Big congrats to Doctor Jack Kausch @realcharacterlanguage.world who passed his thesis defense today! “A 21st century essay towards a real character language" Thanks to @gnoli.eu @lukestark.bsky.social @brimwats.com @danlizotte.bsky.social Grant Campbell, Shengnan Yang and @westernufims.bsky.social

Curious to know how many authors are getting highly flattering, seemingly engaged requests for contact. I’ve gotten two now, same formula—one asking to set me up with a publicist, one just wanting to connect. Both impersonating famous writers.

Let’s ride, London, Ontario. Victoria Park, Central and Richmond.

🎙️Melissa Adler discusses her new book, #PeculiarSatisfaction. 📚💡The #NewBooksNetwork interview is now available, and today, 4–5:30 pm EST, she joins a virtual Zoom event hosted by Western University (Canada). 🔗Interview + event details in bio: linktr.ee/fordham_press #LibraryStudies #ReadUP

"...we can locate the early systemization of racial categories in American cultural institutions by looking to Jefferson’s classificatory and information management techniques." thewayofimprovement.blog/2026/01/19/t...

I’m co-chairing the program committee for the 4S conference in Toronto this year. Looking forward to seeing lots of submissions!

A new issue of The Political Librarian includes ‘Truth-telling in library land: In defense of emancipatory and justice-based frameworks in library and information science’ by Jamillah R. Gabriel and Amber Matthews. buff.ly/filKaJt

"GenAI adoption in industry is overwhelmingly aimed at automating and replacing human effort, often with the expectation that future “AGI” will render human intellectual and creative labor obsolete. This is a narrative we will not participate in." openletter.earth/an-open-lett...

A round of applause is in order for Ideas on Fire author Melissa Adler @murmz.bsky.social! 👏 Her new book Peculiar Satisfaction: Thomas Jefferson and the Mastery of Subjects is out now from Fordham University Press. fordhampress.com/peculiar-sat... #IoFAuthors

HUGE mail week for critical library histories. @cindyanguyen.bsky.social @murmz.bsky.social

Reading Peculiar Satisfaction by @murmz.bsky.social at the Jefferson Memorial in DC! #ASIST2025

@fordhampress.bsky.social is having a 25% off sale, and free shipping to the U.S. AND Peculiar Satisfaction is available! Jefferson and the making of US libraries, archives, and museums. Thinking with Walter Benjamin, Sylvia Wynter, and others. fordhampress.com/peculiar-sat...

If you’re going to #4S2025 check out our panel!

@fordhampress.bsky.social Catalog is out. Preorder Peculiar Satisfaction: Thomas Jefferson and the Mastery of Subjects or get Cruising the Library (2017). Both address the paradox of access to information in libraries. Both are written from a place of love for public institutions.

AI isn't magic. AI is land, real estate, and energy.

All but a few of the nearly 400 books that the U.S. Naval Academy removed from its library because they dealt with anti-racism and gender issues are back on the shelves after the newest Pentagon-ordered review

Really looking forward to my first CAIS. And my first visit to Halifax. And what I know will be exciting, thoughtful conversations.

New blog post at ACRLog: Targeting Books for Removal at U.S. Military Libraries acrlog.org/2025/05/11/t.... I talk about how painful it is that LCSH are being used for this dirty work. #critcat 📚

Library of Congress staff turn away new MAGA bosses appointed by felon after firing existing heads. Staff called Capitol Police and the two fake bosses withdrew for now. It’s the library of congress and not the library of the president/wanna be king/felon. www.thedailybeast.com/library-of-c...

“What awards are being cut by NSF? Awards that are not aligned with NSF's priorities have been terminated, including […] those on […] misinformation/disinformation." SO WE'RE ALL CLEAR, OUR GOVERNMENT IS TRYING TO STOP RESEARCH ON DISINFORMATION www.nsf.gov/updates-on-p...

Not former potus saying Harvard has set a precedent for other universities and I have to hold myself back from mentioning Wesleyan, Georgetown law, Rutgers faculty senate, etc. What we're not gonna do is erase the Jesuits! Sigh, let me reread Elite Capture.

Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions - rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking steps to make sure students can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect. Let’s hope others follow suit.

Further dismantling of our public institutions.

The titles for these executive orders are incredible. Weirdly makes me think of the time Jefferson made demands for “reparations”. www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

Don't mess with lady profs of a certain age. Once the kids are out of the house, we spend a lot of time in the gym.

“even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be to illuminate…the minds of the people at large.” -Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge

Horrific EO dropped last night! Below is an interactive map to see EXACTLY the libraries + museums which will be heavily impacted with the IMLS being defunded: @exploratorium.bsky.social Science Center of MN; Nat'l Children's Museum; Museum of Contemporary Art....the list goes on and on.

AOC: It is almost unthinkable why Senate Democrats would vote to to hand the few pieces of leverage that we have away for free when we've been sent here to protect social security, protect medicaid, and protect medicare.

This is happening. Due out in November. This research has changed the way I see almost everything about the institutions that are essential to American democracy-libraries, archives and museums. www.fordhampress.com/978153151193...

Clarification: We will accept late applications from all, not just the States!

In light of the fact that some U.S. universities are pausing admissions to their PhD programs, the Media Studies PhD Program in the Faculty of Information & Media Studies at Western University (London, Ontario) is welcoming late applications from American applicants. www.fims.uwo.ca/programs/gra...

Probationary employees are receiving termination notices today at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Notices have already started going out, per agency source.

“We should see ourselves that way, as what we actually are—a mortal threat to Trumpism.” utotherescue.blogspot.com/2025/02/line...

Important piece. This is definitely not limited to Alberta, and it's so important to consider the attack on our libraries during this election cycle.

Trump & Musk are making massive cuts to the National Institutes of Health. I know there is a lot going on right now, but this is one of worst things they have done so far, will affect cancer research and trials, the search for cures, innovation and competitiveness, our universities. Your lives.

Under fascism, no one is safe. Universities stayed quiet as the admin targeted DEI & foreign aid, censored research, etc. Now, they face devastating cuts to indirect cost rates, threatening research & operations. Silence won’t protect institutions. It won’t protect people; it never does.

JUST IN: All National Archives employees get email informing them that their ultimate boss, Archivist Colleen Shogan, has been fired by President Donald Trump www.politico.com/news/2025/02...

Colleen Shogan is the living proof that "obeying in advance" gets you absolutely nowhere

Maps don't have to be static images of manmade boundaries. They can be conversations between human and non-human beings, expressions of shared space and memory, representations of ever-expanding connection.

Super excited to announce the article I wrote on Female Dating Strategy and the Femosphere is finally out!! This paper functions as the framing for my PhD dissertation on gendered online communities! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... @femmediastudies.bsky.social

"The new world they imagine is not just anti-American but anti-human. The people are just data, means to the end of accumulating wealth."

Can’t wait to see this.

Proposals for 4s papers are due January 31. They just announced a hybrid option. Join us!

I curate a series for Current, the journal of public media. We're calling for new pieces. We pay. Your research reaches the entire sector. Especially at this moment, when noncommercial voices are under attack, research on NPR, PBS, public, community, and educational media is especially prescient.

1. Sabotage public institutions. 2. Claim they don’t work efficiently. 3. Eliminate them. — That’s the playbook.

Study sections are the review panels that allocate NIH research grants. They bring in experts from around the country and have to be scheduled many months in advance; they provide the funds that keep the nation's biomedical research going. It's hard to overstate the disruption this causes.

Epic. Sen. Markwayne Mullin tries to defend Hegseth by suggesting other Senators do their job drunk & cheat on their wives. Even Hegseth looks perplexed. “How many senators have shown up drunk to vote? Did you ask them to step down? No.” With friends like Mullin, who needs enemies. 🤡 (🎥 CNN)

Aaargh. ‪Colm Tóibín on the loss of Gary Indiana's personal library in @londonreview.bsky.social.

I want to remind everyone that your local library is both physical AND digital. You hate streaming everything because the price is ridiculous? Library. You hate ads because they're every 3 mins or less? Library. You want to reduce your digital footprint? Library. You want sourced info? Library.