Senior university folks continue to show that they don't actually understand what a university is for and what makes it good. Exeter are unlikely to continue to climb next year.

Starting off Monday by sending emails to the wrong people. Great start.

“We know from experience that training driven by commercial priorities can sometimes gloss over nuance, limitations, and ethical considerations.” Important librarian perspective on AI training from @drbeth.bsky.social! www.uksg.org/newsletter/u... #charlestoninbetween

Rain! So much rain!

Always nice when one of the senior researchers at your institution writes a well researched and passionate editorial against impact factors! journals.biologists.com/dev/article/...

Ah, it must be dissertation time. So many invites for just 30 mins to an hour of my time 😭 (I do like taking part and helping folks out, but I wish they weren't all at once!)

I cannot deal with doom talk, and no climate expert worth their salt would recommend giving into cynical pessimism. Thanks so much for reading and sharing, Dion!

Made iced tea. Wife said it tasted like water (but she'd just had a mug of builders tea). I thought it was nice. Now have 4 liters of the stuff to drink by myself.

What do you mean I’m supposed to work on the British sacred holiday of prime minister resignation day which comes round quicker every year

Well I'm not convinced anything will change if we get Andy in. Since campaigning to be an MP he's just turned into Starmer 2.0. But at least it won't be Wes in charge.

When utilized in literature review, LLMs consistently 1. fail to mention female authors in female-led literatures, 2. insist that men are more influential or more heavily cited when this is contradicted by objective citation counts, and 3. attribute women’s work to hallucinated male scholars.

I had a conversation today with a sensible, pretty senior professional who said that LLMs were pretty much always right when he asked about things he knew. I'm like 🤷 do I just ask about weird stuff? Are my standards too high? Bc for me it's pretty often wrong (I still use it, I just check)

Ah! The elation of getting a proposal agreed by Executive Committee is hard to beat 😂 Due to adrenaline overload I will now be completely useless for the rest of the day.

Lots of worthy advice about social media, particularly LinkedIn. Shall I tell them just to be opinionated and visible? Just chat about stuff that comes into your head or that really annoys you? Works for me 🤷 #LibraryCareerAdvice

Heading out to do a careers event with @sheffielduni.bsky.social Librarianship students. Greatly enjoyed last year so I'm looking forward to this one.

Had to check the date on this, it's the sort of thing I'd expect from the 1990s. It's a timewarp article from 30 years ago! Did I step through a portal to an alternate timeline? (but since this is the bad timeline, I don't see how that could have happened)

Tomatoes. In almost any form. They're okay if I absolutely can't taste them e.g. BBQ sauce. Until Italian restaurants started adding in pesto and alternative pizza bases they were a nightmare.

If you’re a researcher of Black, Bangladeshi and Pakistani heritage in the UK, our Accelerator Awards might be for you. It offers flexible grants for research or research-adjacent activities, such as training, secondments and networking. (1/2)

Hey, hey. Today, could you tell someone — anyone — about a tiny thing you remember them doing that meant a lot to you? This isn’t about public displays of gratitude, really: send them a message, or call them, or if you’re lucky, tell them in person. Remind people of their best selves.

Very pleased we're able to support @ojcollective.bsky.social. If you're wondering what on earth to do with your Wellcome block grant now you can't charge back TAs to them - think about supporting some Diamond resources!

I'm having to read all the news articles about councils being censorous for my gay book of libraries and it's really depressing. It's always the people who don't want LGBTQ+ content and events who write and make a fuss, so if you're able to, please do make a fuss in the other direction.

Fancy supporting a queer athlete for Pride month? My wife's going to Canada for the Powerlifting Commonwealth competition but it's really expensive. I'm supporting where I can, but any support from others is very welcome! www.gofundme.com/f/help-kate-...

It's all very well blocking time out in your calendar to do things, but when you just let it go by and then see the notification that you're late for a meeting, it's not great for your anxiety levels

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.

Fancy supporting a queer athlete for Pride month? My wife's going to Canada for the Powerlifting Commonwealth competition but it's really expensive. I'm supporting where I can, but any support from others is very welcome! www.gofundme.com/f/help-kate-...

What is the point of social media if it just writes it all for you as you go off and live your life? No-one's forcing you to engage with these platforms (and if your job is and you want to outsource it, maybe it's not the right job for you!)

Been out of the game for about 3 weeks with a calf injury, but tomorrow I'm going for a (small, slow) pre-work run. I'm excited. Young me would be so confused.

🆕 LATEST 🆕 Paper draws on in-depth analysis of three postdoctoral periods to highlight the pertinence of the hidden curriculum as a lens for postdoctoral development. www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10....

I realise when you write books about libraries it's a special case, but I'm pretty certain that 90% of my book sales were from libraries...definitely not losing me money!

"Fellows shall not act or fail to act in any way which would […] bring the Society into disrepute." But this morning ministers condemned Elon Musk FRS for enabling violence on the streets of Belfast. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026... Would the @royalsociety.org like to comment?

This could be trouble given quite how often the summary seems to be wrong! And as the article states, even when right, the google summary is only backed up by the sources it links to 50% of the time.

What's it actually feel like to live through the decline and fall of mass Higher Education in Britain? Today I've written about this from the inside here... Hope you like it, and hope you find it useful. isrf.org/blog/what-do...

I'd always imagine myself as a Benedictine tbh. But I think I'd have been in trouble a lot.

The Virtuoso - Yeah, that's pretty me.

I've been in Glasgow for a matter of hours, popped into the toilets at M&S and saw anti trans and anti-lgbtq+ stickers staring back at me. And people wonder why I have a conficted relationship with this city. Those stickers are no longer there.

On paper I should be really pleased about this - more options in this space (where my research mostly sits) should be good (I wouldn't publish in MDPI Publications). But, moving to a commercial host and the moralising/lecturing editorial arent bringing the welcoming vibes.

Massive win today - sat waiting for the wife at Portobello Beach, Edinburgh and a woman asked if I could hold her two dogs while she went into the toilets. Sadly I was so excited by this opportunity I forgot to take any photos!

My approach to methods lecturing lately

Brilliant time speaking at Bristol Open Data week and then joining a panel full of people who are thinking about lots of the things I am! Only one disagreement with an audience member which is quite good for me 😂

"joonas virtanen has created a website that elegantly pairs th day's weather with a color field painting by mark rothko..." find your city : rothko.joonas.wtf?emc=edit_gl_... via nyt "good list" email @richardmortimer.bsky.social

Are you a librarian who has been told they can't do a Pride display? How about an accidental one 🤔🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Thanks to the Bristol rain I am now very aware that the light raincoat I bought for running/summer isn't actually very waterproof. My grey suit is now two-tone.

Don't like the order of tomorrow's talk, so as I always do the night before, I'm rearranging. Will I remember the new order tomorrow though?!

If people could stop providing me with depressing content for my Queers & Libraries book that would be really great. www.dunmowbroadcast.co.uk/news/2616114...

I just bought new pins (there's a Stargate one I didn't know about!). Maybe you should too 🤔

I accidentally started reading this and am now hooked. WARNING: Do not start reading it if you would like to get stuff done this afternoon.

I'm at 175 responses for my survey on personal tutoring! I want to smash the 200 threshold, so if you're an academic in UK HE who's had pastoral repsonsibility for students in the last 5 years under any title, I'd love to hear from you - it only takes ten minutes. Please do share.

Happy Pride Month!

I wish I were in London tonight! If you are, you should go to this. It looks ace.

🚨 NEW: 27 Members of Parliament have signed a motion to reject the EHRC Code of Practice edm.parliament.uk/early-day-mo... Ask yours to join them: equalrecognition.eaction.org.uk/rejectthecode