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.

Digital sovereignty is all the rage! LibreOffice 25.8 is part of the answer to prying, overweening tech bros and rampant authoritarianism! blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2025/08...

I'm very pleased to share news of a new project I am leading at The National Archives. PASSAGE combines archival research on the transatlantic trade of enslaved people with an international programme that centres the research of West African & Caribbean scholars. Read more here: shorturl.at/XLyC8

Discount at Waterstones if you pre-order my new book ‘Searching for my Slave Roots’ www.waterstones.com/books/review...

We can’t wait to welcome @malikalnasir.bsky.social to the bookshop on Wednesday 1st October! He’ll discuss his soon-to-be-published book, Searching for My Slave Roots, with Rebecca Bailey from Historic Environment Scotland. 🎟️ Sign up here: www.theportobellobookshop.com/events/malik...

I’m pleased to announce the first dates on my nationwide tour for my new book 📕’Searching for My Slave Roots’ (HarperCollins 28 Aug 2025) based upon the viral BBC article of the same name. Pre order now harpercollins.co.uk/products/sea... #MalikAlNasir #SearchingForMySlaveRoots #BookTour #BHM

Rebekka and I had a really good conversation with ServPub project colleagues and Rebekka put together a fascinating blog post on non-extractive collaboration and the power relations of working as academics with communities of activists and para-academics.

So lovely to finally be joining Bluesky with the happy news that my debut poetry collection Nettles is out now! 🌿 To celebrate its launch, signed copies are available here nazaretranea.com/item/nettles/

Bad news for all the @takeonecinema.net TAKE ONE Presents episodes we've all recorded where I talk about Cineworld Renfrew Street, the world's tallest cinema.

Our colleagues @simonxix.com and @kjsanders.bsky.social express some of Copim's concerns around the UK's Online Safety Act 2023, with particular consideration of how the Act creates barriers to scholar-led open access publishing (and for their readers): doi.org/10.21428/785... @copim.bsky.social

😱 and this is the issue with the academy not building/ having the resources to build its own infrastructure…

Hi @scottishhistory.org I'd really appreciate a shout-out for my upcoming event @edbookfest.bsky.social on my book Connecting Scotland's History - 18 August - and available to watch online (you decide what to pay!) bit.ly/3J0amPx

For those of you going to Denver’s SAA, please consider joining @roaringgirle.bsky.social and me to talk about the importance of public libraries, Shakespeare, and other early modern literature. There’s so much to consider in our current political climate:

Call for applications: The Royal Swedish Academy of History, Letters and Antiquities is offering fellowships to young scholars and civil servants for projects dealing with the special collections at the Swedish National Heritage Board. Apply by 30 August 2025. www.raa.se/rettig

I decided I want to go back to not drinking, I use this great app I Am Sober a huge part of which is the community feature where you can make friends and get support and motivation, it’s now unavailable for UK ppl due to the online safety act….in case teenagers are illicitly trying to get sober?

The gift that keeps on giving.

Do you work in children’s publishing, editorial, or design? Could you spare half an hour to evaluate the high-contrast children’s book that Julia has created as part of her digital project for her publishing studies degree, please? Shares very welcome! www.linkedin.com/posts/julia-...

If you're around Glasgow this Saturday, I'll have a stall at the Byres Road Market in Hillhead Library (11am until 4pm). I'll have copies of Glasgow Uncovered for sale as well as a range of greetings cards and prints featuring some of my photos of Glasgow's architecture. #glasgow #architecture

It's not just porn, it's social media and anything else the Government decides is "adult" (inevitably LGBTQ+ materials). It's a good time to start reading up on Tor and VPNs. opensauce.simonxix.com/open-source-...

The author of this post, Janneke Adema, is also part of Copim's Experimental Publishing group. Find out about their work, incl. the Experimental Publishing Compendium, via: - Experimental Publishing group: copim.pubpub.org/experimental... - Experimental Publishing Compendium: compendium.copim.ac.uk

I posted this earlier, but came back to it again. It's just unbelievable. Warwick's consultants telling people how to write terribly so they are "on brand". It's Beyond ridiculous. Or rather "Beyond is ridiculous". brand.warwick.ac.uk/en/brand-gui...

🚨 OBC is hiring! We are looking to appoint a Community Engagement Lead to support our outreach work. The role would suit someone passionate about delivering a fairer, sustainable future for #OAbooks. Deadline August 17th. Please spread the word! openbookcollective.pubpub.org/pub/open-pos...

Lecturer in Paper Conservation and/or Book & Archival Materials Conservation at the University of Glasgow www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNY438/l...

'Pointing to alleged “unethical practices” by Taylor & Francis – such as a 2024 deal enabling Microsoft to use its data for AI training – Hediger said that the “corporate takeover of scholarly publishing” reduced “ethically defensible alternatives”.' www.timeshighereducation.com/news/editors...

Have you ever seen a phonebook that has peoples' nicknames too? Find out about this and more Gaelic treasures in Comunn Eachdraidh Nis's latest blog post where they talk about their recent eventexploring overlooked Gaelic history. Find out more: www.scottisharchives.org.uk/community-ar...

'“I don't think that people appreciate how few people are working to keep these collections online, even at huge institutions,” Weinberg told me. “It's usually an incredibly small team, one person, half a person, half a person, plus, like their web person who is sympathetic to what's going on.'

Our digital repositories team spends a great deal of their time now simply protecting our commoned public digital resources from bots. This insatiable, aimless, destructive desire to excrete novel slop is impeding our access to — and even damaging — our cultural heritage + vetted public knowledge.

“This article shows how interlibrary loan, conceived as a form of academic traffic, played a crucial role in postwar reconstruction efforts, facilitating the xchg of resources + info among libraries… [It] focuses on the elaborate procedures librarians developed to create union catalogs.”

Yesterday I spoke at 'Choosing open access for books: An author journey', an Open Scholarship event hosted by the Bodleian Library, Oxford. This was some great discussion and stimulating questions, both on the #OpenBookCollective and #OA generally. Recording here: go.glam.ox.ac.uk/BOSE-OA-For-...

If you didn't register in time, follow @emmabooth.bsky.social for her excellent live posting #NAGWebinar

On #WorldRefugeeDay we go back to the #FirstWorldWar. These ladies are the cleaners at St. John the Baptist Church in Dronfield. In November 1914 they cleaned and made habitable a house on Chesterfield Road to welcome Belgian refugees fleeing the German invasion. #PhotoFriday

Really interesting report from the @britishcouncil.bsky.social - "Digital Cultural Heritage: Imagination, Innovation and Opportunity". Reflecting the situated experiences and innovative practices of practitioners in Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Iraq, bringing a new lens to considering digital past.

Denmark wisely recognising the inherent danger in putting all your eggs in one proprietary basket, particularly a basket that is complicit in genocide and that is based in a country edging ever closer to neo-fascism.

You too can divest from US software companies by switching to open source software. I discussed this one week ago at #EORC25

"The Danish Ministry of Digitization is to completely abandon Microsoft in the coming months and use Linux instead of Windows and switch from Office 365 to LibreOffice" Part of a larger trend of European countries seeking digital sovereignty and moving away from US-based software companies.

What is a University Press? On the acquisition of AUP by T&F (and my anger at it), the governance link between universities and university presses, and putting one's labour where one's values are. eve.gd/2025/06/08/w...

Our pamphlet 'Publishing Activism within/without a Toxic University' is now live on the @openhumanities.bsky.social site: www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles...

Sly RIP

For every person who wants to give blood but can't there are multiple people who can give blood but don't. If you can, go give blood: it's an incredibly easy way to save people's lives. It only takes half an hour every four months and you can make it a regular habit.

The very rare sight of a hurling match decided by penalties, you say? Here is yesterday's Munster final shootout between Limerick and Cork ... youtu.be/A0Qp93N9sns?...

Don't forget to register for our upcoming #Celticstudentsconference2025 ! Register now from this link: linktr.ee/celticstudents

No, employers need to do their own training. It’s not educators’ job to make sure that school-leavers — or graduates — have the specific skills that each company needs. Employers need to invest in their workforce.

1 of 6 #scotsfoundedfootball An important URL for fans of Football History: tinyurl.com/5d2s8kv7 Historic Environment Scotland have allowed my application to get New Cathkin Park registered to pass the first hurdle. They are now looking to hear soundings from the public. I urge you to take part.