New blog post from me - ‘Who was Tie Cum Ah Chong?’ - in which I consider the curious early life of a young immigrant Chinese woman in Tasmania 120 years ago. chineseaustralia.org/tie-cum-ah-c... #ChineseTasmanianStories #EverydayHeritage 🗃️

Hot off the press & #OpenAccess, check out 'Amendments to Non-European Naturalisation Policy, 1956–1957: Differentiating Between Intention and Effect' by Nathan Gardner Molina: doi.org/10.1080/0308...

In awe of the team at Clinic Nineteen treating adults & children for long COVID & related diseases. COVID infection is commonplace in the community & repeat infections increase your chances of getting LC so do your best to avoid infection. Indoor air quality is key. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11...

This week I’ve got stuck into working on a piece of research I started writing up in 2012 – it’s on my favourite short-lived paragraph of the Immigration Restriction Act 1901. My last attempt at finishing it was in 2020, but this time it’s for real! #slowscholarship 🗃️

Help me turn the State Library Victoria's digitised maps into data! As part of my residency at the SLV LAB, I've been experimenting with using Allmaps and @IIIF to georeference the Library's maps. Georeferencing relates a digitised map to real world […] [Original post on hcommons.social]

Great to hear about the successful funding of ‘The See Yup Temple: Chinese Australian Collections, Recovery, Conservation’ in the most recent round of ARC Discovery Projects dataportal.arc.gov.au/NCGP/Web/Gra... 🗃️

“Wearing a mask is just so simple … it doesn’t take a lot when it’s a kindness to other people.” #CovidIsntOver #COVIDHegemony

I recently went to a community history talk, on a topic in my area of research expertise, that was heavily and enthusiastically illustrated with AI-generated images and videos. It was clunky and cringe-worthy at best, and painfully stereotypical at worst.

We said goodbye to this beautiful girl today...

New review of Peter Prince and my edited collection, ‘Subjects and Aliens’, feat. @sophiecouchman.bsky.social , Margaret Allen, Emma Bellino and Margaret Allen

RIP my sweet Molly dog (13 Jan 2012 – 22 Oct 2025)

How does Britain control Hong Kong's colonial history? Matthew Hurst (@mrmhurst.bsky.social) explores the 'politics of forgetting' and the legacy of 88,000 missing government files.

🚨 Two days to go! Our annual celebration is almost here—and we’re marking 1 TRILLION pages captured by the Wayback Machine. In honor of that, we're sharing this #WaybackMachine look at the @InternetArchive itself! 🕰️ Learn more about our events ⤵️ blog.archive.org/trillion/ #Wayback1T

Wow! Job alert for two fixed-term postdocs in History at UNSW external-careers.jobs.unsw.edu.au/cw/en/job/53... 🗃️

Two Chinese men in the street, Sydney, 1885-1890, Arthur K. Syer, vintage albumen print. Uploaded to #Wikipedia by @StateLibraryNSW en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese...

"Archives hold many examples of the centrality of paperwork for marginalised groups when rights are unstable or out of reach. They show how migrants use paperwork to imagine rights - to see a right to protection before one exists." Roundtable reflections on the radical history of paperwork 🗃️🎙️

Happy 6 years at UTAS to me! (And thank you to the colleague who saw that this job and I were suited)

Happy that my Tim is in his happy place for a bit - playing with cultural heritage data and working with some nice people!

The secret is out! I'm very excited to be the SLV LAB's latest Creative Technologist-in-Residence! I'm going to be spending the next few months playing around with place-based collections at the State Library of Victoria: https://lab.slv.vic.gov.au/residencies-opportunities

Lovely write-up about the new ‘Shared Connections: Cantonese Stories in Australia’ exhibition developed by Sophie Couchman for the Australian Consulate-General in Guangzhou! (I also had a small hand in the exhibition, and it features my daughter’s story 😊) mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzIy...

Today I took custody of a box of historical materials that were purchased in a Launceston antique shop many years ago – I suspect they came out of the old Sun Hung Ack store. Among the treasures are a collection relating to the Tasmanian See Yip Club (which I knew existed but nothing more!)

Today was my last day of sick leave – on Monday I return to work (0.4FTE) after 4 months off. It was a happy day of errands, lunching with a munchkin and her mum, and chatting with my teenager. I don’t know how my return to work will go, but I’m hopeful that this time I can make it work🤞. #longCOVID

Given how Deloitte and other management consultant firms have inveigled themselves into university governance in Australia and internationally … this stinks

I spent the afternoon representing UTAS Family History at Convict Connections at the Cascades Female Factory, looking out these windows over the walls of the Female Factory to a snowy kunanyi. (It’s on again tomorrow if you want help with convict ancestors!) femalefactory.org.au/event/convic...

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...

‘People could often meet basic needs, but their ability to contribute to their homes, workplaces and communities was limited. Quality of life was also badly affected.‘ #longCOVID theconversation.com/long-covid-i...

Slides from the presentation are available here: https://data.katebagnall.com/files/original/2db20b71bdf63b347d08cc14fbcf5b0f4e9476f0.pdf They include links to some of the digital things I've built for the project such as the fully-searchable version of the Tasmanian Post Office Directories from […]

Such a joy to be working with family historians, community members and our wonderful project team to tell more Chinese Tasmanian histories. Recording to share will come, I hope!

Former pro-democracy Hong Kong lawmaker Ted Hui who is wanted by the Chinese city has been granted asylum in Australia, he said in a social media post, calling on Canberra to do more for those who remain jailed. In full: buff.ly/VsW2qac

I have known this move since before I came to UTAS and to Hobart, but back then I imagined myself riding my bike to work in town, shopping and eating out at lunchtime, and so on. Sigh.

We will soon move to a newly renovated building in town, but it means a desk in an open plan office, not an office with a door and window, and a commute without parking. I fear it effectively means I will rarely be able to work on campus. Another thing lost to this stupid illness. #longCOVID

“Top Australian writers urge Albanese to abolish Job-Ready Graduates, calling their humanities degrees life changing” theconversation.com/top-australi...

Wrote a little piece on the cuts at MCH and the wider war on history in NZ. buttondown.com/unsettling/a...

And here are the entries in the eResources collection: https://eresources.sl.nsw.gov.au/new-south-wales-post-office-directories https://eresources.sl.nsw.gov.au/sydney-telephone-directories https://eresources.sl.nsw.gov.au/glam-name-indexes

Thanks to the State Library of NSW for adding my fully-searchable versions of the NSW Post Office & Sydney Telephone Directories, as well as the GLAM Name Index Search, to their collection of eResources. Yay! That should make it much easier for researchers to find these free resources!

📢 Call for Expressions of Interest: Join the Steering Committee of the Australian Migration History Network amigrationhn.wordpress.com/about/

People are so reluctant to criticise the NLA that they'll probably see it as 'outreach', but it's actually adding new layers of gatekeeping that increase uncertainty around any research use of the Trove API.

Beware of more NLA gaslighting in the latest Australian Historical Association newsletter...

Australia can’t withstand further humanities cuts. Civil society depends on it. While universities have the right to determine their education & research priorities, no one in Australia has a handle on the effects of cuts & their impact on our national skills & knowledge capabilities. bit.ly/3TqI4jn

For 30 years I've been experimenting with ways to see & use the online collections of libraries, archives & museums. I've made useful things, playful things, & weird things. Here's a big list of them for you to explore! https://wraggelabs.com #glam #histodons #digitalhumanities

Hong Kong is marking five years of life under China’s national security law – opposition parties have disbanded, while democracy activists remain in jail or exile.

illustrious museum erecting pedestrian minds completed domestic majesty wraggelabs.com/fotp/?word=i...

Job alert! 3-year contract for a Curator at the Golden Dragon Museum in Bendigo $70-90K www.artshub.com.au/job/curator-...

Good morning from Hobart!

A growing body of scientific evidence shows myalgic encephalomyelitis chronic fatigue syndrome – or ME/CFS – is a biological illness, not a psychological one.

NEW #everydayheritage BLOG POST - The Italian Migrants of Ryde Project, Nadia Iacono @nazinc.bsky.social This blog shares the story of how a determined Italo-Australian woman took on the challenge of recording a swiftly diminishing immigration history in Ryde. everydayheritage.au/blog/the-ita...

Between 2013 and 2020, 43 Twitter bots posted 318,767 tweets containing 270,474 links to resources in Trove. The bots were created by many different people, & had a variety of topics. This history is fading fast, so I jotted down a few notes to remember them […]

My Meanjin debut!!! On Australia’s national security (lol), but from an unusual angle but also the most “imminent threat” that I think Australians should care when looking at China through their security lens: meanjin.com.au/essays/safeg...

"All families generally have the same secrets" - great insights from Assoc Prof Ashley Barnwell - Is it just a matter of time before family secrets are revealed thanks to discoveries from #familyhistoryresearch & #dnatesting ? www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...

It’s important to remember that the proposed cuts at UTAS affect students as well as staff - it’s good to see this attention from Honi Soit (USyd’s student newspaper) honisoit.com/2025/06/univ...