My #librarymaxxing tip is City of London Libraries - membership is inclusive (can you prove your address basically). I used to love Shoe Lane Library - more (and more interesting) books than in my local library. You can use the Barbican library! Decent Libby / borrowbox collections.

#librarymaxxing - also read "Don’t Burn Anyone at the Stake Today" to find out what era you are living in

#medlibs 📚

Feeling this after my relay wipeout on Wednesday night

The most influential artist you’ve never heard of died a few days ago. John Blanche was hired by Games Workshop in the late 1970s to illustrate the first British version of Dungeons & Dragons, then Warhammer and Warhammer 40k…

Heartbroken to hear that Marjane Satrapi has died. Her long term partner died last year and that clearly hit her really hard but still, 56 is no age. If you've not read 'Persepolis' now would be the time to do it.

Turns out baton passes are hard and so is the track

New Couch to 5k group from Tuesday 9th June with Loughton AC - tell a friend #Loughton #Epping #Woodford #BuckhurstHill www.loughtonac.org.uk/post/ready-t...

Interesting to consider the impact of scholarly comms models and structures on blocking off access to knowledge - ~10k journals published in China with most outside the standard indexes 📚 katinamagazine.org/content/arti...

Publicity Department and Tulpa at the New River Studios #gigs

Went for the first time lately. It cost three times the price I normally pay. The music in the bar was unpleasantly loud. Some bloke are a stinky burger next to me. Not rushing back www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith at the Barbican #gigs

What if I told you one study in Manchester found that shade from street trees reduced surface temperatures by an average of 12°C, and concrete surfaces shaded permanently by a bank of trees were cooled by up to 20°C during a heatwave? You might not believe me. But it's true…👇

Allergy double threat

🌳Delighted to share Epping Forest's 2025 Ecological Monitoring Survey results: storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/20cb... 🛡️With this data, we can now turn surveys into safeguards, tweaking our habitat management plans. 🐸Our 2026 surveys will include ponds, newts, toads, frogs, dragonflies & damselflies.

Just sat and drank a beer in the garden. Had a little wander to see what is growing and stared at the moon. 10/10 would recommend

“You meet saints everywhere. They can be anywhere. They are people behaving decently in an indecent society.” - Kurt Vonnegut

Sorry to have missed #DigitalCleanUpDay on 21st March www.digitalcleanupday.org

Two cats on some Japanese beermats. A commission. Feel free to think of your own combinations of animals and things that van be painting on to beermats and football tickets. If I can do it I will. darrenhaymanart.com

Read this useful set of tips on improving your use of YouTube in the light of the Google changes to force AI. Essentially you can do old style Google power searching in YouTube (for obvious reasons) cardcatalogforlife.substack.com/p/youtube-is...

Tedious football chat in the open plan

As someone who has predicted they will die by falling on teh stairs I have some sympathy

You're never gonna let me be

FEDIP increasing their subs by between 50 and 100% is bold

I worked in this library briefly and benefitted from several of the books on this floor. I read Strunk on writing and Norman on design. I still remember things from them - this is a bad idea

I wonder what Jeremy Bentham would have thought if told that in its 200th year UCL’s communications team would no longer know the difference between “your” and “you’re”.

Running behind on various things can be good news when the specs for the conference poster you still need to make are all sorts of restrictive. If I had already made something in Landscape I would not be happy

I could walk to work when I first moved to London and it was amazing

Interesting to see this move from the new Reform Essex CC. Positive for library users - the impact assessment showed it was negative for every single user group and the sums it would have raised were trivial

Does anyone need an excellent research librarian? Like can do clinical and public health and pharmaceuticals really really well? Also knowledge, skills, and personal interest in the environmental and marine sciences? Can write scientific/technical reports? Permanent or contract work? Let me know!

This week in 1812 Spencer Perceval became the only British Prime Minister to be assassinated. Its the least interesting thing about him. Working with hedonistic lawyer James Stephen, the devout Christian engineered one of the first slavery bans in British territory WITHOUT Parliament's approval. /1

First demo has the AI say "Friend" when someone else comes into shot. Very disappointing lack of Inbetweeners voice from the Bot I have to say thinkingmachines.ai/blog/interac...

Like football? Like explaining why P values are not all that? You may enjoy this #medlibs bristoliver.substack.com/p/league-of-...

Summer athletics season is here!

We're celebrating hitting 400 followers on Bluesky. However, that's still 3500 fewer than we had on X. So if you could re-post this to your followers to let them know we're here and doing our best to make peace happen, that would be ace - thank you. #peace

I travelled to Switzerland and back using multiple trains without a single delay. My first tube back is delayed at every point

I gave life to the plums that were in the fruit aisle And which you were probably not that afraid of Forgive me They are a god now Eldritch Immortal

Additionally, if it's buffet-style and directional, put the meat and diary dishes *first*. The omnivores will then have their plates at least half full before they even get to the veggie stuff.

Someone has been sent deep into Epping Forest to do their brass practice

I like interesting graphs…and this is one of them: #RunSky

Phew

This is major

I just signed the petition calling for Essex County Council to scrap reservation charges for books in Essex libraries. 2026 is supposed to be the National Year of Reading. This will just make accessing books harder in Essex. Join me and add your name: you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/sc...

Read down for an actual use case where having a carousel on your webpage might be a good idea

Argh - carousels! The opac carousel loving librarians will be delighted - arghhhhh 📚