I was part of an OCLC RLP working group on 'artificial intelligence to support metadata workflows'. Four posts summarise this work, looking at primary cataloguing, archives and special collections, institutional repositories, and overall pros and cons hangingtogether.org/tag/aiandmet...

#MuseTech folk, there's a proposal for 'exhibitions' on wikidata that could probably use your input, especially if you've ever worked on a 'what's on' site and know the complexities of exhibition data! Overview page: www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidat...

If I see one more stupid Rosalind Franklin take I'm going to lose my mind. Thank god for @matthewcobb.bsky.social and @nccomfort.bsky.social. www.nature.com/articles/d41...

What did Watson and Crick discover in 1953?” “Rosalind Franklin’s notes!” Now would be a good time to listen to my interview with the brilliant @matthewcobb.bsky.social about Franklin, Watson, Crick and the discovery of the double helix. geneticsunzipped.com/blog/2023/8/...

It’s very much a prototype but I have to share a preview of the interface @djevans.bsky.social is working on for our Viral Texts data—it maps reprinting data back onto the newspaper page, allowing users to browse what reprints appeared together on each page—with links back to full reprint clusters

This might be of interest to a few people The Boring Fund: Small (£200) grants to UK non-profits, charities and voluntary groups who just need a bit of help to pay for boring running costs like web hosting, admin, insurance etc Apply by 30 November www.christinapoultoncreative.co.uk/boring-fund

@alphachar.bsky.social evidently i'd rather do any hacking rather than be actually writing anything - i made a toy using @britishlibrary.bsky.social images and a list of nouns: ghostweather.com/apps/flickr-...

📢 NEW FAQ added to #DH2026 CFP! ✅You can submit multiple proposals ✅Max 2 presentations as lead presenter (long/short) ✅Posters: no limit, but in-person only & no AI translation ✅Workshops/mini-conferences: not counted toward limit ⏰Deadline: Dec 8 dh2026.adho.org/cfp/

Going to "yes and" this by @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social and say there's also a GenX turn to the left - ppl who once thought themselves centrist seeing things they took for granted disappear. Eg last night's Hopeful Technologists meet-up had a distinct GenX flavour www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

So much time and resources wasted that could be used for important things like all life on Earth not going extinct this century.

new British Library digital preservation policy www.bl.uk/stories/blog... "The policy is built around 4 interdependent principles that shape the BL approach to digital preservation: pragmatism, consistency, risk awareness, and sustainability." via Maureen Pennock #DigiPres #iPres25 #wdpd25

Increasingly the Venn diagram of my intellectual interests & commitments—digital humanities, book history/bibliography, book arts, critical making—perhaps meet in the region "Luddite Humanities" Not technological rejection—but slower, deliberate, critical, historicized engagement with technology

If you have a library card (please do) chances are you can stream thousands of films for free with the excellent @kanopy.com app. I've been watching films for free with Kanopy, thanks to my library card, for years.

Job Klaxon! 📢 We are recruiting for the post of Lead Curator, East Asian Collections to develop, manage, promote and make accessible the Library’s collections in Japanese and Korean and to lead the associated staff. More info: ce0752li.webitrent.com/ce0752li_web... @britishlibrary.bsky.social

also if you are in Edinburgh and want to show me a fancy secret library, archive, or museum, please reach out directly

Will you be in London on Dec 3rd? Perhaps you'd like to come to UCL and hear me talk with Matthew J. Smith about my new book, and potentially even get a book from me without paying international shipping! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-house-...

Really pleased to announce the launch of the all-new, all-dancing, London Lives website - www.londonlives.org It has been thoroughly re-engineered to facilitate more types of search, and redesigned for phones and tablets. The team very much hopes peope like it. 1/

Save the date! The 2026 Annual Event will take place at the University of Southampton on 15-16 June 2026. This year's theme is ‘Sustainability’. We are excited to share more information about the event, including the call for papers, in the coming weeks.

I've been tidying up old mail to properly put old projects to bed. It's weird looking back at moments like Feb/March 2020. But what a joy - I just found an email from Effie Kapsalis from 2016 in which she spoke righteous truth to power! Gone, but not forgotten.

Very proud to have worked on this statement of the Modern Language Association with @annamillsoer.bsky.social and other colleagues on the MLA’s task force on AI in Research and Teaching. It is a direct call for faculty input into Ed Tech decision-making, especially AI: www.mla.org/Resources/Ad... 🧵

#digitalhumanities folk: could you please recommend significant work on topic modeling and small language models that you might have come across?

Did you miss our beginners' webinar last week? The complete recording of our step-by-step introduction to Transkribus is now available on YouTube 👇

Based on this @russellgroup.bsky.social analysis which shows industry needs a wide range of skills - eg 40% of high-tariff graduates working in defence studied humanities and social sciences www.russellgroup.ac.uk/policy/polic...

We're very excited to have been shortlisted for an OpenUK award, in recognition of our amazing community of developers, managers, testers, curators, and translators. See you at the Oscars of Open Source! #openukawards @openuk.bsky.social

My talk at UXLX last May is now live. It's a very personal talk laying out out my personal journey in understanding the tension between #AI and #UX from the hype, to how we anthropomorphize it, to how we could use it properly. It's called "UX vs AI - Fight!" www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_8k...

Open access art: At SMK – Statens Museum for Kunst we just redesigned our themes/collections of artworks on our online collection to make them more useful. 👉 open.smk.dk/en/themes Next up: Transparent display of AI-generated metadata. #openglam #musetech

'This Physicist Says We Don’t Take COVID Seriously Enough' thetyee.ca/Analysis/202... Insurance companies reporting excess mortality linked to long COVID, and the American Medical Association reporting 13% more health-related absences from work should be hard to ignore. But here we are!

In case of emergency, boop the comedy whippet nose! And if you live in the UK, please consider signing this petition to limit the sale of those super-loud fireworks! petition.parliament.uk/petitions/73... #DogsOfBluesky #SkyDogs #whippets #sighthounds

🎉4 new projects have kicked off to expand the ARDC Community Data Lab for researchers working with digitised cultural and historical collections. 🔗 ardc.edu.au/article/ardc... @sydney-crf.bsky.social @mdap-unimelb.bsky.social @jamessmithies.bsky.social @nicgeard.bsky.social #HASS #GLAM #RSE

The third blog post in our AI and metadata workflows series is here. Read and find out -- can AI help to manage institutional repository metadata? From improving deposit workflows to cleaning up legacy data, explore how AI might support IRs while keeping human expertise front and center.

My perhaps controversial assessment is that when you share the propaganda of your enemies to call it out or to mock it… you’re still spreading their propaganda and maybe doing exactly what they hope you’ll do.

In case of emergency, boop the comedy whippet nose! And if you live in the UK, please consider signing this petition to limit the sale of those super-loud fireworks! petition.parliament.uk/petitions/73... #DogsOfBluesky #SkyDogs #whippets #sighthounds

The Lost Ending of “Gaslight” That You Didn’t Know You Needed www.publicbooks.org/the-lost-end... 'More than anything, what we need to take from Gaslight now is the plot-deciding importance of speaking truth to power, of practicing radical solidarity, and of keeping our eyes, always, on the light'

You probably know someone who needs to see this: stopcitingai.com 'You’ve been sent here because you cited AI as a source to try and prove something. ... Imagine someone who has read thousands of books, but doesn’t remember where they read what'.

Curious? The code is here github.com/harrylloyd-b... Thanks Harry Lloyd and @adi-keinan.bsky.social for your work on this! And all the curators, metadata folk and crowdsourcing volunteers who helped earlier versions of this work

https://web.archive.org/web/20250623215117/https:/blogs.bl.uk/digital-scholarship/2023/09/convert-a-card-helping-cataloguers-derive-records-with-oclc-and-python.html [2/2]

Work at the British Library on pulling structured information from scanned card catalogues: https://web.archive.org/web/20250805102551/https:/blogs.bl.uk/digital-scholarship/2023/09/convert-a-card-past-present-and-future-of-catalogue-cards-retroconversion.html [1/2]

This is good on how fundamental research can lead to unanticipated applications. I especially like the study of root vegetables leading to flat screen TVs (through the discovery of liquid crystals) www.nature.com/articles/d41...

I have been thinking a lot about what the future of libraries could be in an algorithmic economy. A real pleasure to share these thoughts and provocations through the fantastic Katina Magazine. Let me know what you think? katinamagazine.org/content/arti... #Libraries #FutureofWork #FutureLibrary

Join the @ihr.bsky.social Digital History seminar on 4 November (12:00 GMT on Zoom) to celebrate the winning entry for the 2025 Richard Deswarte Prize in Digital History and to learn about gender and lottery rhymes in the medieval/early-modern low countries ihrdighist.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2025/09/tues...

How short our memories are. Just a few years ago, nurses carried this country through a pandemic, and now they're suffering a 55% surge in racist abuse. To every nurse: London stands with you. You are loved and valued, and always will be.

Sign up for the next one on Weds 26 November - speakers will include @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social on local government AI procurement and a new version of Consequence Scanning luma.com/4nead4y6

Don't miss our first #WorldCafe event on #SubjectAnalysis at the Wellcome Collection, London: 11:00-16:00 on 26th November. Contribute to the discussion on the use of LCSH and other subject heading vocabularies. Booking essential: tinyurl.com/yc4vzcpw #cataloguing #metadata #event #critcat #ethics

If you've messaged me on Bluesky, I won't see it! You can contact me with personal requests via www.miaridge.com/contact/ or at work [email protected]

the amount of academic research now using llms in research (synthetic data generation, to classify, annotate, or analyse large scale data, etc) is astounding. remember, just cus use of llms in research is becoming normalised does NOT erase the fact it degrades the research & undermine your results

It is weird how the word 'ceasefire' has lost all semblance of meaning these days.

Final post with findings from the OCLC RLP AI and Metadata Workflows Working group. It recaps what we learned over months of discussions. Our findings? AI can enhance metadata work—but only with care. Learn how libraries (and OCLC) think about balancing innovation with quality and ethical practice.

As DH grows, it’s increasingly important to publish conference papers, but there hasn’t been a clear venue for that. So I’m thrilled to share this new home for DH proceedings, which will include CHR papers & more. Thanks to @taylor-arnold.bsky.social for leading this effort! bit.ly/ach-anthology

All but "amateurs". Join us in May 2026 for a conference on citizen history and people's commitment to preserve the past. The call is open until December 20 Collaboration between @c2dh.uni.lu at @uni.lu and @uqam.ca | #citizenscience #publichistory #preservation #heritage www.uni.lu/c2dh-en/news...

Aaaaarrrggh