Now its the time for the aurora to visit these nocturnal parts. Its 10:30pm and the beach has the gentle hum of a few small groups watching the lights, while the waves sway back and forth in time with the sky's dance.

Where are my old-ish French handwriting readers? How did Freycinet's people describe the landscape around today's New Norfolk in Tasmania? I have bits and pieces, but some words are defeating me. Full map available from: nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2323... #history #archives

Hoping this helps our colleagues across the industry

Love to see that the Tasmanian Aboriginal palawa kani place names map has had a whole makeover. Great user info, a better layout, it's beautiful. tacinc.com.au/map/map (Of course, I discovered the update because an article in press has the old URL in a footnote & it's too late to change it...)

Love to see that the Tasmanian Aboriginal palawa kani place names map has had a whole makeover. Great user info, a better layout, it's beautiful. tacinc.com.au/map/map (Of course, I discovered the update because an article in press has the old URL in a footnote & it's too late to change it...)

I think we can agree this conference catering is putting all others to shame. This is what happens when a conference is at Tasmania's favourite eccentric museum, MONA.

Are you using #maps in research? Want to learn about their history and use as sources? In London in late January? Sign up for @ihr.bsky.social short course, Historic Maps: Interpreting Stories of Place! #maphistory #skystorians 🗃️

We are reaching the end of semester and the due date for final assignments. I have one phrase running permanently through my head, threatening to come out.

Today I filmed my last lectures in our wonderful media studio. I don't know what we will have in our new building, but it seemed only right to mark this occasion with all due solemnity.

Me reading what was on a block of land in 1826: "A small idiot only on this allotment." Sure, that tracks. Oh, it's hut, not idiot. Well, it was the colonies, there was a high chance of an idiot on the allotment too. #history 🗃️

Me reading what was on a block of land in 1826: "A small idiot only on this allotment." Sure, that tracks. Oh, it's hut, not idiot. Well, it was the colonies, there was a high chance of an idiot on the allotment too. #history 🗃️

My cranky bus driver may have been driving like the road was out to get him, but at least he was blasting ABC Classic so I could get motion sick to the soothing tones of Gabriel's Oboe and then be roused back to jollity by a brass marching band.

Two weeks ago I was writing an intro lecture about tech being hungry for data & desperately scraping the internet. This week: 19th century science was hungry for data & desperately searching for bodies. I guess, spot the difference between an AI corpus and an old ethnology museum?

You're all going to the wrong archives. My local is always amusing. Just last week I was treated to: Gossip about why X has been so grumpy lately. Whispers about a fab historian (umm, me, tucked out of sight). And Mr Ye Olde Sailor: "It's a yellow notebook, don't you know it, can't you find it?"

Everyday Heritage team member Dr Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social takes a walk down Elizabeth St in central Hobart with Joel Rheinberger, ABC Hobart, and tells a few forgotten stories of characters who once lived in this town. Listen to the audio recording here everydayheritage.au/news/voxtrot...

The worst thing students can usually think to say about me in surveys is that I'm "too enthusiastic" and "have the vibe of a kindergarten teacher". Well, I challenge them to find any such vibes in my outfit today.

And they will ask, 'Were there any signs?'

This morning, while internally thinking about how colonists celebrated someone I said aloud "she was apparently the first woman to walk to X", immediately erasing all First Peoples who'd been there before. The whole class called me out & I was so proud of them, but also mortified. Ahh, teaching.

It is 2025, and someone *now* is preparing to publish an 1850s pastoralist’s diary *editing out* all the coded bits where he describes murdering Yamatji people. In 2025. But sure, let’s hear more about how the Great Australian Silence is over.

Me, absolutely hopeless in the music round of a pub quiz, catching up on the Triple J Hottest 100 of Australian Songs and surprising myself by knowing every single song. Then spoiling it by needing to double check the artist of this song and discovering it's Kylie or Midnight Oil.

While I wait for my university's overzealous spam filters to let my verification email through so my signature is approved, I will encourage you all to sign this petition. openpetition.org/!repealjrg

When considering what toys to put into the household of a three year old who lives in an apartment block, why would "karaoke machine" ever even enter the equation?

Can any #skystorians 🗃️ play with me: are these different people's handwritings? I think 1 & 4 are the same person but want to double check. And I'm wondering if #3 is the same person as 1 & 4. #2 seems to be a different person from #1, right?

I'm in walking distance of two polling stations. One has cake stalls and sausages, but also long queues. The other one only promises a "strong chance" of snacks, but also has a lower chance of queues. It's the most Australian of election quandaries. #politas #tasvotes

Also I catch the ferry so I can start my day like this. Winters in Tasmania are truly the worst.

I often send two profile photos to local groups, one serious and one fun. They always choose the fun one. Someone read my @ahsjournal.bsky.social piece about the first Euro map of the Derwent & asked for the public #history talky version. Happy to oblige! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

25mins of my 1 hour trip to work is waiting for a bus from town to Sandy Bay because bus service before 9am is so patchy. There's a direct 30min bus from home after 9am. I choose a walk+ferry+bus to avoid peak traffic, but I'm offended that the wasteful time this takes is "of little consequence".

Our hybrid Historic Wills Transcribathon is happening in 2 weeks' time! 📜✍️ 📅 Thurs 24 July 🕐 1-4pm BST Join us online or in person in Exeter: transcribe on Zooniverse alongside like-minded volunteers & help transcribe as many wills as possible! Sign up here: willstranscribathon.eventbrite.com

The perfect winter's commute. #photography #landscapes

While perusing the upcoming lots at a local auction house, I am endlessly amused by the complete decontextualisation of the photographs.

Recently I was talking to an ex-boss of large HR depts in Europe in the 90s. One of their worst times was when they had to choose whether to make either Person A with Life X or Person B with Life Y redundant. "It took us days, it was so hard." Imagine such anguish over a single person.

I loved spending a couple of hours sitting in this box reading a great book. I'm not an especially blocked reader, but this reminded me just beautiful it can be to put all distractions aside and be told "the only thing you are allowed to do now is read".

We all must have some favourite #history docs that have nothing to do with our research? Here's mine – a set of letters that I've never actually read because I get distracted by the caricatures each time I see them. @utas.edu.au Special & Rare Collections, sparc.utas.edu.au/index.php/le...

We all must have some favourite #history docs that have nothing to do with our research? Here's mine – a set of letters that I've never actually read because I get distracted by the caricatures each time I see them. @utas.edu.au Special & Rare Collections, sparc.utas.edu.au/index.php/le...

'A pioneering project to fill gaps in Irish history is making 175,000 more records and millions more words of searchable content freely available to researchers and members of the public.' 1/2

I don't think this test is supposed to be done by non-Americans. Or quite possibly Americans. Or historians. Are oysters classed as poor or rich person food here? www.idrlabs.com/food-choice/...

Has anyone out there written about the words early colonial surveyors/explorers used on maps to describe land capability. "Good", "bad", "rocky" etc? I'm interested in any global or 17th, 18th, 19thC takes. I'm curious about how these words were interpreted and used over time. #envhist 🗃️ #history

Has anyone out there written about the words early colonial surveyors/explorers used on maps to describe land capability. "Good", "bad", "rocky" etc? I'm interested in any global or 17th, 18th, 19thC takes. I'm curious about how these words were interpreted and used over time. #envhist 🗃️ #history

Ideas came to me, I needed colours, my old undergraduate pencil case answered the call. Why don't we do more project planning with sparkly pens?

A delivery man bedecked head to toe in high-vis and carrying some kind of flatpacked kid's bed, pauses mid-conversation with his delivery companion to smell the flowers blooming in the carpark.

A delivery man bedecked head to toe in high-vis and carrying some kind of flatpacked kid's bed, pauses mid-conversation with his delivery companion to smell the flowers blooming in the carpark.

Putting the classiness in a bowl of Friday Night Banana Custard. I wasn't sure what wine best pairs with Old Banana Bread From The Bottom Of The Freezer, so tonight I will be sampling The Bottle That Was Open In The Fridge.

When someone takes very seriously their duty to capture the landscape accurately. 🗃️ #history Leitrim, 1602 from @nlireland.bsky.social (catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls0...)

Just as taking business class once ruins (I imagine) economy class forever, walking to the bakery for my mid-afternoon WFH treat will never be so good as today when I was accompanied by a pod of dolphins.

This reminds of a man I was chatting to recently. We'd both paused on our Sunday arvo walks to watch the seals playing in Hobart's Derwent River, & he said he didn't think whales could come up the (estuarine & isthmussy) river because they wouldn't know how to get back out to the sea again.

This year's Dark Mofo has everyone conflicted about whether this piece (Quasi by Ronnie Van Hout) is fun or creepy. I suddenly realise that years of watching Taskmaster has primed me perfectly for oversized weird sculptures of human heads, to the point I don't see anything unusual about it.

Yeah, I'm done for.

I am considering this, not because I want students to use GenAI, but because this assignment is too easy to do with AI & it's too late for me to change through our uni's processes. So instead, I'm considering how to make the most of what I'm stuck with.

For those stuck outside the paywall, check if your local library has a digital subscription of the Saturday Paper. This article is well worth the hunt for your library's eresource login.

I avoid GenAI unless forced (🤮), but next semester I want to give guidelines for the inevitable student use. Task 1: writing museum exhibit labels with v. tight word limit. Will it work to ask those that use AI to provide their original text, GenAI cues & a short para about how it helped?