We've been working on our new Digital Collections Platform - launching formally in 2026. Thanks @emmahorrell.bsky.social for all your UX guidance and support! blogs.ed.ac.uk/website-comm...

MLGB is back!! Delighted that Medieval Libraries of Great Britain @bodleian.ox.ac.uk is now back online. We are also working had on plans for the next phase of the resource, enhancing & adding data & functionality. HUGE thanks to my colleagues for their hard & clever work mlgb.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

finished off this big fella this evening, pretty happy with the results 🤖🖌️

spent an hour cursing to myself quietly late last night as I glued bits of old speaker wire and garden wire to a plastic robot... not done yet, but happy with taking a chance to get this effect.

went to see Julie Brook's Tide Line just beyond Cellardyke tidal pool last weekend. The dog was just as excited as we were...

This is one of the lesser known (but tragic) consequences of Gen AI. It’s not just about theft of IP, which is usually mentioned, it’s about damage to the information infrastructure of underfunded archives, libraries and museums etc. with long term consequences for them and for researchers.

by the way, all those benign AI bots crawling the internet for for-profit LLMs, yeah it turns out when 9,000 hit your archive catalogue or image database all at once they break the system. This is an emerging sector issue. The last weeks have literally seen humans labouring to feed the machines...

managed a wee work trip down the mound to the RSA to see the Goldsworthy exhibition before it shuts with my co-director and all around copilot Jacky

very pleased to be offering an open ended Archives Cataloguing post working with the University of Edinburgh's wide and deep literary archives. please do share with anyone interested! elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

"I think the advice I would offer is to remember that leadership is a service role. Your job as a leader is to support the people who work for you, to protect them, to listen to them, & prioritize them." ARL Views with John Unsworth, UVA University Librarian 2016-2025 www.arl.org/blog/john-un...

despite everything going on, I'm so happy to be able to keep creating jobs in the heritage sector, check out the following listings for: Assistant Musical Instruments Curator: elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

A final bump for this. Closing date is Sunday, 31 August

Today our project is linked on the front page of @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social's website! Our fantastic postdocs @hagenilda.bsky.social and @sharonhoward.bsky.social get a well-deserved mention: www.ed.ac.uk/news/memoirs... #EarlyModern #DigiHums #BookHistory @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social

lots to digest in this piece - including the real cost of realising the intrinsic & data potentials in our collections. The work needed to catalogue, digitise, contextualise and curate massive historic archives and collections is still very much a human resources (and not AI) driven endeavour.

“Facing up to the past is crucial. But the real challenge for institutions and the societies they are part of is to act in ways informed by new knowledge” - @theguardian.com editorial 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿👇🏾 #Edinburghracereport www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

‘The real issue is change’: @proftjcurry.bsky.social - Edinburgh’s first Black philosophy professor, on racism and reform 'How do you create leagues of Black thinkers and clinicians and doctors and engineers and artists that fill the gap of what were lost...' 👇 www.theguardian.com/education/20...

UCC Library is recruiting a Head of Special Collections & Archives. Lead the development, digitisation, and promotion of our rare books, manuscripts & archives. Apply by 12pm, 19 Aug: www.ucc.ie/en/hr/vacanc...

nearing the end of a great holiday, complete with a tidy stack of now-reads ♥️📚

Glad to see this work, which I had the honour to advise on and support, is breaking today... www.theguardian.com/education/20...

It includes, amongst other things, information about forthcoming events in Nicosia (organised by @nconstantinidou.bsky.social ) and Rome ( @rozanneversendaal.bsky.social ) you can sign up to receive the Flyleaf as a pdf by emailing the project (address to be found here: sammelband.hypotheses.org)

Stopped in my tracks by this sign pointing out the IMLS absence from #ALAAC25

The terminally online mind cannot comprehend this

Some actually good news for early modernists, bibliographers, and catalogers: the beta ESTC is live!!! What an effing journey it's been trying to do research post-BL attack; it is a huge relief to see this progress datb.cerl.org/estc/ 📜📚

This is the first article I've read about the library of congress firings that actually makes sense to me. Speculating: 1. Musk/Thiel/DOGE wing wanted to eviscerate copyright to train AI 2. To this end they convinced Trump that LOC was disloyal and pushed to get Hayden + Perlmutter fired…

Over the weekend, the Library of Congress posted this video message Dr. Carla Hayden, whom Donald Trump unjustifiably dismissed as Librarian of Congress, that makes clear how much the nation has lost. Props to whoever put it up. I hope everyone watches it.

Thank you for your service, Dr. Hayden. https://www.starshaped.com/postersprints/greatequalizerposter #letterpress

" #Libraries are a cornerstone of #democracy — where information is free and equally available to everyone. People tend to take that for granted, and they don’t realize what is at stake when that is put at risk." Carla Hayden www.rmwritersfest.org/dr-carla-hay... #Librariesmatter

NEW: ALA salutes Dr Carla Hayden for her exceptional service to the nation as the Librarian of Congress. We are deeply disappointed in Dr Hayden's abrupt & unjust dismissal last night, an insult to the scope & breadth of her work. Read ALA Pres. Cindy Hohl's statement: www.ala.org/news/2025/05...

happy Saturday in the Neuk!

things that library school doesn't prepare you for no. 573: gracefully unpacking an incredibly well-wrapped gift in front of a NASA astronaut and deep-sea explorer...

It's been a good week in the work-o-sphere, despite all the ruckus and confusion at the top levels: 1. after a year of swinging, missing, planning, replanning, politicking etc we were able to move 6 contracts in our conservation and collection management team from fixed-term to open-ended

long days, pleasant nights

had a great afternoon with @rhiggitt.bsky.social at the NMS Collections Centre - wet specimens, invertebrates and giant machinery, oh my!

glorious spring weather this weekend in Fife meant lots of fresh air and yard work done ♥️🌞

Book Borrowing in Scotland, 1747–1837 21 March, @edinburgh-uni.bsky.social Free Profs Katherine Halsey & @mjrsangster.bsky.social will explore how readers in Scotland engaged with library books as pupils, students, professionals, members of communities & readers www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/professors...

Fascinated to see these today - pictures of @theul.bsky.social in its home of five hundred years, next to King’s chapel. Photographed in the 1890s, and we moved out in 1934.

*cue Obi-Wan "Hello there".gif

a brief peek into one of the teaching rooms of the CRC to have a pre-class nosey at "Can you digitise it or not?" class...

sad to see one of my favourite podcasts, Chinwag, wrap up - but what a closer! Paul Giamatti's story about a mildly stoned visit to the The Beinecke Library as a 90s grad student just to consult the Voynich Manuscript cut close and was a riot! open.spotify.com/episode/7ulP...

Nice wee sizzle reel for the community www.theguardian.com/travel/2025/...

been busy painting some lizardmen this past week for a game tomorrow - pretty happy with the results!

Saturday and spring is in the air

The road home...

my local gaming club is spooling up its YouTube channel, here's a battle report I did with my friend Steve on our Warhammer 4th edition escalation #oldhammer campaign: youtu.be/iqtv7_PIEoA?...

I'm working for the next two days on Ardnamurchan... the drive today through a relatively empty Glencoe was pretty epic ... #librarylife

The Berenson Library at I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, seeks a catalog librarian. Full info: itatti.harvard.edu/job-opportun...

geekery from the past and current professional practice collide! Someone uploaded an old school WinAMP client with the score to MechWarrior 2 on it 😀🤙 archive.org/details/Mw2S...

Another lovely new @thebotanics.bsky.social blog introducing the #Library collection of plant nursery catalogues. Huge thanks to our #Volunteers @jtlib.bsky.social and David for their work on this project stories.rbge.org.uk/archives/39874

alright library folks, I'm coming to #RBMS25 at Yale in June! I can't wait to reconnect with familiar and new faces in the sector, let me know if you're going to be there!