Updates from the boot machine factory

PK-12 is not far behind the universities. "If we don't start familiarizing students with mechanized boots on necks as soon as they enter school, however will they be prepared for college level subjugation techniques?"

relatedly, being told by leadership to use the boot on the neck of humanity machine to teach my students as a way to address the uni’s wage theft. lovely wonderful i hate it

Universities are the boot factory

@donoteat.bsky.social saw your cohost at the MFA in Boston today

Every day I watch the tech industry build The Boot On the Neck Of Humanity Machine and watch universities say “we are going to sustainably and ethically prepare our students to become innovators in The Boot On The Neck Of Humanity Machine space”

164 - NYC PLAN We’re talking with Abby and Hal about NYC Public Library Action Network (PLAN)! Learn about what they’re doing, how you can help, how you can copy them, and what’s working for them by having a community-led library advocacy group that is separate from the library itself.

Why is nobody talking about how librarypunk is tanking the Democrats chances this fall?

The importance of a patron/worker collective that can’t be controlled or muzzled by the library administrators or anyone else. What we’ve learned from library workers and patrons at our people’s assemblies. How police budgets are defunding cities. How you can do all this where you live. And more!

How before NYC PLAN, library leadership focused on clawing back scraps from a constantly moving target, and now everyone from the mayor to the library leadership is talking about things as they relate to the 0.5% target.

How we’ve successfully driven the narrative with our demand for libraries to be funded at 0.5% of the total city budget. A commitment NYC PLAN got @mayor.nyc.gov to make while he was campaigning, which he's broken his promise on (though the fight is not over, and we're going to win in the end)!

You'll hear: A brief history of the budget dance in NYC and the material impact of libraries being used a pawn in this process, which goes back at least to the Bloomberg mayoralty. How NYC PLAN formed in the wake of the Adams era version of these budget cuts.

Listen to my brilliant @nycplan.org comrades @halschrieve.bsky.social and @abbyemerson.bsky.social in this great conversation with Jay and Justin on @librarypunk.bsky.social. www.librarypunk.gay/e/164-nyc-pl...

Okay which one of you did this?

pls repost! Are you an academic or someone who has published academically who has requested name changes in your works because you were married (or used to go by a former name)? please let me know via reply/DM/the contact form on my website if you're willing to chat about! #AcademicChatter 🗂️🗃️📜📚

164 - NYC PLAN We’re talking with Abby and Hal about NYC Public Library Action Network (PLAN)! Learn about what they’re doing, how you can help, how you can copy them, and what’s working for them by having a community-led library advocacy group that is separate from the library itself.

Also, how about organizing a Libraries and Lemonade stand in your community to talk to your neighbors about library funding? www.librariesforthepeople.org/lemonade

Adding the 3rd layer of these prints today—a bit of sobering metadata Two texts separated by 175 years of American history, but they rhyme

Is there a rash of warehouse burnings or is it one of those situations where you’re not aware how many warehouse fires there are per week until an interesting one happens

They didn’t realize they were free campaign workers for the Florida Republican Party

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Always weird to see people arguing "my highly-sophisticated use of the Large Meaning Manglers is informed by my knowledge that they're models, so therefore people critiquing their use are Wrong" instead of "let's get *everyone* to understand the slipperiness inherent in meaning & representation".

"Turns out students aren't great at asking questions well." No fucking shit. Literally any educator could tell you that. 90% of my job as a high school librarian is trying to figure out what kids actually want versus what question they asked.

when an insurance representative says something so kafkaesque that you gotta hit them with that mangione stare

I do not see the median (e.g., not super well heeled Ivy and probably not even them) being "leaders" in AI policy, as they tend not to have the technological know-how or the infrastructure to do meaningful work.

So if by "leaders in AI" libraries means, as it often does with library technology, "reacting to and sometimes acting as sales agents for" vendor hosted products....yeah.

So maybe we should pass laws that punish the giant corporations for their abusive business practices instead of laws that won’t help kids and will force ICE watch activists to upload their government ID to platforms that will hand them over to Trump in a heartbeat

Sabotage era

I don't think it was good that NASA was 4% of the federal budget. That shit was not all Space Science

An account you're going to want to immediately block if you've ever spoken about kids' right to read No idea who the actual person behind the account is, but they love targeting librarians over on X and they'll likely just be looking to screenshot your posts here for clout (such that it is) there

For anyone thinking the US military is going to have restraint

we need more places where he can exist in public without being expected to buy anything, not fewer

This is a verified GoFundMe for librarian Luanne James from the Rutherford County Library Alliance. gofund.me/f7704eb98 Read what happened to this hero: www.newschannel5.com/news/rutherf...

Check out the new website for the Library Freedom Journal, published by the folks at the Library Freedom Project. journal.libraryfreedom.org They're looking for submissions for articles, reviews, hot takes, zines, & artwork focused on privacy, intellectual freedom, information democracy, & more! 📚

Phd funding opportunity for leeds based studies into children’s library use perhaps @stuhennigan.bsky.social if you know anyone!

Union Yes at ALA! To support American Library Association employees forming their union with AFSCME, add your name here: actionnetwork.org/forms/union-...

163 - Organize Your Library We’re joined by the authors of the new book Organize Your Library to talk about library labor, the future, the ALA union drive, and more!

Criminalization is fascism’s indispensable fuel. Since criminalization determines people’s fates, we are all vulnerable. No matter whether it’s in vogue or not to organize to end prisons and jails, we must persist. Through the Warehouse exhibition+

they call it “means testing” because bringing it up will test how fucking mean i can get at whoever is doing it,

Remember that pay to publish Forbes guy who keeps arguing that? Panos Mourdoukoutas?

destroy the ex libris offices in the malha technology park, iran, make the librarians happy

jonny over on masto doing god's work: > anthropic [is running] an ENTIRE AD CAMPAIGN around "Claude code is written with claude code" and after the source was leaked that has got to be the funniest self-own in the history of advertising because OH BOY IT SHOWS. neuromatch.social/@jonny/11632...

They know who copyright serves, this isn’t ironic

No shade to this Victorian chabot effort, but one of the main reasons libraries themselves aren’t doing this left and right is that the general public would be stunned at how casually racist/misogynist/etc every LLM along these lines would be without *extensive* post-training/alignment

162 - Fashion librarianship feat. Steph Noell This week we’re joined by @librarianstebbs.bsky.social to talk about fashion and librarianship: how it works, how they intersect, and how fashion is interdisciplinary. We also learn about how you get into this gig!

RIP in peace humanity

Angry with rage at learning about plant patents www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNWm...

I would imagine most students at Duke don't have a culture of using the Dewey Decimal System, since Duke's library doesn't use it, like every other college library in the US.

I don't know if it makes a difference but I do like handing out instructional zines for my classes. Holding something in your hands is nice.