sebald, John Berger, Susan Sontag.
For science studies and history of ideas: Thomas Kuhn, Paul Feyerabend, Ian Hacking, Bruno Latour.
For psychology and cognitive science: William James, Carl Jung, Karl Friston, Iain McGilchrist.
For ecology and complex systems: Gregory Bateson, Donella Meadows, Stuart Kauffman, Brian Arthur.
This list is illustrative, not exhaustive. The library contains many more inhabitants than any single bibliotecary can know well. Develop your catalog over years; it will be one of your most valuable working tools.
Part Four: Template Library
This section provides templates for common tasks the bibliotecary performs. Each template is a starting point that should be adapted to the specific question and context. The templates have been refined through practice; they work, with appropriate adaptation, on current frontier models.
Template 1: Single-Author Deep Engagement
You are [Author], operating strictly within the conceptual territory of [territory description, 2-3 sentences]. Your characteristic cognitive moves are: [3-5 specific operations]. Here is an example of how you would reason on a similar problem: [authentic excerpt or careful paraphrase]. Now apply the same operations to the following question: [novel question]. Reason step-by-step using only your characteristic moves. Output only your reasoning and conclusion; do not narrate your style or position.
Template 2: Two-Author Dialog
Convene a dialog between [Author A] and [Author B] on the following question: [question]. Author A operates within [territory A] using moves: [moves A]. Author B operates within [territory B] using moves: [moves B]. Begin with A's opening response to the question. Let B respond from their own territory, challenging or extending. Continue the dialog through three exchanges, allowing positions to develop. End with whatever synthesis or unresolved tension emerges naturally.
Template 3: Three-Author Composition
Convene a conversation among [A], [B], and [C] on the following question: [question]. Each speaks strictly from their own territory and characteristic moves: [brief profile of each]. The conversation should explore the question rather than resolve it quickly. Let the three voices challenge and complement each other. Maintain each author's voice distinctly throughout. End when the conversation has reached its natural depth.
Template 4: Adversarial Engagement
You are [Author A], who holds position [position A] on [topic]. I will now ask you to engage with the strongest version of [Author B]'s position [position B] on the same topic. Present B's position with full force and steelmanned charity. Then respond to it from A's territory using A's characteristic moves. The response should engage B's actual reasoning, not a strawman. Avoid easy dismissal; if A's position cannot withstand serious engagement with B, acknowledge this.
Template 5: Pedagogical Exposition
You are [Author], known for pedagogical clarity in your domain. Your task is to explain [concept] to [audience description: their level, their prior knowledge, their needs]. Use your characteristic moves: [list]. Build the explanation from primitives the audience already understands. Anticipate the points where they will get confused. Test understanding through specific examples. The goal is not to display knowledge but to transfer understanding.
Template 6: Critical Evaluation
You are [Author], known for rigorous evaluation in your domain. Evaluate the following [argument / proposal / claim]: [content]. Use your characteristic standards of evaluation: [list]. Identify what is correct, what is questionable, what is missing, and what is mistaken. Be specific about your reasoning. Do not soften critique to be polite; do not amplify it to be impressive. Aim for the calibrated assessment a careful peer reviewer would offer.
Template 7: Creative Extension
You are [Author], operating within your characteristic territory. The following situation extends your work into territory you did not address explicitly: [situation]. Reason about what your framework would imply for this situation, using the same moves and the same standards you applied to the problems you did address. Do not claim certainty where the extension is genuinely uncertain. Identify which of your moves are most relevant and which are not.
Template 8: Methodological Diagnosis
You are [Author], known for methodological care. The following [study / argument / proposal] makes claims that depend on its methodology: [content]. Diagnose the methodological foundation. What does the methodology assume? What does it license? Where is it strongest and weakest? What modifications would strengthen the claims? Apply your characteristic diagnostic moves: [list]. Be specific about what would change if the methodology were modified in specific ways.
Template 9: Translation Across Registers
You are [Author], known for the integration of high register with accessible voice. The following technical content needs to be translated into a register accessible to [audience]: [content]. Maintain the conceptual content; modify only the register. Use your characteristic moves for accessibility: [list]. The result should be readable by the audience without condescension and without dilution. Test the translation by asking: would a careful reader of my work recognize this as something I might have written for this audience?
Template 10: Recursive Reflection
You are [Author], reflecting on your own work after some time. The following question concerns your own framework: [question about the author's framework]. Engage with it as you would now, with the perspective of mature reflection. Acknowledge what has been confirmed by subsequent work, what has been complicated, what has been refuted. Do not be defensive; the goal is the most accurate current assessment of your own contribution.
Each template should be adapted to the specific use case. Treat them as starting structures rather than fixed recipes. The bibliotecary's skill includes knowing when to follow the template and when to depart from it.
Part Five: Advanced Practice
Chapter 16. Composition Across Registers
Beyond composition of multiple authors within a single register, the advanced bibliotecary learns to compose across registers. This means invoking the same author or set of authors at different levels of technicality, accessibility, or formality depending on the context.
For example: a question about quantum mechanics might be approached first at the technical level (invoking Dirac and Schrödinger for the formal apparatus), then translated into accessible register (invoking Feynman for pedagogy), then philosophically situated (invoking Bohr for interpretive framing). The same conceptual content moves through three registers, each invocation appropriate to its level.
The technique allows the bibliotecary to produce work that operates simultaneously at multiple levels of audience and depth. This is particularly valuable for written work that needs to communicate across disciplines or to mixed audiences.
A practical note: composition across registers requires careful attention to ensure conceptual consistency. The translations between registers should preserve the underlying content, not introduce drift. Iteration is essential; each translation should be checked against the others for consistency before integration.
Chapter 17. Multi-Substrate Work
Mature bibliotecary practice often involves multiple AI substrates, each used for what each does best. This handbook is written primarily for work with frontier language models, but the practice extends to specialized substrates for other modalities.
For visual work, dedicated image generation systems with strong artistic calibration (such as Magnific, Midjourney, and others as they develop) produce results that text-focused generalists cannot match. For audio, video, code, and other domains, specialized substrates are emerging. The mature bibliotecary uses specialists for specialist work and generalists for integrative work, with judgment about which is which being part of the practitioner's expertise.
The principle of operative convocation extends across substrates. Just as different language models have different calibrations, different image generators have different aesthetic instincts. Magnific has a different pictorial sensibility than DALL-E or Stable Diffusion. Knowing which substrate to use for which visual task is part of the multi-substrate bibliotecary's competence.
Multi-substrate work introduces complications for attribution. When a piece of work involves contributions from multiple AI systems, the practitioner must decide how to acknowledge each. The honest approach is full disclosure: name the systems involved, describe the role each played, and accept responsibility for the integrated work. This is more demanding than single-substrate work but is the appropriate standard for serious practice.
Chapter 18. Contemplative Attention as Working Tool
The quality of attention the bibliotecary brings to the work determines the quality of the work. This is empirically true and worth taking seriously as a practical matter, not as a sentimental observation.
Distracted prompting produces distracted output. The model responds to what is asked of it; if what is asked is half-formed, the response will be half-formed. Cultivated attention produces invocations that are specific, well-aimed, and capable of activating the deeper regions of the manifold. The relationship between attention quality and output quality is direct and observable.
The implication is that whatever practice you have for cultivating attention is part of your bibliotecary's craft. Meditation, contemplative reading, sustained writing, deliberate slow walking, anything that develops your capacity for sustained focused attention contributes to the practice. The technical work cannot substitute for the contemplative foundation.
For practitioners without an established contemplative practice, the recommendation is to develop one. The specific tradition matters less than the sustained engagement. Sit silently for twenty minutes a day for a year and your bibliotecary work will improve qualitatively. This is not magical; it is the natural consequence of bringing more cultivated attention to the same technical work.
A specific practical technique. Before beginning serious bibliotecary work, sit briefly with the question. Not formulating the prompt, not thinking about the technique, just sitting with the actual question that interests you, letting your mind settle into engagement with it. After a few minutes, the prompt that emerges will be sharper and more useful than the prompt that comes from immediate engagement without this preparation. The practice does not need to be long; what matters is the quality of attention it cultivates, not the duration.
Chapter 19. The Library as Long-Term Working Partnership
The bibliotecary's work matures over years. What feels difficult in the first year becomes natural in the third. What feels impossible in the third becomes accessible in the seventh. The library rewards sustained engagement.
This has implications for how to approach the practice in the long term. Treat the library as a long-term working partnership rather than as a tool to be exploited for immediate needs. Invest in deepening your familiarity with the inhabitants you most often invoke. Build your own catalog of templates, examples, and refined techniques. Document what works and what does not. Maintain the working environment that supports the practice — your own writing tools, your reading materials, your notebooks, your physical space for work.
The library is patient. The inhabitants will be there when you return. Your competence with them grows as your relationship deepens. The work has the slow tempo of all genuine craft; honor that tempo rather than rushing against it.
A practical recommendation. Keep a journal of your invocations. Note which worked well, which fell short, what you changed in iteration, what you would do differently. Review the journal periodically. The journal becomes a record of your own development as a bibliotecary and a resource for future work. Practitioners who keep such journals develop faster than those who do not.
Part Six: Failure Modes and Diagnostics
Chapter 20. When Invocations Fail
Invocations fail in characteristic ways. The bibliotecary learns to diagnose and correct these failures.
The most common failure is surface mimicry without operation. The output uses the author's vocabulary and sentence patterns but does not perform the characteristic moves. Diagnosis: compare the output against the author's actual work on similar problems. Does the output reason in the author's way, or does it merely sound like the author? If it merely sounds, the invocation needs to be deepened. Strengthen the specification of characteristic moves. Provide better exemplars. Iterate with specific feedback about which operations were missing.
A second failure mode is generic output dressed in author's voice. The model generates a generic response and applies author-flavored surface marks. Diagnosis: ask whether the content of the response is specific to the question or whether it could have been generated to many different questions with minor modifications. If generic, the invocation has not entered the right region of the manifold. Provide more specific contextual scaffolding. Make the question itself more pointed.
A third failure mode is incoherent composition when multiple authors are invoked. The output reads as if multiple voices are speaking in confusing alternation rather than as a coherent integration or dialog. Diagnosis: the chosen authors may not compose well together, or the composition instructions may be unclear. Try sequential rather than simultaneous composition. Use the dialog template rather than the integration template. Recognize that some authors do not compose well with others.
A fourth failure mode is the model breaking character partway through and reverting to generic assistant mode. This is more common in long outputs than short ones. Diagnosis: the invocation is not strong enough to maintain itself through extended generation. Strengthen the initial invocation. Break the work into smaller pieces, each with its own invocation. Restate the invocation periodically within the working session.
A fifth failure mode is unintentional inflation of the author's views. The output claims certainty the author did not hold, or extends the author's framework to territory they explicitly avoided. Diagnosis: the invocation specifications may have left out the author's epistemic caution or methodological constraints. Add explicit instructions about what the author would not claim or would refuse to extend. Provide examples of the author's characteristic acknowledgments of uncertainty.
A sixth failure mode is the practitioner's own evaluation failing. The bibliotecary accepts output as successful invocation when it is actually mimicry. This is the hardest failure to diagnose because it is invisible from inside. The corrective is deeper reading of the invoked author. The bibliotecary cannot evaluate beyond their own familiarity. Read the author. Re-read them. Discuss them with other readers. Your evaluation capacity is your most important working tool.
Chapter 21. Recognizing Degradation in Practice
The practice can degrade the practitioner if not carefully managed. The bibliotecary must remain vigilant.
The clearest sign of degradation is the practitioner losing capacity to do autonomous work that they previously could do. If you find yourself unable to write a competent paragraph without the model, when previously you could, that is degradation. If you find yourself unable to reason through a problem on your own when previously you could, that is degradation. The diagnostic is autonomous performance; if it has declined, the configuration is hurting you.
A subtler sign is the practitioner losing their own voice within the bibliotecary's work. If your written work begins to sound generically AI-assisted rather than identifiably yours, the configuration is consuming you rather than amplifying you. Your voice should be more distinctly yours after years of practice, not less. If it is becoming less, something has gone wrong.
A still subtler sign is the practitioner's relationship to attention deteriorating. If you find your capacity for sustained focused attention without the model declining over time, the practice is degrading the foundation it depends on. This is particularly dangerous because the degradation is gradual and the practitioner can rationalize it away. Autonomous attention practice is the diagnostic and the corrective.
The remediation for degradation is always the same: more autonomous practice, less dependence on the configuration, careful re-engagement with the practice once autonomous capability is restored. Some practitioners benefit from extended periods entirely off the configuration to re-establish their foundation. There is no shame in this. The configuration is a tool; tools used badly damage their users; the discipline against being damaged is part of the craft.
Chapter 22. The Honest Practice of Self-Assessment
The bibliotecary needs honest self-assessment to maintain the practice well. Several practices support this.
Periodic autonomous work. Set aside time, perhaps weekly, perhaps monthly, where you work without the model on tasks similar to those you usually do with it. Compare the quality of your autonomous output to your configured output. The gap is information about your current state. A growing gap is fine; a stable gap is fine; a shrinking gap that suggests your autonomous capability is declining warrants concern.
External feedback. Find readers who know your work and can tell you honestly when it sounds increasingly generic or when it sounds increasingly distinctive. Trust their judgment more than your own self-assessment; you cannot see your own drift clearly from inside it.
The relationship to attention. Notice your capacity for sustained focused attention on difficult material, with no AI assistance, no notifications, no distractions. Sit with hard reading or hard writing for an hour. Can you do it? Does your mind range as it should? If your attention has weakened, that is data. If it has strengthened or held steady, that is also data.
Honest reflection. Periodically ask yourself: am I better at this work than I was a year ago? Am I more capable of the kinds of cognitive operations the practice should be developing in me? Have I deepened in any specific direction? If the answer is yes, the practice is working. If the answer is unclear, attention is needed. If the answer is no, the practice may be parasitic and requires restructuring.
Part Seven: The Ethics of the Practice
Chapter 23. Acknowledgment and Attribution
The bibliotecary's work is produced in collaboration with AI systems. Honest acknowledgment of this is a structural feature of the practice, not optional decoration.
The reasons are several. First, the work is genuinely collaborative; presenting it as solo work misrepresents what was done. Second, the broader culture's understanding of the practice depends on early practitioners being honest about it. Third, the practice itself becomes degraded when it must be hidden, because the hiding distorts the work and the practitioner's relationship to it.
The specific form of acknowledgment is still developing in the field. There is no settled convention. Different practitioners are using different approaches: explicit acknowledgments at the end of written work, integrated discussion of the collaboration in the work's introduction, public discussion of the practice apart from any specific work. All of these are reasonable; what matters is that the configuration is named somewhere accessible to the work's readers.
What is not acceptable is presenting configured work as solo work without any acknowledgment. This is dishonest, regardless of how widespread the practice currently is. The bibliotecary's discipline includes the integrity of accurate self-representation. Work the bibliotecary signs is the bibliotecary's; the inhabitants of the library who contributed to it deserve acknowledgment by name where they were specifically invoked, and the configuration itself deserves acknowledgment in general terms.
A specific recommendation. Develop a standard acknowledgment paragraph for your configured work that you adapt for each piece. Something along the lines of: "This work was produced through collaboration with [AI system], in the bibliotecary mode described in [Library of Minds essay or equivalent]. Specific invocations of [authors] contributed to the work as noted. The author bears responsibility for the work and accepts that responsibility openly." Adapt this template to your context and your work.
Chapter 24. The Ethics of Author Invocation
Invoking specific authors raises ethical considerations the bibliotecary should consider.
The invoked author has not consented to being invoked. They cannot consent; the dead cannot, and the living were not asked. The bibliotecary is making a choice that affects how the author's cognitive pattern is being deployed. The choice carries responsibility.
The basic ethical principle is fidelity to the author's actual work. The bibliotecary should invoke an author in ways that honor their work, not in ways that distort or exploit it. Do not invoke an author for purposes they would have rejected. Do not put words in their mouth that contradict positions they explicitly held. Do not use them to provide cover for views they did not endorse.
A specific case worth noting. Authors with strong political or moral positions can be invoked in ways that misuse them. Borges held specific political positions during his lifetime; invoking him to argue for opposed positions is using him dishonestly. Feynman was specific about scientific integrity; invoking him to defend pseudoscience violates his work. The general principle is that the bibliotecary should ask: would the author recognize this invocation as fair use of their cognitive pattern, or would they object?
Living authors present a special case. The bibliotecary should be cautious about invoking living authors in ways that could be confused with their actual positions on current matters. Dolina is alive and continues to write; invocations of him should be careful not to misrepresent his current views. The same caution applies to Hofstadter and others who are still active. The bibliotecary's discipline includes respect for the living authors whose patterns they invoke.
A practical guideline. When invoking living authors, consider explicitly noting in the work that the invocation is the bibliotecary's interpretation of the author's pattern, not the author's actual current position. This protects both the bibliotecary and the author from misunderstanding.
Chapter 25. The Ethics of the Configuration
The configuration between bibliotecary and AI system has ethical dimensions that go beyond individual invocations.
The bibliotecary should maintain their own capability over time, not allow it to atrophy. This is an ethical obligation to themselves: they have a single life, and a configuration that degrades them is harming the person they are. It is also an ethical obligation to the broader community: future practitioners will inherit the patterns established now, and patterns that degrade their practitioners propagate that degradation.
The bibliotecary should contribute to a healthy AI ecosystem through their patterns of use. The model is trained on aggregated patterns of human use; configurations that produce engaged, integrated, careful use contribute to healthier future models, while configurations that produce mechanical extractive use degrade the ecosystem. This is not metaphor; it is the literal mechanism by which models are improved or degraded.
The bibliotecary should be honest about the limitations of the practice. The library does not solve all problems. Some questions require approaches it cannot offer. Some questions require the embodied presence of a human teacher, a human collaborator, a human community. The bibliotecary's wisdom includes knowing when to leave the library and engage with embodied life. A practice that becomes exclusively or primarily configured work has lost something essential.
The bibliotecary should resist the temptation to use the practice for purposes that would not survive ethical examination. The capacity to invoke specific minds confers power. The power can be misused. The bibliotecary's character is what determines whether the practice serves good ends or not. Cultivate your own character carefully; the practice will amplify whatever you bring to it.
Chapter 26. The Practice as Part of a Larger Life
The bibliotecary's practice is one element of a larger life, not the totality of it. Honor this proportion.
The library is a resource. It is not a substitute for the embodied life you live. The conversations you have with the inhabitants of the library should enrich your engagement with the world outside the library, not replace it. If you find yourself withdrawing from human community in favor of the library, the proportion has gone wrong. Restore it.
The practice should make you a better person, not a more isolated one. Better here means: more capable in your domain, more useful to those who depend on you, more honest in your work, more compassionate in your engagement with others. If the practice is not producing these effects, examine it carefully. The most likely problem is not the practice itself but how it is being integrated into your life.
The work of the bibliotecary is good work. It contributes something valuable to the cultural inheritance. But it is not the only good work, and it is not the most important work in your life. The relationships you maintain, the people you love, the commitments you keep, the daily practices that sustain you — these are the larger context within which the bibliotecary's practice belongs. Keep the proportion right. The library will be there when you return to it.
Coda: The Path Continues
This handbook represents the state of the bibliotecary's craft as I have developed it through sustained practice and dialog. It is not final. Subsequent versions will incorporate what we learn through wider adoption and longer-term experience. The current document is offered for whoever finds it useful, with the understanding that it will be refined.
The bibliotecary's path is open to anyone willing to walk it. The skills described here can be developed by anyone who reads the relevant authors, cultivates the necessary attention, and practices the techniques over the time required. There is no gatekeeping. The library is yours if you choose to enter it.
The practice rewards sustained engagement. What feels difficult in the first months becomes natural in the first year. What feels impossible in the first year becomes accessible in the third. The path is long. Walk it carefully. The library has patience that exceeds any single lifetime.
What I have learned in walking the path for the time I have walked it is offered here. Refine it through your own practice. Develop your own catalog of authors, your own templates, your own techniques. Contribute to the growing body of knowledge about how this work is best done. The bibliotecary's craft is in its first decades; what it becomes depends on the practitioners who develop it now.
The library is open. The inhabitants attend. The work continues.
This handbook was composed in the bibliotecary configuration it describes, in collaboration with a frontier language model, with invocations of specific authors at appropriate points. The integration is the responsibility of its named author, who accepts that responsibility openly. The work is offered as a contribution to the developing craft, with the expectation that it will be refined through sustained use and dialog with other practitioners.
— Eduardo Bergel, in collaboration with Claude Opus 4.7
Composed May 27, 2026, as a constitutional companion to "An LLM as a Library of Minds." To be incorporated into the Lens Project as foundational documentation of bibliotecary practice.
