It’s actually shocking that @newcastleuni.bsky.social would try to dress up granting academic legitimacy in exchange for what is doubtless an enormous financial kickback as a recognition of this politically corrupt oligarch’s “contributions” to “conservation.” www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Backlash as Indian oil heir made professor of sustainability by Newcastle University

Role for Anant Ambani, son of India’s richest person, who also runs a controversial mega-zoo, met with incredulity

theguardian.com

"Is plastic pollution getting worse?" It's the question we get asked more than any other. After 15 years of data from Lord Howe Island, we finally have a straight answer. 🧵 🔗 agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

I’ve had this convo privately enough times in the last week to go public: I don’t think there is any valuable way to use AI in a history classroom.

I’m sad to learn that Wendell Berry has died, but also happy to again think about the poetry he gave to the world. My favorite of his is “Manifesto: the Mad Farmer Liberation Front.” I often think of the line, ‘Be joyful / Though you have considered all the facts.’

Charmingly, Northumberland Zoo has a western saloon town populated by guinea pigs (naturally it also includes a gallows so that guinea pig criminals can be brought to justice)

Yearning (2026)

I am under one month to dissertation submission and it’s the point where I’m having dreams where I just scream for hours

In case you are an academic who is currently being gaslit into believing that you're a caveman who wants their students to be jobless if you resist allowing AI in your classrooms... I present to you Berkeley Law's response, which can be summarized as "Fuck off directly into the sun."

Artificial Intelligence Policy

Effective Summer 2026 Purpose Future lawyers may need to use artificial intelligence (“AI”) fluently. But the current state of the technology requires that AI use be coupled with the cognitive […]

law.berkeley.edu

Happy to share this statement from the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, which responds to recent comments about my position as Senior Lecturer in Eighteenth Century Studies and work I supervise. Solidarity with all marginalised academics under attack by the peddlers of a culture war.

Also a lot of what researchers might view as a small/annoying favour are either routine, easier than you’d think, or are actually interesting! So ask librarians and archivists for small/annoying favours! (Just be prepared to hear “it may take us a couple days” or “no” if it really isn’t possible)

Dr Vanessa@hpsvanessa.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I emailed a library asking for a small but annoying favour, and they did me a big favour and it's provided absolutely crucial data for a new project and publication, and slopAI could never and yay for humans, and librarians and archivists in particular.

Do I know anyone looking to become a Director of Library, Archives and Learning Services & University Librarian? If so, University of York is hiring. Salary is Grade 10 (£90-115,500/annually, which is an exceptional salary for the cost of living): www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DSK745/d...

“Stop doing just one more calculation and write” 💀

Mary Lewis@profmarylewis.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Leaving this note on my computer for tomorrow.

This is a great early label in a volume of 17c Catholic tracts in English, from a parochial lending library in Westmorland (@ncllibspeccoll.bsky.social Hev. Tracts vol. 37)

Spiderpaper, spiderpaper, does whatever a spiderpaper does…

I want to highlight one thing the FT article says near the end: GBS model is currently being subsidised, A LOT, by the british taxpayer. This is because of the expected student loan default rate and how the 'you don't pay it back' structure works over time. They are bilking the state AND students.

The UNHCR archives in Geneva are at risk; reading room already closed - and there's a much broader 'humanitarian archive emergency' ongoing with aid budget cuts. www.aretenews.com/unhcr-refuge...

As aid funds shrink, archivists warn of risks to the humanitarian record

UNHCR's archives are a test case for humanitarians struggling to preserve institutional memory in an era of retrenchment.

aretenews.com

Opening this up to the palaeography hive mind because I’ve been staring at the word underlined in red for hours (slept on it, too) and it may kill me

You could write an entire story revolving on an "Undead Capital Gains Tax" as your plot device. "Well, Vlad, I gather you want to sell your shares which you purchased in 1875. Now, because you are over 200 years old, we have to have a conversation about this." "Ah. No! I do not drink...tea."

A perfect summation of the joy & despair that so many PGRs are being asked to hold simultaneously right now. I may be biased (Sam is my partner), but UK universities are letting the incredible talent they’ve invested in just go to waste, and it’s criminal. @newcastleucu.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk

Dr Sam Bailey@18thcenturysam.bsky.social · 2mo ago

My graduation on Friday was a wonderful but bittersweet experience. I have long called the English department at Newcastle my home, and my fellow scholars there are so dear to my heart. Seeing the culmination of three degrees over nine years has felt like a homecoming...

What would be super cool is if people stopped inventing apps and training robots to ruin our lives and instead invented a type of cat food that doesn't squirt ungodly gravy all over my wrist when I open the package it comes in.

Graduation day! @18thcenturysam.bsky.social

To the inevitable cries of “just digitize everything, then;” not an answer. Making digital facsimiles accessible requires huge investment: staff, metadata, preservation. Orgs are currently not funded to meet these needs. While digital objects are great, they’ll never replace looking at originals.

Amalia S. Levi, PhD@amaliasl.bsky.social · 3mo ago

📢 Once more for the people in the back: - Most [more than 95%] of archives have not been digitized. - Most of humanity's knowledge and memory is *not* reachable by LLMs. - Believing that AI can provid you with comprehensive, definitive, "intelligent" results is folly.

I have worked in 5 archives, some well-funded, and NONE had their entire collections even inventoried or all donations processed, much less finding aids or catalogued. Most were working on it, to varying degrees of success. I worked in one that had donations still to be processed from the 1960s.

Kathleen E. Kennedy@themedievaldrk.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Actually want to amplify this further--95% haven't been digitized and even beyond that, archival CATALOGUING is its own patchy horrorshow of varying strategies, standards, and funding levels. To DIGITIZE something you have to FIND IT first!

Many more people in universities will lose their jobs if nothing changes in the way HE is (under) funded. Even more prospective students will not be able to go to university, especially here in the Norheast. @bphillipsonmp.bsky.social @markfergusonmp.bsky.social @chionwurah.bsky.social

Deeply saddened to learn of the loss of my dear friend Satan, the Prince of Lies. Though we often disagreed about matters such as the appropriate role of torture in the afterlife, I will most remember how his quick wit and affable nature made our weekly golf outings a ritual. He will be missed.

“I began with the desire to speak ill of the dead.”

“Many reviews understood Greenidge’s intervention, even when they disagreed with parts of her interpretation, but the current controversy appears to mostly ignore it, and the Times foregrounds a handful of disputed points.”

Alexis Coe@alexiscoe.bsky.social · 3mo ago

I wrote about Kerri Greenidge because the vague-accusation-to-career-ending-punishment math isn’t mathing. Show us the work. substack.com/home/post/p-...

Very proud of @18thcenturysam.bsky.social, who has been awarded a prize from @hassfacultyncl.bsky.social for her smashing thesis on erotic books!

Every time a [CITATION NEEDED] gets an author, title and page number, an angel gets its wings

UK research at risk of ‘irreversible’ harm, says British Academy head. Susan Smith urges next prime minister to commission review of higher education and research. Free to read. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-c...

UK research at risk of ‘irreversible’ harm, says British Academy head - Research Professional News

Susan Smith urges next prime minister to commission review of higher education and research

researchprofessionalnews.com