I cross it out in every draft I read and insert “germinal” and then we discuss Why Entrenched Power Structures in Language Matter #laughOfTheMedusa

An #Edinburgh date for the diary! Greenbank Annual Scout Jumble Sale, Saturday 18th April 2026, 9.30-12.30am. Or donate by buying a raffle ticket to win a luxury hamper! raffall.com/416325/enter... All proceeds go to activities for kids and young adults in the South Edinburgh community. Thanks!

Treacle comes from an ancient Greek word for wild animal. Which then became a word for poisonous animals. Which then became a word for the antidote. Which then became a word for medicines more generally - which were often gooey syrups, so the word then became...

Love this. I’m part of a fan community where high quality boots going back to the 1990s are lore, and support the artist’s fan base - the discussion of not for profit vs copyright is really interesting here, and how artists are generally ok with audience boots. I will be exploring this archive too!

I highly recommend that everyone follow artists. If you do, your feed is filled with art every day. Real, original art. It's bonkers that you can even have this. Amazing. Undeniably cool. And then support those artists, when you can, because that helps the delight continue.

Some folks are not built for this spring heat 😻

Delighted and honoured to have been elected to be a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh! I’m amongst great company. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

“At a time when the rights and freedoms of women are under attack in many countries, the Women’s Library remains a symbol of struggle as well as strength.” www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Walked to the shop in glorious, warm spring sunshine. 10 minutes after I got back it started to blizzard…! #Edinburgh (There is a Scottish saying - if you don’t like the weather, there will be some more along soon…)

We all used to post and share about our own wonderful, quirky, unique lives and thoughts and values, and now we just wail about the state of the wider world. I still grieve early social media, its insights, and how much I learned from y’all. But I understand the hunkering down from the now.

Underpass mural by Kerry Wilson in Glenrothes. Pic: Stuart Taylor

Important news: National Library of Scotland's Access team named collection trolleys: Trolly Parton, George Orwheel, Wheeliam Shakespeare, Daphne du Trollier, Rene Descart, Cart Cobain, JRR Trollkein, Cart Vader, and Mary Wheelstonecraft. Via @cawston.bsky.social's cawston.ghost.io/weeknotes-12...

This is brilliant. Read the last paragraph. Slowly. [gift article] Is It 1914 in America? www.nytimes.com/2026/03/29/o...

Next up at #iConf26, Mahoney, David Mahoney @melissaterras.bsky.social & Zeller, Frauke on Wasteback Machine: A Method for Quantitative Measurement of the Archived Web

I am (certifiably, it would seem) Not A Tech Bro. But are you? This is actually a fun way to play with tech ethics and motivations… amiatechbro.com

I love that Wikipedia is now going to be the most trusted source on the internet. A complete 360 from what we used to teach in the mid 2000s about how you shouldn’t rely on it. Bravo to the volunteers and citation nerds keeping accurate information alive.

📢 Extension: #TUC2026 Call for Papers moved to 29 March! Submit a title & max. 300-word abstract for a chance to present your research in Passau. Speaker perks: ✅ 50% off conference tickets ✅ International audience ✅ Networking with Transkribus experts Submit: tuc.transkribus.org/call-for-pap...

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, 115 years ago tomorrow, galvanized a century's worth of workplace safety laws that are now getting shredded.

‘Science’ as a discrete, bounded object simply cannot survive contact with the evidence of the multiplicity of the past.'

I do think this is true. I'm often guilty myself of underplaying what the work I do looks like or how much time and effort it takes. Research isn't 'just reading' or a question of sucking up summaries others have created. It's knowledge creation. So let me go through the process with an example 1/

I stand corrected re Anna’s archive and motivations behind the Hathi trust data breach. But! “Liberating” all this data will mean it’s used in AI training. This is a tripartite clash of values… librarians vs pirates vs AI scrapers. We need to find common ground to respect & resource digitisation.

Once again reminding all academics in the UK that they really, really, really, really should sign up to @alcs.co.uk Lifetime membership is £36 and they take it out of the money they collect for you so it really is "free money". I'm getting a little over £100 *every year*. Do it!

So, um... this is bad. Really bad. I looked at the letters that were translated by the AI, and the very first one I found was almost entirely hallucination. Thread:

“Protecting cultural heritage is not only a humanitarian obligation, but a strategic consideration in conflicts with long-term outcomes that depend on the attitudes of the people affected." theconversation.com/war-in-iran-...

These 21 women artists names were lost, but are now found! #WomensHistoryMonth Discover the women artists we've uncovered 👉 https://artuk.org/discover/stories/21-women-artists-weve-uncovered-in-uk-museums-and-galleries#WomensHistoryMonth 👩‍🎨 (Frances) Maud Porter (1863–1942) 📷 Hastings Museum and Art Gallery

Loving revisiting #ThisLife. It was essential all-flat viewing when I was an undergraduate - they all seemed so grown up and glamorous (and rich!) Quintessentially 1990s. Now they all seem so young and lost…! Still great #BBC drama. And Anna is still an absolute Scottish icon.

"...there’s a kind of information literacy rarely taught: how to process information that fundamentally breaks you. There’s no framework for this particular crisis of meaning. There’s no protocol for “everything you believed was a story they told you.”"

Sprung! Twice in the year, around the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, the sunrise shines right along Ingram Street, turning the Iron Duke, his steed, Copenhagen, and even his traffic cone hat into a shadowy work of art against the great doors of GoMA. Picture: u/Hoyerman68

@jaywillis.net writeup of the Afroman saga is easily the most delightful I've read. The case shows "what can happen when cops, who as a general rule rarely face consequences for their actions, manage to cross a person with plenty of time, a sizable social media following, and a smooth baritone."

10/10, no notes…

My favourite thing today was the excitement of one of our teenagers scoring a cool vintage shirt in a charity shop on the way home from school, and me teaching him about laundry symbols. The world may be going to hell in a handcart but thoughtful kids give me hope, and the mothering continues. 💕

Pre-ordered! Can’t wait to read this…

‘The world’s memory’: why Nigeria is burying its history under a mountain in Svalbard

#DHNB2026 really interesting how Transkribus is thinking about FAIR and technical infrastructure for research. Balancing openness, sustainability, data protection in a cooperative AI infrastructure for digital humanities research.

Good news! Actual good news!

A patient and diplomatic response to the Guardian’s hurt-seeking rhetorical journalism about museums & human remains. Certain campaigners may disdain respect & decency, museums don’t www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

🧵 First four Best Picture winners. Four very different films. All four in the public domain. 🎬 WINGS (1927) 🎭 THE BROADWAY MELODY (1929) 🪖 ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (1930) 🌄 CIMARRON (1931) Choose your own Best Picture! 🏆 Watch them all ⤵️ archive.org/details/@ias... 1️⃣/5️⃣ #redcarpet #Oscars

When Palantir tell you who they are, believe them.

Important reflections on the relationship between archives, buildings, heritage designation and state power on the destruction of the Golestan Palace in Tehran. A blog by exiled Iranian archaeologist Leila Papoli-Yazdi blogg.lnu.se/unesco/?p=45...

There's a broken cuneiform tablet from the Old Babylonian period, nearly 4,000 years ago, which preserves a tiny portion of a dialogue between two friends. It feels a bit like the conversations I've been having for the past week, so I wanted to share it.

I’ve been thinking about this. My own attitude to encountering human remains in institutions has changed massively over the past 20 years: sector norms are changing. Most institutions would welcome the resource to enact changes. But where are the resources coming from to move with greater empathy?

As someone who watched the careful stewardship of grants over many years, the lack of care and the dismissal of the hard work of scholars and NEH program staff described here is devastating and shameful. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/07/a...

‘May we wake one by one.’ This is how we sometimes say 'good night' in Nigeria. It is a greeting and a prayer against a sudden disaster that wakes us all at once. ‘May we wake one by one.’ folukeafrica.com/may-we-wake-...

This gives me hope that even if all those MPs - with dollars in their eyes from what they can personally gain from US Big Tech’s ravaging of human creativity - vote for a data mining exception to copyright, the Lords ain’t having it - and the boom will be over by the time any dust settles?

Congratulations to the wonderful @newsprof1.bsky.social (& @martinscott2010.bsky.social & @melbunce.bsky.social) for winning ISA Award for Best Book. A fascinating use of FOI requests & records to demonstrate democratic backsliding in public media in the USA. www.sps.ed.ac.uk/news-events/...

It's now an annual ritual for me. Waiting for the ALCS statement to see what I've earned in secondary and residual royalties from photocopies, libraries, etc. Lowest amount: £18. Largest amount: £1900. If you've got stuff published in the UK and aren't a member of ALCS, you're a chump.

We’re looking for a Research Data Engineer (m/f/x) (3,5 years). If you have a #DigitalHumanities profile with experience in #tei encoding, #ocr / #htr, and #iiif (or any of those and are willing to learn the rest), get in touch! The full time position can be split, so if (for whatever reason) […]

Most anticipated new museums… given access to the world is shrinking, I may make it to Brussels out of these, if I’m lucky. And I’m not sure if I’m ready for entirely AI based collections, or talking about that as if it’s normal. www.bbc.co.uk/travel/artic...

I am so proud to be part of this team, and this full-stack cooperative. And proud that the library, archive, & historical community are showing how you can build useful, ethical AI that responds to the needs of a community: together. Half a million users, baby! 🤩