For artwork ‘Making Visible’, in exhibition ‘A body of knowledge’, Harvey’s portrait has been temporarily replaced by one of Grace Pierrepont. Grace restarted the library collection after the Great Fire. Find out about her, Harvey & the books: history.rcp.ac.uk/exhibitions/... #BodyOfKnowledge 3/3

A cataloger at the Morgan on cataloging, book curses, and the need for a controlled vocabulary term so we can describe and find said curses. 📜📚

technically, nothing is an 'issue'

The first two hours this morning

book that needs to be written is a study of the fictional library catalogue as a literary genre. Rabelais, Donne, Borges

This is Richard Hughes’ introduction to Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury, and it’s exactly how I feel about AI. ‘If I could say in three pages what takes My Faulkner nearly three hundred there would obviously be no need for the book’.

Don't forget folks: allowing yourself a vision of the future you'd want for our country and planet - not the one you'd settle for, not the one you fear, but the future of your dreams - isn't naive, it's a vital cognitive skill. That's how we articulate what we most value. What's worth fighting for.

1. William Blake, "I want, I want." Engraving from _The Gates of Paradise_, 1793.

reading about revolutions

Hanif Abdurraqib, always articulating precisely what it is to live in community & love others & be scared & do it anyway.

Cordelia in with a late contender for best photo of 2025.

combine his order's namesake liqueur and his namesake bubbly with orange bitters, and you've got yourself a Benediction

a festive miracle!

Coming soon…

joy, etc

…hmmm.

and at any moment / someone might fall in love with me I was / that woven into the electric / cold bright air (Heather Christle)

every year they get a Pollock pollock. they love Pollock pollock. here is last year’s next to the new one for comparison.

chaos here, as nobody is allowed to open a present until both cats have been located to open theirs from ‘father catnip’

Mycroft indulging in some highbrow literature

My dad, who has been acting as Father Christmas at Colchester Castle: “I largely can’t hear what they say, so I go by the body language of the parents - if they look worried I say ‘oooh not sure the elves will be able to make that’”

So you can be arrested for supporting imprisoned peaceful protesters who may die on hunger strike. Interesting. The government makes itself worse and more cruel daily. Excellent of Greta Thunberg to do this to heighten concern for their plight.

helping wrap (she likes to eat tape)

I sat at the desk and contemplated all that I had accomplished / this year. I had won the hot dog eating contest on Rhode Island. / No, I hadn’t. I was just kidding.

merry christmjlmxh.,//ml

Can confirm that this edition includes a brilliant new preface by Isabella Hammad which would justify the cost of it alone

I don’t know whether to go and see Hamnet because (whispers) I did not like the novel.

This detail from the David Walliams story is really striking. For all the obnoxious griping in some quarters about how MeToo went too far, you STILL have scenarios where employees are being told to avoid known predators amongst their staff, whose behaviour is ignored or hidden by higher-ups.

Just found what might be a photocopy of a Rorschach test in a used copy of Marlowe's Tamburlaine Make of that what you will

This made me genuinely laugh out loud.

Milton uses the word a couple of times for Satan's seductive but ultimately hollow and deceitful speech. Most notably when tempting Eve in PL IX -- 'so glozed the tempter...'

the final proofs are in, the cover artwork signed off & we now have an official publication date - so it feels time to finally start celebrating publicly the forthcoming, incredibly long-overdue Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, v. 1: from the earliest times to 1707 published by EUP in 2026

doing important research (googling 'are black squirrels new')

A break from Christmas content to enjoy this capybara eating a banana. From François Froger's 'A relation of a voyage ...' (London, 1698).

"perhaps *some* credit" should go to this "obscure" woman

Not all #earlymodern prints are publications. These are unused key labels intended for 1 of the 11 locks guarding Antwerp’s 14th-century privilege chest preserving charters for centuries. The Officina Plantiniana probably had to produce these ephemeral prints as the city’s official printer.

having to explain to the cat sitter that Cordy isn't registered with a vet, at the vet's own suggestion/request

nothing can put a bigger smile on my face than reading that Microsoft has to scale back its AI ambitions because NOBODY uses copilot.

Very rarely does a post warrant all caps, but: SEARCHABLE INTERIM MANUSCRIPTS CATALOGUE. At long last! searcharchives.bl.uk

"It's everyone on campus and at the mall, and all the people waiting at the hospital. And at the post office. And, yeah, it's a flower, too. All the flowers. The whole garden. The opposite of a gun is wherever you point it." foundpoems.substack.com/p/issue-37-t...

Eating the leftover cheese and watching Olivier’s Hamlet. Spiritually at Boxing Day already I fear

“got some spare cheese, huh?”

Glad that I have friends who would cancel rather than attend a party when ill, but worried that as the day goes on my cheese-wine-human ratio is being skewed ever more in the favour of the cheese

All these protests have been organised by Guide Leaders who have decided to take a stand against the ban and are organising to get it overturned.

Next semester is already looking quite busy with RA work, part time teaching and ploughing on with my book. But if you have transcription or archival (London/SE area) needs please do drop me a line. My rates are now on my webpage. #MedievalSky #EarlyModern joanneedge.co.uk/freelance-wo...

Ban it, close it down, imprison them

Pam Cox MP, former member of staff at the University of Essex, speaks out against redundancies and course closures 👏 www.facebook.com/reel/2288732...

When will this crisis get any attention whatsoever!? A THOUSAND ACADEMIC STAFF AT ONE INSTITUTION SERVED REDUNDANCY RISK NOTICES! And that's not counting what's surely being visited on professional services staff too. This is an economic catastrophe, to say nothing of the intellectual catastrophe!

Since they're not restructuring, they're putting us all at risk because there may be a diminished need for "teaching and research", which are... the university's missions I guess?

I want to add to Daniel's excellent points here bc I've been arguing against these uses of "AI" by historians for years. What's important is this, as ever: the tech isn't the central issue; the surrounding political & economic project of its deployment is. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...