New article on @malikalnasir.bsky.social's story here. Makes some interesting connections between UK and US. www.nuorigins.com/overcoming-t...

The earliest reference to blockprinting in Iran associates it with the "Banu Sasan," a perceived underclass of thieves/magicians who we now think are related to modern Romani. Some of the Arabic terms used for blockprinting may also be loaned from their language. www.bloomsbury.com/us/roma-in-t...

1 of 4 #scotsfoundedfootball You know how I am not overly interested in stats and who won what? It is because I focus on how Football mirrored society. Scottish Combination spread because it was the right time. I want to come back to the Glasgow Charity Cup and to whom the Committee gave grants.

“I learned from them very early that what one does with Nazis is kill them, I am not a pacifist.” Renfrew Christie South African scholar & antiapartheid activist archive.ph/TZ2Hs

Do you work in a UK HE library? Are you early-career? Would you like a sponsored place to attend the Copim Conference at the end of February? Find out how to apply for these sponsored places, which are offered in memory of our beloved friend and colleague, Elaine Sykes: buff.ly/sbU2eRP #OAbooks

Missing from the coverage of redundancies at Edinburgh: this was done in such a haphazard, uncoordinated way, there are now core teams who have gone from 5 people to 1 with no change in workload or pressure and huge loss in knowledge of institutional process. www.heraldscotland.com/news/2576321...

This is one of my favorite positive stories from Turkey: my latest, on @newscientist.com

Tile, 16th century Diyarbakır, Turkey. (Musée du Louvre)

4/365. Migraine superwolf.

1 of 5 #scotsfoundedfootball On my walk on Friday, I passed by Hampden Bowling Club. It looks fine, despite its impending closure. By the end of February, it will be no more. I have no idea what Glasgow City Council are going to do with it. That £150,000+ repair to the roof is not going away.

PLEASE KEEP SHARING - the press are listening "Dear BBC Radio Scotland, We are musicians from Scotland... there is one thing we share. It was BBC Radio Scotland late-night shows that gave our music a chance." Full letter: tr.ee/9uKS89 @angusrobertson.bsky.social @thesmia.bsky.social

🎯 Anthony Moser put it perfectly: But I am a hater, and I will not be polite. The machine is disgusting and we should break it. The people who build it are vapid shit-eating cannibals glorifying ignorance. I strongly feel that this is an insult to life itself. anthonymoser.github.io/writing/ai/h...

Thanks @stephenpinfield.bsky.social for interviewing me about my book for the @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social podcast. newbooksnetwork.com/publishing-b...

Striking BL staff, struggling to pay their rent, advised to consider not giving presents this year, and interim CEO, Jeremy Silver, has the nerve to tell them they ‘don’t live in a real world’. Only 17% of staff guaranteed the Living Wage (£14.80 ph) suggests acute familiarity with the ‘real world’.

Employer: please embed sustainability into your teaching Employer: here’s a list of cool ways to use AI

Stuck for a Scottish football book as a Christmas present? My Who's Who contains comprehensive biographies of every one of the 615 internationalists who represented Scotland between 1872 and 1939. Every review on amazon is five stars! www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...

Just a reminder that Aaron Swartz was threatened with 50 years of jail time for downloading public domain documents and meanwhile AI companies bulk download copyrighted works

#SaggSeason #SaggGenius #GordonParks #AChoiceOfWeapons #BoTD

⚪️ Make 7,787 articles Open Access ⚪️ Give one guy a fortune

“It doesn’t really matter which lens we look at Elsevier’s offers from. Whether it’s from cost of publishing, the amount of usage or the price according to the size of institution, their offers have always been vastly more expensive than the other publishers in comparison.”

Delighted that my debut novel will be published by Polygon in 2027 💘

I'm a pass on card catalogues, but I am all-in on making sure our physical collections not only remain strong, but are designed to encourage browsing. Despite what consultant-class trends in academic libraries will tell you, our patrons actually do want stacks in the library. We should listen.

I've said this before but 99% of complaints about library catalogues are actually complaints about Ex Libris Primo. A whole category of software is being tainted in users' minds because of one shitty product.

And again, dress up warm and bring your vuvuzelas... Aberdeen welcomes refugees, not racism! Stand up to racist bullies with music, colourful banners and messages of hope. All welcome. Sunday 16 November, 3pm, 130 Don Street, Old Aberdeen (Don Street House), AB24 1UY.

Come and support the wonderful Copim gang whilst I’m on maternity leave! Happy to answer any q’s about the role ☺️

3,900 Pages of Paul Klee’s Personal Notebooks Are Now Online, Highlighting His Bauhaus Teachings (1921–1931)

Carsie Blanton, everybody. 👑

Check out my interveiw on Talk Radio Europe about the worlds 1st Black International footballer Andrew Watson. I’m also talking about my new book 📕 “Searching for my Slave Roots” #MalikAlNasir #SearchingForMySlaveRoots #TalkRadioEurope #Slavery #Colonialism #Spain #Europe youtu.be/9ztQJbJDLf8?...

For those who are interested, I'll be at the Byres Road Market in Hillhead Library this Saturday (1st November) selling copies of my book Glasgow Uncovered as well as my prints, calendars and Christmas cards. It's open 11am until 4pm. Cont./ #glasgow #byresroad

No scabbing, please. Support your striking library workers.

This applies to online events hosted by the British Library. Digital pickets are still pickets.

Our Director Eileen A. Fradenburg Joy will be at Sonoma State University Library tomorrow for #OpenAccess Week to moderate a panel with SSU faculty in multiple disciplines on “Who Owns Our Knowledge”? The panel will be available via Zoom. Join us!

I am beyond excited (and nervous!) to announce that my first book, "The House Archives Built and Other Thoughts on Black Archival Possibilities" is available for sale! This series of essay includes reworked talks, new reflections, and a lot of my heart weherespace.myshopify.com/products/the...

Looking forward to taking part in this OA week panel on Monday!

🧵 The Open Book Collective is pleased to announce publication of our new report: Collective funding models for open access books: Librarians’ experiences and barriers to participation across six European contexts openbookcollective.pubpub.org/pub/report-o...

The OBC remains proudly community-governed, transparent, and collaborative. Together, our Members, libraries, + supporters are reshaping how scholarly books are shared and sustained youtu.be/ev-O82zQmMU

Exploring the 5 themes in ‘The City’ an exhibition on queer, working-class life in Glasgow. Today: Clothes. For many, style expresses identity & gender. From thrifted 8 Ball jackets to bold scarves, clothes become tools of visibility, pride & connection.

Saw someone say, “Stop hoarding books, we don’t need paper books anyway” and I can’t express how misguided this is. Online libraries disappear, digital books can be altered, and with Big Tech seeking to destroy history and literacy, print media has never been more essential.

Read this & donate to the Palestinian Futures Fund leonardeducation.org/the-palestin...

Digital Cultural Heritage is big business… not that we fund our public institutions enough. This is an alarming, aggressive attack on a public institution that has found a way and a business model to offer a digital service.

Equitable access and enduring preservation are two sides of the same coin. Together, they ensure that every voice in global scholarship is not only heard today but also safeguarded for tomorrow. It's a mission we are proud of! Join us? bit.ly/4nUNeBt

The Kristmas @the-kraken.bsky.social (Dec 12-15) might will be the last event in 2025 that celebrates 50 Years of Chaosium! Keris McDonald, associate editor for Call of Cthulhu and line editor for Cthulhu by Gaslight and The Sutra of Pale Leaves is a special guest. www.chaosium.com/blogchaosium...

Well, this has jumped to the top of my reading list: doi.org/10.1002/leap... Thanks, @margoline.bsky.social! (Also: AEUP's position paper zenodo.org/records/6346... and AG's recognition of the value of institutional publishing infrastructures and univetrsity presses ag-univerlage.de?page_id=2578)

There's a lot in this article about academic writing to agree with! I remember once having to stop and check whether an article I was reading was actually in a peer-reviewed journal, because it was so unusually readable and accessible! But why should that be the case? #AcademicSky

The oldest surviving book owned by English speakers was a book made in North Africa. In this article from our archive, Alison Hudson traces how these radical fragments reveal that immigrants and cultural exchange have always been fundamental to Britain.

⏰ Don’t miss out! Registration for the Women’s History Scotland Conference closes Friday 5 September! Join us for a fascinating day! 👉 www.tickettailor.com/events/women...

We at @jepub.bsky.social are excited to announce the publication of our new special issue on Publishing and Climate Justice, edited by Janneke Adema! journals.publishing.umich.edu/jep/issue/38... [1/n]

I've updated #EarlyModern Resources earlymodernweb.org/resources/ Quite a few new links but also a big overhaul of the site to be more usable + a visual refresh. (If you can't see a change, you may need to clear your browser cache and refresh hard. 😬)

This is possibly the only complete set of King James VI & I's 9th Scottish coinage in existence. It was struck from 1605 to 1609 and consisted of 12 denominations that ranged in value from £12 to 6 pence Scots. The coins are from the Lord Stewartby Collection at the Hunterian.