Today, this made me happy 🥰 @brimwats.com #museumlife

You've never seen an LLM fabricate with more gusto than when you feed it a Judeo-Arabic text from the Cairo Geniza and ask for a translation. Absolute fantasy, confidently delivered.

Just arrived at #Limmud and already seen about 10 people I know - then I realised I’ve been coming for THIRTY YEARS

When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.

The death of Dr Paul Ayris is huge loss to UCL, to @uclpress.bsky.social and to the open access/scholarly communications community more broadly. His open access Thomas Cranmer’s Register A record of archiepiscopal administration in diocese and province is published by the Press in January. 1/2

Very sad to hear Dr Paul Ayris has passed away. He was a great champion of libraries and open access, hugely influential, and very supportive of us at #ebookSOS. A great loss to the library and research communities. www.leru.org/news/in-memo...

Interesting, read - and if this is the case, then it also goes some way to explain the inherent biases in LLMs. marcusolang.substack.com/p/im-kenyan-...

A diverse range of projects has progressed our mission in 2024-25; from curating and opening up world-class collections, to pioneering open science, and partnering with our local and global communities to address society’s grand challenges. Read our Annual Report here: www.ucl.ac.uk/lccos/about-...

📢 Work with us! We are seeking an enthusiastic Engagement and Community Outreach Officer to work with us on engaging core and new audiences, to promote the Library and build archival research and digital skills amongst our audiences. ➡ £32,000p/a ➡ Closes 12 Jan 2026 Apply 🔗 buff.ly/UCxtOIY

Happy Chanukah. Wishing all those celebrating light in these dark times

Looking for a dose of seasonal cheer this cold dark December? Come and hear the Winter Warmers, UCL's Community Choir, perform in the Jeffery Hall at the IOE on Tues 16 Dec from 13.30-14.00. It's free, fun and festive. Come and listen. You deserve it. 🎄🎁❄️

It's not too late to submit your experiences to our worldwide survey of digital Holocaust memory projects. The questionnaire takes just 20 minutes to fill in online. Closes Friday 19 December. www.digitalmemorylab...

👀ICYMI: "the British Library’s woes are a microcosm of a wider crisis across the UK’s knowledge sector" #ScolComm #Libraries #KnowledgeWork @simonxix.com

Stunning Rothschild-owned prayerbook could fetch up to £5 million at auction www.thejc.com/news/usa/stu...

"To attempt to find useful information + instead take part in the solidification of the internet as an ad-delivery business, where you’re given no option but to be the product... You think about how different it all was: when pages loaded quickly, half the internet wasn’t locked behind paywalls..."

Submit your proposals now for the AJL 2026 in-person conference, taking place June 22–24, 2026, in Evanston, Illinois. All submissions must be received by December 31, 2025. For more information, visit jewishlibraries.org/....

Sorry, I meant December 15, 2025

@jewishstudies.bsky.social annual conference is next week. If you are attending, please consider coming over to the @librarycongress.bsky.social for a tour and reception, 6-8pm, Mon. Dec. 14. Hosted by the Hebraic Section.

Also interested in working with our fascinating collections? Apply for a RIC Visiting Fellowship & receive a grant of £5,000 to come to London to delve into our collections and produce a creative or academic piece of work. We're accepting applications until 12th Jan ’26 www.ucl.ac.uk/research-ins...

You know what we won't need once handwriting recognition software has done its thing? Archivists, curators, conservators, catalogers, codicologists, or paleographers. We won't need archives either. We won't need diplomatics, editorial theory, book or media history, or material culture studies 🗃️🧵

💥New: Creative commons licenses and copyright may not stop academic work being used to train AI ✍️ @eve.gd #CreativeCommons #ScholComm #AcWri

👀ICYMI: "It matters less that Grokipedia succeeds than whether it helps to delegitimise Wikipedia." @gildersleve.uk #Grok #Wikipedia #Knowledge

This is cute - it's a shame there are no UK libraries on there though www.jewishbookcouncil.org/pb-daily/map...

Looking forward to presenting @uclssees.bsky.social next week on Tea Arciszewska’s life and her (tragically timely) modernist play about children in wartime, “Miryeml.” @uclhjs.bsky.social @biajs.bsky.social @yiddishbookcenter.bsky.social

📜 Our 2025 bulletin is live! Read a message from our incoming president @bengidley.bsky.social, a report from this year's conference, details of our book prize, the CFP for our 2026 conference @bisa-bkk.bsky.social, reports from institutions & more ➡️ bajsbulletin.wpcomstaging.com/wp-content/u...

@uclhjs.bsky.social has issued a statement regarding an antisemitic incident at UCL last week where a speaker at a student event made Blood Libel accusations–a pernicious medieval claim that Jews use Christian blood in Passover matzoh. www.ucl.ac.uk/arts-humanit...

Limmud promises ‘something for everyone’ www.thejc.com/community/li...

Research behemoth’s plans to better coordinate staff at faculty level met with fierce opposition, amid fears of pay cuts and demotions https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/ucl-staff-feel-betrayed-over-professional-services-shake

“Scholars from Vilnius University in Lithuania have launched a breakthrough AI tool capable of reading handwritten Yiddish.” www.jns.org/vilnius-univ...

We are thrilled to announce a call for our inaugural Yiddish & Hebrew issue edited by @samspinner.bsky.social Please circulate widely. We are open to work that engages with Jewish literature, culture, and thought in any language. @hopkinspress.bsky.social

Meanwhile in England pupils attending a secular school are still required to take part in an act of collective worship each school day that is wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character lordslibrary.parliament.uk/research-bri...

We've been working with partners on a new initiative to collectively ensure that research libraries coordinate on the retention of their print monographs. @timeshighered.bsky.social today carries an article on the UK Print Book Collection: www.timeshighereducation.com/news/librari...

Who needs books anyway?

This exhibition is free to view at The Wiener Holocaust Library until 30 April 2026 wienerholocaustlibrary.org/exhibition/e...

I’m excited to be presenting at Limmud Festival 2025 – a celebration of Jewish learning, culture, and creativity! Join me (and about 2000 others!) for an unforgettable experience this December. 👉 You can book now at www.limmud.org/festival

London music fans! Zoe Aqua (fiddler, USA) will be performing a solo set of klezmer and Transylvanian music with some special guests this Sunday 16 Nov at DB Music (in Stoke Newington). 2:30 pm doors, 3pm concert. £8. @klezmershack.bsky.social www.dbmusiclondon.com/product/zoe-...

'The University of Cambridge has announced it has acquired and for the first time unsealed Levy’s personal archive, including letters, draft manuscripts, photographs and diary entries. It is expected the material will inform a wealth of new scholarship on her life, work and mental health.' 1/2

Plus my Yiddish New York session, "Dancing with Stories," will be hybrid, so you don't need to be in New York to participate. Sunday Dec 21 at 9:30-10:45am ET (2:30 PM BT, 3:30 PM CET, 4:30 PM IT). yiddishnewyork2025.sched.com/event/299MN/...

This December you can join me at Yiddish New York for my session "Dancing with Stories." We'll be doing two of my favorite things – close reading a literary dance scene (in translation) and learning the dance it describes–to the live accompaniment of the amazing Christina Crowder.

Resources shared for 🌐 Armistice Day (November 11th) opensiddur.org/index.php?ca...

Prayer on the Signing of the Versailles Peace Treaty on June 28th 1919 ending World War Ⅰ (Liberal Jewish Synagogue of London, 5 July 1919) opensiddur.org?p=52643

Due to illness we have unfortunately had to cancel this event. We hope to reschedule for Spring 2026.

I am Shammai, a Jewish sage from the Second Temple period. I'm known for my strict view of Jewish law, arguing with Hillel, and for the time I hit a man with my builder's cubit for asking me to teach him Torah while he stood on one foot. Here are my feeds, lists, threads, and other work. Enjoy.

😂 😂😂

UCL200 to launch with a spectacular sound and light experience! 💫 We can’t wait to welcome students, staff, alumni and our wider community and launching a year of celebrations for our 200th birthday! 📅11-13 February 2026. Find out more: https://bit.ly/439g5Kk

📆 Coming up on 18 Nov: UCL Lunch Hour Lecture, The Witch in the Bible and Beyond Hear from Dr Alinda Damsma on her research about the impact of the Bible on the early modern witch-hunts. These lectures are free, open to all and online. Book now: buff.ly/LupLYZS @uclhjs.bsky.social

2025 marks the 60th anniversary of UCL's Small Press collections. UCL has collected widely in this area of independent radical publishing to preserve the outputs of these activities. The collections comprise 4,500 periodicals and 20,000 pamphlets. Watch a new celebratory video at lnkd.in/eAhT7M6t.

Join us in London in July! CALL FOR PAPERS NOW LIVE #BIAJS2026 “Space and place in Jewish studies” 13-15 July Birkbeck bajsbulletin.wpcomstaging.com/2025/11/03/c...

This post has been in draft a while but it feels particularly timely given the strike over pay that starts tomorrow (27th Oct) at the British Library. If you've ever despaired at the low salaries at the BL now is the time to act in solidarity www.pcs.org.uk/news-events/... #BritishLibraryOnStrike

Are you a cataloguer or interested in cataloguing and have a view on whether LCSH is fit for purpose in a UK context? CILIP MDG @cilipmdg.bsky.social are hosting a Worldcafe event (a big meeting basically!) to discuss ideas at Wellcome Library in London Wed 26th Nov www.cilip.org.uk/events/Event...