Btw my press funded a small study into best-practices for alt text for illustrations, especially of illustrations of art. The resulting guide is short and clear and available free to download.

Describe your BlueSky account in a single image

Just a reminder that fascists, authoritarians, dictators of all stripes destroy archives— books, museums, databases, &c— because those things provide windows onto a plurality of other ways we might organize the world. And so preserving, defending, and spreading that knowledge harms those regimes.

The jackals are coming for Alberta's public libraries next. #abpoli #cdnpoli

legit lol

Felt fitting to me that one of the last @copim.bsky.social plenary interventions at #UKSG2026 came via @simonxix.com's clear and direct call to remember that, as we have always argued, open access without open infrastructures -- e.g. in libraries, in research -- means little. Such a great talk.

Stephen Lewis eulogizing Jack Layton in 2011: "Inevitably, we fastened on those last memorable lines about 'hope, optimism and love', but the letter was at its heart a manifesto for social democracy"

That you might make something different of yourself, choose to be otherwise, is the greatest imaginable threat to the fascists who wish to order the state, indeed the world, as one big household with one strong father. So an attack on trans folks is an attack on us all. We must defend our neighbors.

The humanities are absolutely vital to a functioning democratic society.

Your daughter is much more likely to inherit your grandpa's shoebox full of old photos than your collection of her (digital) baby photos. Cloud storage providers rise and fall, hard drives die, and file formats become inaccessible. Printed photos mostly endure.

F*&G^&* ProQuest

Plus a little Danielle Steele from your aunt's collection, very appropriate at age nine

The Ford government believes in free speech, but only when it's government approved. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

We are HIRING! The Open Library of Humanities is seeking a PhD student to assist with editorial, marketing and technical duties. The position is fully funded and open to funded PhD students at CHASE institutions. Deadline 📅 31/03: www.openlibhums.org/news/883/

📚 If you are someone who is not super aware of Advanced Search options, then I guess you should read this if you can stand Substack (which you maybe shouldn't). Also, talk to a librarian (even online) to ask if you're actually looking in the right place. Many databases aren't searchable via Google

look at this baby beaver and feel better briefly (@ wildheartrescue on TT)

ALA is disappointed that the House Committee on Education & Workforce moved forward dangerous federal book banning legislation yesterday. HR 7661 contains vague, confusing, and overly broad language, inviting government censorship. More from ALA: www.ala.org/news/2026/03... (1/2)

I made a tiny tool for quickly sharing small datasets (< ~1000 rows) without uploading any data to a server. 🔗 ziptbl.com It compresses the data into the link itself, so there’s no account, hosting, or storage layer involved. Here's Florence Nightingale's famous 📊 data: ziptbl.com#d=eNpdlE-LGz...

Sitting in my office eating yogurt with a knife because I can’t find a spoon and none of my colleagues can find a spoon and there are no spoons feels a bit like the whole moment right now

Watching what's happening in Cuba, I say again -- Canada must support Cuba. noraloreto.substack.com/p/canada-mus...

The Library is looking for its next Innovator in Residence! Through April 10, the Library invites technologists, artists and other creative visionaries to propose imaginative proof of concepts designed to help the public connect with digital Library materials. newsroom.loc.gov/news/library...

On today's episode of "Instantly Believeable"...

This is a crucial initiative for folks in Canada interested in speaking out about AI tools and their impacts. You have two more weeks!

GREAT folks here!

holy shit

If you enjoyed the first edition, get ready for the 2nd Canadian Open Science Conference!!🍁 #savethedate : 27-29 October, @uottawa.ca more info and CfA coming soon ! sign up for the mailing list, you don't want to miss it 💫 #AcademicSky #OpenScience #ScholComm @stefhaustein.scholcommlab.ca

Odysseus had his crew lash him to the mast to keep him from doing an interview with Chotiner.

Calling all technologists, artists and other creative visionaries: The Library of Congress has opened the call for the next Innovator in Residence! Apply by 2pm ET April 10 newsroom.loc.gov/news/library...

One option that is available to you right now is to listen to Tori Amos's "Hey Jupiter," the Dakota version.

Join us on April 22, 2026, at 6  p.m. as we discuss queer food at the @museemccordstewart.bsky.social www.musee-mccord-stewart.ca/en/activitie... @arsenalpulp.bsky.social @mcgillarts.bsky.social @mcgillumedia.bsky.social

all of this happening in the same 24 hour period is completely nuts, no one is doing any actual due diligence here at all

Following the lies and hatred targeting trans folks during the State of the Union Address, numerous republican House representatives introduced a bill that would create A NATIONWIDE BOOK BAN. Here's what it is and what to do: bookriot.com/hr7661-book-...

motherf*cking archivists out here like magic

Kansas is sending letters to trans people telling them that their licenses will be revoked as of tomorrow and that they risk arrest for driving on a suspended license. This is pure cruelty. www.erininthemorning.com/p/kansas-sen...

“knowledge produced from nowhere,” via @laurenpressley.bsky.social 📜📚

chicago is the best city in america and it's not even close

Born #onthisday in 1868, the US sociologist + civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois. Celebrate with a look at the stunning hand-drawn "infographics" he made with his students, depicting conditions of African-American life in 1900: publicdomainreview.org/collection/w... #otd #BlackHistoryMonth

Hockey on Henri-Julien Street at Pine Ave. East, Montreal Frederick Taylor 1948

please RT! if you've ever contacted a journal or publisher to have your name changed on a publication, a friend and colleague of mine wants to hear about your experience! drexel.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_... #phdchat #academicchatter

This is a new phenomenon and business model exploiting gaps in publishing. The cartel uses fake names to produce AI-written or plagiarised papers. Reference lists contain 100s of paid entries.If papers are retracted, no real authors are punished, and citations still count, even from retracted papers

I'm open for work again! I'm looking for interesting opportunities; want to work with me? My experience includes web archiving and digital preservation, devops, and internal developer tooling. I'd love to put that experience to work for you and your team.

@paulbarrett1.bsky.social and I are thrilled to announce the 2026 DH@Guelph Summer Workshops! We've got an excellent line up this year (UX, Feminist Making, & Soundwalks, oh my!) & will be announcing our keynote next week. Please help us spread the word!! Register here: tinyurl.com/DHGuelphSW26

As we used to say back in the day: THIIIIIIIIIIS

Just published in College & Research Libraries News! 🎉 “Tangled Terms: How We Talk About Transformative Agreements”: doi.org/10.5860/crln.... We argue for more caution with the language used when talking about the "value" of TAs.

I just read Michelle Caswell and Bergis Jules' on funding for community archives, and you should too. Their argument: we need a strategy for large-scale private philanthropy to sustain community archives and ensure the survival of the stories they tell. medium.com/community-ar...

I don’t know who needs to hear Jesse Jackson leading the kids on Sesame Street in this beautiful call-and-response reminding them that every child is somebody, but here it is

Major Owens was a librarian who helped found the NY Social Responsibilities Round Table. He went on to become a NY State Senator and then a US Rep, following Shirley Chisolm. He shepherded the Americans with Disabilities Act through the House. #BlackHistoryMonth www.bklynlibrary.org/blog/2021/05...

I fail to see how this is different than Russia stealing Ukrainian kids.

this is a well executed and interesting study. The conclusions are worrisome, even though the absolute amounts are small for now.

Much of my youth revolved around the website ZineLibrary. It went down around Occupy in a massive loss for a movement whose ideas and knowledge mostly doesn't circulate online but in person. Anyway I've put it back online with a *thousand* anarchist zines: zinelibrary.org