Hooray!! We have needed an orphan works provision in Australia for a long time.

THREAD Doomscroll THIS Hey we get it. It's dark out there. But there's so much good stuff going on too. Here's a timeline cleanse courtesy of the endless determination of the world's researchers. 1/18

Melanie Swalwell, Professor of Digital Media Heritage at Swinburne University in Melbourne, opens the conference with a talk on games preservation in Australia. I feel oddly patriotic for some reason seeing 1990s Aussie games in emulation & preservation. #vgpres26

Calling artists with content on Floppies or CD-ROMs*!! The Digital Heritage Lab is sharing access to our specialist disk imaging equipment. We will show you how to preserve your obsolete disks* (CD-ROMs, Floppies, Zips). The #AusEAASI website has details: auseaasi.org/artist-outre...

I'm delighted to be keynoting next Thursday at the Online Symposium "Videogame Preservation: Practices and Approaches" organised by the Bodleian Libraries @bodleian.ox.ac.uk. I will present on "Play It Again" & the #AusEAASI network. @aarnet.edu.au www.digitalscholarship.ox.ac.uk/event/videog...

Congrats to @brewster.kahle.org for being named to the Computer History Museum 2026 Fellows! "For pioneering roles in online search engines, and in digital preservation and open access to knowledge provided by the Internet Archive" More info ➡️ computerhistory.org/2026-fellow-...

Following on from the signing of Treaty last month, the Victorian state government today offered a formal apology to First Peoples, recognising past injustices. It's well worth watching. Allan has my respect. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-12...

Covert Action in Chile: The Significance of the Church Committee Report 50 Years Later nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-boo...

This is why I mask, because I don’t want Long Covid (or worse).

DPC Blog: Call for comments on a new guide to help you copy those floppies https://www.dpconline.org/blog/call-for-comments-on-a-new-floppy-disk-guide thanks to #futurenostalgia led by @makethecatwise #digipres

We are delighted to team up with @europeana.bsky.social supporting a webinar on November 26, 2025, from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. CET, on the significance of #computergames as and for #culturalheritage. The webinar is aimed at professionals in the #GLAMsector. Registration is free of charge.

The irony here is that academics don’t just write the articles for free—we also referee and edit for them for free. Something is deeply broken. “New Zealand's eight universities spent $30-million a year on journal licences and about half of that sum went to Elsevier. www.rnz.co.nz/news/nationa...

youtu.be/Jf-jHCdafZY?... www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11...

This is a hugely significant step.

Some good news from Australia - no text and data mining exceptions to copyright will be introduced for training AI. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10...

I am sensing something of a pattern here 🤔 Audited accounts show surpluses - not budget crises - at ANU and UoN. Who's next? bsky.app/profile/aust...

New Australia Institute analysis shows the University of Newcastle had net assets over $1.8 billion at the end of 2024, contrary to claims that the university is in a finanical crisis. #auspol

This is incredible news, and shows the incredible power of collective action. The fight against the neoliberal university (my own included) goes on, but its nice to hear some good news for a change.

Australian academic colleagues will want to fill this out: "The Australian University Census on Staff Wellbeing: An investigation of psychosocial safety climate in Australia's universities" doit.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

New Australia Institute analysis shows the ANU had a $90 million profit in 2024 and INCREASED the value of its net assets... All while the ANU was claiming a budget crisis to justify staff cuts! @richarddenniss.bsky.social #auspol

The settlement website in the Bartz v Anthropic class action is now live and can be found here: www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com. It includes comprehensive information about the case and settlement, including a searchable tool to see if your books are included in the settlement and a claim form.

And an excellent accompanying commentary. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

A formidable coalition of Australian creators and book industry organisations attended a Senate Inquiry hearing yesterday to strongly oppose the Productivity Commission’s proposal for a text and data mining exception for AI training. Read more: www.asauthors.org.au/news/its-not...

🏆 The #sigcis2025 awards are up!! 🏆 📖 Computer History Museum Prize ➡️ @apdamegriff *The Two Revolutions: A History of the Transgender Internet* https://nyupress.org/9781479818310/the-two-revolutions/ 📄 The Mahoney Prize ➡️ @theodorajewell “Settler Computing: Water Algorithms and the Equitable […]

The eSafety Commissioner has done something right. It’s heartening to see such a hefty fine handed down for image-based abuse. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09...

I stan Violet!

Excited to see this post about preserving #gamehistory and use of the EU’s Out of Commerce works.

John Passfield, #homebrew #gamehistory legend! There’s heaps more on his early work in my Homebrew book, and at playitagainproject.com

Heartened to see that the Australian Society of Authors are pushing back against a proposed text and data mining exception to the Copyright Act to allow the training of AI. Did you see this @manjusrii.bsky.social ? www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08...

I'm looking forward to presenting a keynote on my homebrew game history research at the Replaying Japan conference at RMIT, September 1-3. sites.google.com/view/replayi...

Opinion | "Humanities and social sciences academics are signing petitions, writing open letters and organising actions in response to these threats to their jobs. They are anxious and angry."

Thank you @austhistassoc.bsky.social for addressing the abomination that is Job-Ready Graduates and petitioning the Albo Labor Government to repeal it #auspol. We need more grads and esp. lawyers from Indigenous and other minority backgrounds, not fewer!

Super proud of the whole @acmimuseum.bsky.social team with Game Worlds now on full sale -> au.variety.com/2025/digital... … time to start planning your trip, customise your character, fill your inventory. Open Sept 18

Hey @albomp.bsky.social, after more than three years in office, how is it that you still haven’t abolished this terrible, economically counterproductive, blatant culture war policy ? theconversation.com/...

Open letter against the adoption of the Australian Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism’s Plan: Academics against racism overland.org.au/2025/07/open...

10 years later and change, and the Oregon Trail emulation at the Internet Archive is closing in on 14 million plays. archive.org/details/msdo...

SIGCIS 2025 deadline extended to Monday! Theme is POWER with keynote Lily Geismer. Going to be an epic year. Submit! And feel free to ask me any questions about it!

The Centre for Transformative Media Technologies is hosting a talk by Stelarc on 23 July, to be held in person and on zoom. Details and registration: transformativemedia.swinburne.edu.au/event/stelar...

I was recently interviewed about our team's game and media arts history and preservation research projects, and the #AusEAASI network for the @ardc.edu.au "Shaping Research Software" series: ardc.edu.au/article/shap...

This is fairly accurate and extremely informative update...... buttondown.com/wellsourced/...

Absolutely surreal to have lived through the Napster days and watched as the titans of industry moved hell and high water to lock down any possible chance that someone's song might get swapped online without giving the studios a cut and now those same people are just like "well we gotta steal music"

Thinking of every academic who has had to apply for grants to cover the cost of requesting and licensing images for their books with zero assistance from a publisher

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden removed from role www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-f...

Looking forward to presenting shortly at #BDCAM25, remotely, on our work with artists’ Amiga disks from the 1980s. Wishing I could be there in person to meet you all and hang out!

The University of London Press is now accepting for new proposals for short-form books (20,000–30,000 words) on Digital Cultural Heritage on themes of use, access, value(s) and ephemerality uolpress.co.uk/book-series/... #BDCAM25

So how does one follow conference related skeets on this platform? Is it #BDCAM or #BDCAM25? Anyone know? I’m still a Bluesky novice.

A great team of colleagues from @chludens.bsky.social together with @unil.bsky.social are organising a very cool conference on the ‘History of video games from the players’ perspectives’ #GameStudies this September HERE you can find the #CFP: chludens.hypotheses.org/3389 @pachuki.bsky.social

This is what solidarity requires. And self-interest tbqh; the whole POINT of universities is that they exist to deliver public benefit — through education and knowledge-generation. Research. We need to support the system to do the right thing when it threatens to veer off-course. Ngā mihi 🙏

There will be those who can’t make the switch. And that is another reason why it would have been far preferable to have figured out how to collect social media before this forced exodus from Twitter/X. Not looking forward to the finality of closing my person’s account there.