What, exactly, does this string of words mean? Why does everyone who stands to profit from selling "AI" love to repeat it? And what's the value of slogans that masquerade as history? sonjadrimmer.com/blog-1/2025/...

Ok. They’ve pissed me off. I’m back to tell you 3 things about ID cards: 1. Migrants ALREADY HAVE biometric ID cards & govts have been trying to digitise them for years w repeated fuckups & failures causing complete chaos - they don’t work, you do not want that system for you.

We have just launched our new application cycle for long- and short-term fellowships at the JCB! Details at jcblibrary.org/fellowships/...

Y'all know this already but this is neither how trans people nor medieval currency nor alchemy work and also I'd hoped (foolishly, it would seem!) we'd moved beyond the traffic in women as an organizing social principle.

the @folger.edu opens their long-term and short-term fellowship scheme for 2026. Includes book in progress fellowships, artistic research fellowships, and public humanities fellowships www.folger.edu/research/the...

Retrospectively removing indefinite leave to remain would be immoral and economically damaging. It would tear families apart. Attacking it as ‘potentially illegal’ is completely beside the point. Argue with the (awful) idea. Don’t try ’well, actually you can’t do that’.

Because I've seen some prominent cis allies saying that they hope Streeting's most recent words are a good sign: this is the entire point - he's always got some reasonable sounding words to placate cis people as he continues to meet with transphobic bigots and enact brutally transphobic policies.

Best thing I've ever read about AI and the academy - every line a banger

Since ppl love campus anecdotes so much, here's one: I have colleagues who give students they know to be MAGA an A (in one case I'm aware of overlooking clear AI use), because the colleague is on a Green Card or H1B, and they know: one complaint like at Texas A&M, and they're on a flight home. (1/3)

"I do understand: you want permission. There’s a machine in the corner wrapped in human skin that makes things out of shit and blood to look like whatever you want (as long as you don’t look too closely). You gave one to your teacher and they didn’t notice. Your boss told you to use it..."

The awaited life update: I’ve moved to the UK! At the end of the month, I’m beginning a PhD at the University of Manchester. I’ll be researching how library catalogue data can surface marginalized voices in early printed books, and working with Chetham’s Library as a case study. More to come!

Pleased to read a review of @finchinthestacks.bsky.social, Kim Masteller (N-A) & mine’s show, “Mapping the Heavens”- we’re proud of it, glad to see our work discussed on the national stage in @wsj.com ! www.wsj.com/arts-culture... q 📜 #bookhistory #booksky #libsky #histstm 🔬 #histastro #rarebooks

‪Our colleagues at the Nelson-Atkins made this great video of @finchinthestacks.bsky.social and I talking about books for the "Mapping the Heavens" show we co-curated - and it's up now! Watch, share, enjoy, etc! 📜 #bookhistory #booksky #libsky #histstm 🔬 #histastro 🔭 www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8PB...

Recently one of our manuscripts was rebound in modern conservation binding. Follow the progress, and an amazing discovery, as our Head of Conservation reveals the steps taken for this careful work A deep dive in medieval manuscript binding 🕵️ www.corpus.cam.ac.uk/articles/chr...

I think this is why a lot of history really doesn't and can't translate into social media

Join us in June 2026 in Dublin! Keynotes by @renskehoff.bsky.social ; @wynkenhimself.bsky.social and Aditi Nafde #REBPAF #MSCA #ResearchImpactEU

Nothing better than a printing disaster.

Sharing this in the feeds and with @annehelen.bsky.social who has cited Fobazi's work and whose community may be interested in supporting her and her family 💕 📚 📜

Call for papers, Leeds IMC 2026 - Big data and medieval manuscripts. Please consider submitting a proposal!

The reasonable centrist liberal parties are officially to the right of the fascists on trans rights in the UK. This does not make any of them good. It makes the entire circus a fucking farce, a worthless mockery of politics and sound governance, because it's all just bigots barking at each other.

It's official! My last day at the Linda Hall Library will be this Friday, August 8th. Watch this space for where I’m off to! In the meantime, I’ve got to pack up for an international move…

Seeing the American Historical Association suggest using AI to create "historical" images is disappointing. They are not historical, they are fabrications. Reconstruction drawings are a great tool for making history accessible. Poorly done images are harmful.

The AHA board's overturning of a member resolution passed by an overwhelming majority, the social media surveillance carried out by its executive director, and its decades-long failure to address the jobs crisis were all good reasons to quit this org, but this is some extra sprinkles on top.

"It was part study group, part therapy session, part full-body political resurrection. We called ourselves The Little Flames, because nothing sounds more like a punk band made entirely of anxious socialists." www.culturematters.org.uk/keep-the-fla...

"We have to sign on to this technology or else we'll be left behind" is something I keep hearing, but where are we being left??? Where is everyone else going?? Is it the place where all the 3D TVs and wifi-enabled toasters went? Is it literal dystopia? This argument is meaningless

Join AIP in documenting & celebrating women’s contributions to the physical sciences! I’m thrilled to announce that AIP has received a generous grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to support this initiative. Please share this widely with anyone that might be interested in getting involved.

📖 Circulation of a Sea Monster Image: From Renaissance Nature Studies to the Title Page of an Eighteenth-Century Halakhic Book 📖 Learn more in Tziona Grossmark's article in the June 2025 issue of *PBSA*. 🔍 DOI:

I've seen some talk about how we are witnessing the end of the professoriate as we know it and this may be true, but I think it's bigger: it's the decimation of the mission-oriented profession. Want to make a middle-class living serving the public good? Capitalism doesn't want that for you.

Was excited to read this, but using AI hype terminology IS taking a position, & it's the wrong one the author on AI processing: "I’ll use “understand” and similar terms throughout this guide but take no position in the larger debate" the laziness is nauseating katinamagazine.org/content/arti...

Sometimes you go looking for a plate and find that it’s been replaced by a watercolor!

A great example of an improvement in telling book history: De Hamel: "Early Christian books...are usually..on parchment (papyrus gradually died out, except in Egypt)." Reynhout: "[parchment] did not supplant [papyrus] until the supply network for papyrus stopped functioning after the 7th cntry"

Friends, please share! Proofs are ready for @skeuomorphpress.org's edition of Ursula K. Le Guin’s "A Rant About Technology." I am so pleased with this book—in many ways our 1st real book project Details about how to get one through our fundraiser at skeuomorph.ischool.illinois.edu/le-guin-book...

The printing press is not responsible for launching Europe into modernity, nor did it transform society overnight. Folks like Sam Altman & other tech boosters are obsessed w this misperception bc it provides a precedent for AI. A recent article I wrote touches on this. Abstract & links in replies.

Oh hey, it’s my work?!?!

New blog post about my favorite book of doodles! “In which a 16th century monk flips me off, and we all pick out our next tattoos.” www.folger.edu/blogs/collat...

From tomorrow, the Wren Library welcomes a brand-new exhibition: 'In Her Element: Stories of Science's Female Trailblazers'.⚗️Highlights include Mary Somerville's letters, Hertha Ayrton's papers, and Lise Meitner's drafts. As always, we are open to visitors from 12-2pm!

Do I happen to know anyone who will be at the Folger in the next week or two who might be willing take a photo of a single manuscript page for me?

Coming to #RBMS2025 this week? Interested in queer and LGBTQ+ library work and bibliography? Join us for a casual meet up on Thursday afternoon at the Blue Orchid! Please repost and share the flyer widely! #QueerBibliography 📚

BHL has been experiencing a significant increase in traffic. Users may be experiencing intermittent service disruptions. If you're downloading data & don't want to put additional pressure on BHL systems, here's how to do that: about.biodiversitylibrary.org/ufaqs/how-do... Thank you!

"i asked grok" "i asked chagpt" yeah well I asked a rare books librarian and they found things I didn’t even know I was looking for, while answering questions about provenance

Has there ever been a government office that has felt more fully a part of the community it represents? A staff as universally respected? An absolutely devastating blow.

Printed by a woman! German Euclid by Heinrich Hofmann, “gedruckt daselbst bey Johan Weidners Witwe” (“printed there by Johan Weidner’s widow”).

For @unbreaking.org I have spent a lot of time recently reading the various laws, executive orders, and reports attempting to destroy trans people. Which means I see how often the NYT’s reporting is cited as supporting evidence for that project. Often! I hope those reporters and editors know that.

I am always so grateful to scholars who engage with my work, but getting to read James Waddell review Reading Practice for the TLS was a high point, for sure. So much attention to detail, & so thoughtful in its critiques. Just brilliant to be read so carefully! www.the-tls.co.uk/literature/b...

I forgot about time zones and didn't get to register for the RBMS tours I wanted... curses...

⭐June 18th at 1pm ET: the 3rd virtual Winterthur Library Fresh Perspectives on Collecting symposium! We'll hear from aspiring and early-career collections professionals, sellers, & private collectors on the issues that matter to them and their own collections. Register: udel.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

New full-time #BookLab job just dropped for the #KingLibraryPress: ukjobs.uky.edu/postings/580... Please share widely as you can, I am on the search committee and am also happy to chat about what it means to live in Kentucky.

In the wake of near-absolute legal victory, where the UK Supreme Court interprets a law with "common sense" and twists itself into contradictions to hand them everything they wished for, they are still miserable because they are not being thanked and apologized to for being unrepentant ghouls.

Working with colleagues to update the terms & conditions for visiting our archives; asking ourselves... "what if we tried to sound like we actually wanted you to come here?"