Merry Christmas from me and Goblin!

Just bumping the link for donations, if you can spare any moolah #DuvetKnowItsChristmas www.gofundme.com/f/duvet-know...

Right then, no one asked for it (everyone seems quite happy with last year's!) but here we are anyway, your #DuvetKnowItsChristmas 2025 bingo card! Some returning classics, some we missed last year and some new ones. Enjoy team, donation link below once Rhodri posts it!

And the finest Christmas tradition has arrived — #DuvetKnowItsChristmas is today! 1) Follow @rhodri.biz 2) post your pics of your makeshift Christmas Eve sleeping arrangements and 3) give money to the homeless @centrepointuk.bsky.social

'The institution currently has between 15 and 16 students for every staff member but wants to increase this to between 18 and 22 students, according to a “case for change” document recently shared with employees.' 5 faculties mooted to become 3 colleges.' 1/3

On the one hand I should get off the sofa and go to bed, on the other hand there is a sleeping cat

Sorry to all the folks still at work today, maybe a nice time to update/create your training log? (Also academic librarians today is not the day to work out the Primo Google Scholar thing, that is a 2026 problem)

People are saying that this is a problem for all library catalogues but that's not true: this is a problem for, in this case, Ex Libris Primo and more generally for outsourced proprietary library catalogues that libraries don't control. The answer, as always, is to build and control our own tech.

Not saying I told you so, but: “ As AI generated publications proliferate, Google Scholar is particularly vulnerable to being swamped by fake research.”

A gentle reminder if you've received an invoice from a Freelancer/Self employed person which is due before Christmas. Be a love, and pay it today.

Merry Christmas from your local UCU branch! This year, we decided to get a give for our vice chancellor and university executive board: a 127 page counter-proposal to their dismal attempt at undermining the university! Read all about it here: uonucu.org/counter-prop...

Amazing! And reminds me of one of the afterwords of a Terry Pratchett novel (Lords and Ladies maybe?) where he talks about asking everyone he met how the magpie rhyme goes (one for sorrow, two for joy etc)

Just to say, if you know someone parenting a kid alone, especially a small one, see if you can buy a present that the kid can give to their parent. Even take the kid shopping so they can choose. It's not even about the money - the parent might happily pay for someone else to do this kindness.

🚨🚨 BRANCH UPDATE 🚨🚨 With our current industrial action mandate nearly expired and strike action called off after winning our demand for no compulsory redundancies through most of next year, our branch saw the need to keep up the pressure against the administration.

Really interesting post! The Fair Library Jobs manifesto update and blog post to cover AI is in the works, but the broad conclusion will be the same as this: "we should not use AI to evaluate job applications at this time."

This is excellent! Saving for when I finish off the @fairlibraryjobs.bsky.social post on AI.

Such a useful post. When we send our personal data (which is copious in a job application) we lose control over it. These days it is hard to have confidence in organisations keeping that data secure, and using it responsibly.

My sister, a nurse in a GP practice, was yesterday told that masking is now mandatory for all staff and patients across her region due to high flu rates! So if you'd stopped masking up in public, now's a good time to dig out those COVID masks again...

Solidarity with the staff at the @britishlibrary.bsky.social, the people who actually make the place work, in the face of wretched management.

British Library staff are on strike from the 8th to the 12th December 2025. Full solidarity with them, please don't cross the physical or digital picket lines. I wrote a little in my latest piece on the Library about how poor senior management has driven the staff to this position.

This is why I’m on my soapbox everyday at work and being loud about AI and academic integrity “LLMs are poisoning the entire information ecosystem. You can't even necessarily trust that the citations in a published paper are real (or a search engine's descriptions of them).”

Solidarity, once more, with the staff at the British Library. The people who keep it going and who make it what it is should not be on poverty wages and living in fear of abuse from angry users. Something needs to change!

British Library workers withdraw their labour again! Mon 8th to Sun 14th! Improved offers (“we have no money”) are inadequate! Fair demands for fair(er) pay are reiterated! Please support the strike! Cancel / postpone! Visit the picket (in Midland Road)! If you are a Reader please join for a chat!

Good. Keep it up @pcsunion.bsky.social!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH

💥New: Don’t rely on government to save the British Library ✍️ @simonxix.com #BritishLibrary #HigherEducation #ResearchInfrastructure

This year we're doing Whamutopia. Every time you hear Last Christmas you have to have a mulled wine at your earliest convenience and toast George Michael, because he was a lad

PSA don't forget to make sure you have enough medication to get through the holidays, just checked mine on a whim and if i hadn't by the time i'd have run out i'd be on sertraline withdrawal over christmas

From Alain Schuhl: “we have worked for free to lock ourselves collectively into a paid system when we are all aware of its biases and incompleteness“ Very encouraging development to see more organisations walking away from Scopus and WoS, making it feel possible to opt out of that system.

In honour of #Whamageddon, I strongly recommend the You’re Wrong About episodes on George Michael (even before bereavement the bit about Freddie Mercury at the end of ep 1 had me sobbing) yourewrongabout.buzzsprout.com/1112270/epis...

Worth noting that while this journal has been removed from Web of Science Core Collection (Clarivate owned), it has not been removed from Scopus (Elsevier owned). I don't know if this is the result of conflict of interest or just different standards and processes. www.scopus.com/sourceid/25349

Right, very nearly got into an argument about inheritance tax in someone else’s replies so I am Logging Off. Also today I have done a yoga and yesterday made a massive pot of kale minestrone and I have a GP appointment booked and social things planned so would like a gold medal for self-care.

Proposal for REF29 PCE: counterstatements for institutions from employees and ex-employees explaining how the culture and environment in fact undermined their ability to research.

I did, you know, I did make a book (with a LOT of other people) and it's got my name on the front and everything. eprints.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/id/eprint/81...

Reminder to everyone of the existence of Oxfam Online for Christmas shopping! The Home, Garden & Crafts books especially good for anyone with a niche hobby onlineshop.oxfam.org.uk/home-garden-...

Listening to Amélie Church from Sorbonne University Library speaking at #LisBib conference - the figures on WoS coverage of humanities similar to what I found for Uni of Nottingham outputs. And really inspiring to hear about the meaningful investment in open data infrastructure.

Grateful for livestreaming of conferences but as ever sad to be missing the best bit - the pastries

For anyone who got a feedback request from Clarivate (Ex Libris) today - zine from Librarians & Archivists with Palestine

Feeling this, as I prepare to deliver a conference presentation that’s out of date because of an organisational restructure and I haven’t finished because of being on strike over job losses

Along with our rallies happening today (1 PM) and tomorrow (10 AM), students from the music school have organised additional protests as well. All happening on the south side of the trent building. Let's show this university how united we are! ✊ #StopTheCuts #SaveHE

'It is notable that in the last Research Excellence Framework exercise the Department of American Studies at Nottingham was ranked third in the Area Studies unit of assessment and was one of the top-performing units across the whole of the University of Nottingham.' 1/2

Colleagues and UCU members from UoN's Department of Modern Languages have put together this wonderful guide on supporting their programmes. A lot of what they suggest is also helpful in challenging the 48 courses at risk across the university www.savemlcatnotts.org.uk

I'm glad to have signed this statement in support of queer and trans staff at the National Library of Scotland, who by the sounds of it are going through an awful time at the moment: docs.google.com/document/d/e...

I'm conducting research for my prof doc at the Uni of Salford. I'm interested to hear from UK-based healthcare staff who've authored #systematicreviews with or without collaborating with librarians and info professionals. app.onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk/s/salford/re... #medsky #research #Health

People need to reckon with the hypocrisies of governments prepared to suport products that algorithmically fabricate history while stripping funding from the archives and repositories that hold actual historical artifacts. This is far more expansive than the cyberattack on the British Library.

Solidarity to all at @ucuedinburgh.bsky.social! I studied there in 2010-11 and staff were on strike then - I remember one of my tutors explaining that she felt it was part of her responsibility to us as her students to protect the future of academic pay and conditions.

One for the research culture and metadata folks, and #MedLibs thinking about ways of getting their contributions recognised.

48 courses have already been suspended. University council is expected to sign their death certificate. No music, no languages, no mental health nursing. Stand with UCU and all workers and students at UoN against academic vandalism. #StopTheCuts #SaveHE

Our new preprint! The Acknowledgments problem, and what to do about it. With @martonkovacs.bsky.social, @pietropollo.bsky.social, @philobolobstime.bsky.social, Losia Lagisz, & Mohammad Hosseini.

Procrastinating by testing how well different databases are doing with author curation using E P Thompson as an example and none are doing great. Scopus as far as I can tell has 2 records of 3 works each, WoS has mistakenly lumped in lots of science stuff, OpenAlex does this: