“AI’s the future, bro! Either get on board or get left behind.” “That sounds like something a grifter says to scare people into giving them more money…” (@dorklybits.bsky.social’s latest video is probably going to upset some techbros, but they’re just working off of incomplete information!) #Sonic

Boosting the signal for any transportation historians who are eager to share their work at #SHOT2026! #histSTM #histtech ⚙️🗃️📜

Time for another #ShamelessPlug: Next Friday, I'll be discussing @ransomcenter.bsky.social's history of science holdings at the June meeting of the Houston Astronomical Society. Further details: www.astronomyhouston.org #histSTM #histsci #histastro #astronomy 🗃️🔭📜

I stepped off the library dean path when it became clear that this would be the job--managing the end of academic libraries as we know them. Please know that these changes are just a result of defunding. They do not herald some bright digital future. There will just be less access to knowledge.

📢Call for papers for our 2026 conference ‘All Mapped Out: Maps, Plans and Charts in the Archives’ on Tuesday 24th November 2026. Abstracts submission deadline 5pm on Wednesday 1st July 2026. For more information: www.britishrecordsassociation.org.uk/news/call-fo...

Happy #LCD Day, everyone! #OnThisDay in 1968, #RCA scientists & engineers announced the creation of the first liquid crystal displays. Find out more by adding The #TVsOfTomorrow to your library today! press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo... #histSTM #histtech #innovation #booksky #ShamelessPlug 🗃️📜📺

"The moves are part of NPR's effort to grapple with the economic consequences of Congress' vote last summer to eliminate federal subsidies for public media."

Sturm und Drang? In dieser Wirtschaftslage?

The graffiti at my bus stop has things to say about James Comey, the FBI, and NBC Universal.

This may be the best thing I've seen on social media in quite a while! Now I'm wondering what a #TNG episode based on my history of the LCD might look like. ("Williams and Heilmeier at Princeton...?") #StarTrek #ShamelessPlug #TheTVsOfTomorrow

To paraphrase the now-concluded @colbertlateshow.bsky.social, this is TOM HUGHES NEWS YOU CAN USE! #histSTM #histtech #STS

Q. Your idea of happiness? A. Time well filled. Q. Your idea of misery? A. Nothing to do. Arthur Conan Doyle-born #OnThisDay 1859-completed this questionnaire in 1899, possibly as a party game. Today it's in @ransomcenter.bsky.social's collections! #booksky hrc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/coll...

Charles Darwin has rarely felt more relatable... #OnThisDay #TooManyBooks #Darwin #histsci #histSTM 📚

I'll take "Things Nobody Asked For" for $800, Alexa! (Seriously, I don't want an AI assistant pestering me while I'm looking for office supplies on Amazon...) #Enshittification

Exciting news from Austin! @ransomcenter.bsky.social has announced the recipients of its 2026-2027 research fellowships! Our incoming cohort consists of 47 scholars who will use the Center's collections to pursue a wide range of #humanities projects. sites.utexas.edu/ransomcenter... #speccolls 📜🗃️

Riddle me this, #histSTM friends: How is a guillotine like a Gantt chart? A: They are both case studies featured in @ejonesimhotep.bsky.social's new examination of technological breakdowns & the politics of the self, published today by @mitpress.bsky.social! #histsci #histtech #STS #booksky 🗃️⚙️📜

Adding #FiveThirtyEight to the list of counterexamples I can cite when tech industry friends try to explain that digital records will last longer than physical ones... #GiftLink 🎁

Humanities and social science profs are finding out how natural scientists treat authorship and we are losing our damn minds.

A souvenir from the Greater Austin Book Fest: A hand-sewn pamphlet edition of a short story inspired by French inventor Jacques de Vaucanson and his mechanical, defecating duck! 🦆 💩 #histsci #histtech #histSTM

⚡Today is the deadline to submit a proposal to teach an Adult Education Class at the Newberry!⚡ www.newberry.org/learn/adult-...

Authors published in #Playboy whose papers are held by @ransomcenter.bsky.social: -Graham Greene -Denis Johnson -Norman Mailer -David Mamet -Gabriel Garcia Marquez -Isaac Bashevis Singer -David Foster Wallace -Tennessee Williams (* Also Don DeLillo, though I couldn't find him in the data table)

"Sixteenth-century doctors were much less specialized than today’s medical professionals...Nancy followed them into these areas, and studied their polymathy with her own deep learning and equally profound humility." Today's #histSTM & #histmed lunch read: Andrew Berns's éloge for Nancy Siraisi 🗃️📜

“Because of the #SNL archive here @ransomcenter.bsky.social and my involvement in that and having access to those scripts, it seemed like a really good practical opportunity for every student to make something..." -Cindy McCreery describes last semester's writers' room class @utexasrtf.bsky.social

[former Elsevier employee here]

Looking forward to a fun discussion of #SaturdayNightLive & presidential satire @lbjlibrary.bsky.social! (Share your favorite presidential #SNL sketches in the comments, and I’ll let you know if they’re mentioned…)

More Work for Mother, v. 2.0: "The laundress lost her job. The housewife gained a chore. That pattern has been repeating ever since." (Glad to see Ruth Schwartz Cowan referenced in this @nytimes.com op-ed on #AI & domestic labor) #histSTM #histtech #GiftLink 🗃️📜⚙️

Exciting news from Chicago—The Adler Planetarium has acquired Chesley Bonestell’s business archive! (HT @jasonwdean.com) #histSTM #sciart #astroart #astronomy 🗃️📜🪐🔭🎨

Lots of great titles on this year's Pickstone Prize shortlist! Congratulations to: * @lindaaburnett.bsky.social * @brucealexb.bsky.social * Alison Bashford * @brad.bolman.com * @melissacharenko.bsky.social * @sadiahqureshi.bsky.social * David Singerman #histSTM #histsci #booksky 🗃️📜📚

I read the Nous today, oh boy... (It is not a great time to be a philosopher--or a #humanities scholar of any kind--in the Lone Star State.) #philosophy #AcademicFreedom

My last #StarWarsDay post comes courtesy of @ransomcenter.bsky.social, home of the personal papers of Thomas Smith. Smith was the visual effects producer for The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi & many other films... norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/fin... #StarWars #MayTheFourth #scifi

Nothing like catching a typo after a bunch of people have shared your #StarWarsDay post... 😜 (On the other hand, whooping cough can definitely cause a whopping cough!) #MayTheFarceBeWithYou

"Droids don't get diseases like whopping cough or measles or polio. But children do..." C-3PO & R2-D2 remind the parents of Earth to immunize their children in this PSA from 1978. #MayTheFourth #StarWars #vaccines #droids

"It's the most popular movie in history. The one people enjoy over and over, and now it can be yours..." (Remember: Han always shoots first when you watch #StarWars on an #RCA VideoDisc!) #CED #MayTheFourthBeWithYou

Perhaps the most delightful thread you'll read today, particularly if you're a fan of: -Science fiction (Or perhaps I should say "scientific romances" since it discusses #JulesVerne) -The cultural history of #aviation in France -The history of technology more broadly #histSTM #histtech #scifi 🗃️📜📽️🛩️

"The like Eclipse having not for many ages been seen in the Southern Parts of Great Britain, I thought it not improper to give the Publick an Account thereof." More on Edmond Halley's map & the solar eclipse #OnThisDay in 1715 via @rhiggitt.bsky.social: www.theguardian.com/science/the-... #histSTM

It's #MayDay, and in honor of the occasion, @ransomcenter.bsky.social is sharing the covers of books on workers and the labor movement from our collection! See the full gallery on our Instagram page: www.instagram.com/p/DXzOGnKmLr... #BookSky #CoverArt 🗃️📜📚 #InternationalWorkersDay #LaborHistory

"Let’s recall that the printing press had its naysayers...and yet global history since 1500 has been characterized by uninterrupted progress and universal human betterment... Skynet is in all relevant respects like the printing press." (@mcsweeneys.net reminds you to avoid bad #histSTM analogies!)

Today I learned @librarycongress.bsky.social has a new exhibit entitled The Two Georges, and my first reaction was to ask if it was curated by @hntdove.bsky.social & Richard Dreyfuss... More on the exhibit: www.loc.gov/exhibitions/... And the #AlternateHistory: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two... 🗃️📜

Exciting news from Austin! Thanks to the hard work of @ransomcenter.bsky.social's archivists, the personal papers of singer & actress Ethel Waters are now open for research. More on Waters's career: www.hrc.utexas.edu/press/releas... Finding aid: research.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/fin... 🗃️📜

THE TYRANT'S FOE, THE PEOPLE'S FRIEND!

A little surprised that @sciencehistory.org didn't install molecular bike racks back when it was the Chemical Heritage Foundation... #chemistry #histSTM

The United States now has the most government restrictions on academic freedom of any high-income country. www.chemistryworld.com/news/academi... Raw data from @vdeminstitute.bsky.social —> academic-freedom-index.net/research/Aca...

#ICYMI: Tomorrow (Apr. 27), @shothisttech.bsky.social is hosting an online lecture by John Krige, emeritus professor @ Georgia Tech & winner of the 2025 Da Vinci Medal. The show begins at 4 PM, EDT. Further details: www.historyoftechnology.org/2026/04/06/m... #histSTM #histtech 🗃️📜⚙️

"Sometimes science 'progresses' in terrible ways...Brushing off these practices as unscientific implies that 'true' science is, and always has been, unimpeachable." Today's #histSTM lunch read: @wbarlowrobles.bsky.social's @contingent-mag.bsky.social piece on the dangers of Whiggish #histsci 🗃️📜

Although @ransomcenter.bsky.social is home to DFW's archive, I have never read #InfiniteJest. Even if you haven't worked your way through the book's 1,000+ pages, @mellymeldubs.bsky.social's @lareviewofbooks.bsky.social essay reviewing its reception over the past 30 yrs is worth your time! #booksky

Happy #EarthDay, friends! 🌎 For more books that celebrate the natural world, check out @ransomcenter.bsky.social's Instagram feed: www.instagram.com/p/DXcDDbGDqh... #histSTM #envhist #ecology #booksky 🗃️📜📚

It's a shame the 9th Columbo only appeared in one season... #Columbo #DoctorWho

‪*Two images of the Trifid Nebula (M20)* L: Photograph taken w/the 36-inch reflector @lickobservatory.bsky.social (from Phillips & Steavenson's Splendour of the Heavens, 1925) R: A new photo captured by the Hubble Space Telescope this year: science.nasa.gov/missions/hub... #astronomy #histSTM 🔭📷

Last week, @aiphistory.bsky.social announced it would provide open access to 3 interviews w/J. Robert Oppenheimer. In today's #histSTM & #physics lunchtime read, @wellerstein.bsky.social shares his initial reactions to these oral histories: www.aip.org/history/well... 🗃️📜

#ICYMI: In response to recent attacks on academic freedom & free expression on campus, the Daily Texan's Opinion Department compiled a "higher education report card" comparing UT to peer institutions across the country. Their findings are simultaneously enlightening and disheartening... #EduSky📚