Just discovered my Google Scholar blog post is linked from a Swiss libguide AND they spelt my name correctly! libguides.graduateinstitute.ch/google_tips

This isn't just a fight for UoN. This is a fight for the future of higher education in the UK and globally. Colleagues from across the country have supported us in our efforts, financially and otherwise. We thank these members and others for their generous donation which will help us keep fighting!

This especially hurts to read in a world where people are still pushing the “historians will say they’re roommates” narrative. Total erasure of very, very hard work.

I dunno, maybe if the rest of the world also adopted historians' compulsive citational practices, and footnoted everything, we'd have a better information environment

Im so exhausted by this pattern. Historians spend years in the archives to write detailed accounts of the past. Only for journalists, doctors, podcasters, and now cartoonists, to swoop in and get paid a lot of money to trot out the same work, "uncovering hidden histories" that are not at all hidden.

For those who I've been talking to about how @uonucu.bsky.social is fighting back, this was the part one of our Counter Proposal on the Finances 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

I would add that this erasure reinforces the illusion that AI can "do history." When history is filtered through popular media, it often erases (deliberately or inadvertently) the years of research, archival work, & interpretation that professional historians have invested in to understand the past

It feels like this is the inevitable culmination of "hidden histories" and "untold stories" combined with "we can't footnote your work, that would be awkward for the reader." But at its core, it's just the result of an utter lack of respect for the labor and expertise of an entire field.

The 2022 Persuasion with Dakota Johnson was actually very enjoyable and people were too mean about it. The 2008 TV mini-series adaptation of Sense and Sensibility is better than the 1995 film.

The queer literary festival was great and the flowers in the redeveloped Broadmarsh area are stunning and the city was full of giant puppets, and I really do love Nottingham a lot.

Everyone remind me I've already preordered @tashasuri.bsky.social's The Lady of Thorns so I don't accidentally end up with multiple copies in 10 months time

UK authors! If you haven't done it yet (I haven't) it's time to update your PLR account! The deadline is June 30th!

I see British Library Pay Discourse is back, so sharing this again.

Londoners, there is a webpage for you to see where your nearest "cool spaces" are when the extreme heat hits - places with water, air-conditioning & shade. Have a look and spread the word, especially to those who may need this but might not think to look for it: apps.london.gov.uk/cool-spaces/

I see British Library Pay Discourse is back, so sharing this again.

TLDR: “AI Literacy” as defined by the most cited article on the subject is already covered by previous scholarly work, you are Information Literate if you know how to critically engage with any information. And that includes predictive text generated content.

RANT TIME. Keep seeing this piece from 2020 being cited dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/... it’s got crazy citation numbers and a lot of those citations link it to IL. Fine. The original article doesn’t AT ALL.

PSA to anyone being a bridesmaid this summer: one of your jobs is keeping the bride topped up with sun screen.

whither fantasy? on stepmothers and fairytales, because i kept thinking about what irritates me about tales=demographic patterns. basically: if you want to do an incredibly laborious and probably inconclusive PhD, get in touch 🗃️ williamgpooley.wordpress.com/2026/06/24/s...

A select group of rare books librarians activated into throwing themselves in front of Audubon’s Birds of America without knowing why

Rounding-up heat preparedness information for the coming week here in the UK, a thread, 🧵 The best and most comprehensive guide to heatwaves is from the British Red Cross. If you only bookmark one page to come back to, make it this: www.redcross.org.uk/get-help/pre... 1/8

This is actually the key point. When it’s this hot, you need to not just drink straight water. You also need to replace salts and sugars that get lost through sweat. And now you can buy electrolyte mixes at the store orrrrrr you can do this! but you do need to do something beyond straight water

Given it is hotting up again next week. www.manchester.gov.uk/health-and-w...

“Old, Cold, & Free” heritage sites in the UK & Ireland, for folks trying to beat the heat.

Good morning from Nottingham! We will be reporting on Nottingham Trans Pride today at 11:00 - Although a few people are already beginning to turn up at Sneinton Market. 🔴🧵 Live thread below

Hope everyone at Nottingham Trans Pride has the best time! I am very sad to be missing it - I have a lingering cold that I don’t want to pass on to anyone.

I was already loving unemployment but this is gonna make it even better

Put this off so long I genuinely forgot my first attempts were extremely messy handwritten flow charts. (I’ve done my best to add alt text but honestly for usable info go to the blog post)

One other source worth mentioning for people who edit Wikipedia is the Wikipedia Library, which grants access to paid sources via the WMF. You have to be an editor in good standing and meet activity requirements, but it provides access to basically everything: wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org

I have finally finished and posted the list of alternatives to Google Scholar, along with various thoughts about ethics and librarianship and why I'm not technically a librarian any more librarykirsten.wordpress.com/2026/06/18/t...

📣Calls for proposals for the free online Neuro-GLAM conference are open Theme: Hopepunk: Neurodiversity, GLAM & neurodivergent knowledge justice This is a Canadian org. 🍁 Proposals to [email protected] Date: 21st Aug 2026 Proposal deadline: 2nd July 2026 @drlibraryben.bsky.social

Trying to sync to Zotero whilst writing about Zotero being great was an act of hubris, obviously that's broken it.

Sigh. A call for papers on the legacy of Aaron Swartz. A most worthwhile topic. But ACM charging APCs for this special issue? Is that in keeping with AS's legacy? In any case, I will not write for it, as I cannot afford the APCs. I will choose a diamond venue instead. dl.acm.org/pb-assets/st...

Great initiative! For anyone wanting to write, I strongly recommend Tim Clare’s Couch to 80k writing podcast www.timclarepoet.co.uk/couchto80kwritingbootcamp/

In spot tests I've done, I see this happen *all of the time*, such as with my own papers. The LLM would often rather hallucinate a male scientist than get my name right. 🤷‍♀️ It's kind of unsurprising that models trained unscrupulously on the entire internet are misogynistic

I'm looking up fancy train holidays on a website that defaults to displaying price per person for two people, and manually altering it to show price per person for one person is making the single tax really really obvious. Basically 50% more!

Great news! Link added on the Fair Library Jobs list of trade unions for library workers sites.google.com/view/fairlib...

Museums and heritage freelancers! There is now a union for you! I've been working with @soupdragon2000.bsky.social and @dannybirchall.bsky.social to set up the Heritage Freelancers branch of @prospectunion.bsky.social Full details and joining info: heritagefreelancersunion.co.uk

I love living in Nottingham for many reasons, and one of them is that I have access to all the amazing LGBTQ+ events hosted by the local libraries. There's a Literary Pride book club and queer writing group and LGBTQ+ literary festival.

I‘m really worried for LGBTQ folks working in public libraries at the moment - must be so stressful and scary.

If you are based in the UK, please do consider writing an email to your local library about how important LGBTQ+ books, and representation is. There are several councils in the UK suggesting that books should be banned and that LGBTQ+ books are harmful. This must be challenged at all costs.

If you want a Luddite print/glitter sticker/tshirt, it goes toward my saving for an accessible home printing press so I can print more (including more free mail art & mutual aid fundraising, the dream, art for all!).

It's incredible that the entire panic over "ultra-processed foods" is based on the results of just *five* RCTs, four of which were less than three weeks long. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

And an equally enormous loss: EThOS remains down, with plans to resurrect only a hugely degraded version, without downloads. Access to the PhD theses here was crucial. I would always search it on a topic, because these PhD works can be really good. And they don't need to be a book to be cited.

This thread gave me a full body flashback to my Cambridge college library assistant days attempting to explain the UL/department/college library system

If your MP has already signed, it's worth dropping them a quick thank you email to make it clear they have support from their constituents.

More than 100 MPs have now signed the motion I tabled alongside colleagues to disapprove the Equality Act 2010: Draft Code of Practice for Services, public functions and associations. Please email your MP asking them to sign EDM 240 if they haven’t already.

It occurs to me that this is a consequence of giving everyone a spreadsheet program but not training. So many people have no idea what their spreadsheets can do. And most of it isn’t that complicated. But you need to value learning how to use the tools and upgrading that over time.

Saw a post linking an article on research metrics and went to bookmark it to read on work time, but no! I don’t have to! I don’t have to think about that ever again!