Dr. Ben Mitchell
@drlibraryben.bsky.social
(he/they) Scholar. Geek. Nova Scotian. 🌍 Libraries (#GLAM), medical humanities, history/public history, neurodiversity and disability studies. 🌍 Geekier at: @willow0wisp.bsky.social
Did Medieval Castles Really Have Dungeons? www.medievalists.net/2026/08/did-... #medieval #castles
Did Medieval Castles Really Have Dungeons? - Medievalists.net
Dark underground dungeons are closely associated with medieval castles, but historical evidence reveals a very different story about imprisonment in the Middle Ages.
medievalists.net
Fall is right around the corner. If you need someone to come into your LIS course to talk about scholcomm or e-resource librarianship I am available. I am currently making a zine on e-resources for librarians and students.
What developed capitalist states often deride as *rampant corruption* in the more peripheral economies is merely a historical gap; the latter have simply not yet legitimised such practices as *lobbying*. Brilliant investigation at the @lrb.co.uk www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...
Peter Geoghegan and Lucas Amin · ‘This looks absolutely rubbish’: Palantir and the NHS
A decade ago Palantir was largely unknown in the UK. It now holds public contracts worth hundreds of millions of pounds...
lrb.co.uk
Inspired by the summer film and Discourse, some freshman are going to show up to register for classes in Ancient Greek and Ancient History only to find that those courses and faculty no longer exist.
🥳 Happy to report our co-ed collection, me + @ruthdav.bsky.social & @evecolpus.bsky.social, now has 40k+ hits & is being cited a lot 🥳. Fully #OA & incl: @katebradleyhistory.bsky.social @chrismillard83.bsky.social @sarahcrook.bsky.social @jennycrane.bsky.social ++. link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
What I love about this painting is how it conveys the importance of the early c18th in the Victorian imagination as the time of ghosts, irrevocably beyond living memory. There would have been people still alive born in the late c18th, after all
Mika Paananen@painmike1.bsky.social · 4d agoAdelaide Claxton, “The Party on the Stairs”(1875). #SpookySunday
"It did not comment on how the tribunal reached the decision that the plagiarism was accidental. Documents seen by the Financial Times, including two essays submitted by the third-year student, show nearly half of the pages of O’Reilly’s published article had been plagiarised."
Charles West@pseudo-isidore.bsky.social · 4d ago
I work at a public library. People who want to use AI seem to have no trouble doing so. People who don't want to use AI have a harder time. I crowdsourced and then finalized this document "How to disable or avoid intrusive AI" and then gave it a short URL: notoai.org Please pass along if it's useful
Monotropism After Dark: Why Your Brain May Need Time to Settle Before Sleep by @laurahellfeld.bsky.social laurahellfeld.co.uk/monotropism-...
Monotropism After Dark: Why Your Brain May Need Time to Settle Before Sleep – Laura the Neurodivergent Nurse Consulting
laurahellfeld.co.uk
As autistic ppl increasingly become aware of being autistic, those who learn from blogs & social media tend to have *more accurate* autism knowledge: link.springer.com/article/10.1... but they don't rely on social media to make decision but to find community: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.... 5/
Brief Report: Learning About Autism: Is the Source of Autism Knowledge Associated with Differences in Autism Knowledge, Autism Identity, and Experiences of Stigma - Journal of Autism and Developmental...
People on the autism spectrum can learn about autism from various sources, likely differing in the information, portrayal, and discussion they offer. The present study investigates where autistic peop...
link.springer.com
Calling out systemic bias against autistic ppl's physical ill health threatens the career of autistic women like @dr-t-a-mcdonald.bsky.social: www.thetransmitter.org/when-autisti..., leaving a powerful man of "extreme male brain" fame offering to try to fill gap: www.theguardian.com/society/2026...
When autistic kids grow up
An autistic researcher’s paper called attention to a huge disparity in autism funding research between children and adults. It nearly derailed her life.
thetransmitter.org
*That study was by by @drsarahgrant.bsky.social. By @dr-t-a-mcdonald.bsky.social I was preparing to mention @thetransmitter.bsky.social series on her dismissal in aftermath of researching structural discrimination re: physical ill health of autistic adults w/o ID: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Mind the NIH-Funding Gap: Structural Discrimination in Physical Health–Related Research for Cognitively Able Autistic Adults - Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
Autistic adults experience disparities in physical health and health care access. A major barrier to addressing these disparities is a lack of federal funding for research on this topic. In seeking fu...
link.springer.com
Alright guess my next deep dive is gonna be Black libraries
Fugitive Libraries
In what ways do libraries act as ‘instruments of social control,’ and how could they be made into instruments of restoration, reparation, or transformation?
placesjournal.org
UofT features prominently in @breachmedia.ca article. 2 points to consider: 1. UofT initiated network of communications between 30 universities/colleges across Canada. 2.Rather than facilitate existing policies on academic freedom/Charter rights, strategies were shared to actively suppress rights.
Nathan Kalman-Lamb@nkalamb.bsky.social · 6d agoNew reporting from @breachmedia.ca shows that Canadian universities operated a secret national effort to coordinate surveillance and policing of anti-genocide activism and encampments. breachmedia.ca/canadian-uni...
As passed at ALA Annual 2026, here is The Librarians’ and Library Workers’ Bill of Rights. @amlibraryassoc.bsky.social calls on library systems at all levels to formally adopt the Bill of Rights as a guiding document for policy and practice. www.ala.org/advocacy/int...
Seeing these #accessibility supports at the @wellcomecollection.bsky.social #mademyday! I love that they are freely available to borrow, and staff were welcoming and encouraged their use. I would love to see this in every museum!
“As a librarian, I think it’s important to see this as advancing digital literacy and helping people reclaim their autonomy over whether they want to use AI tools." techcrunch.com/2026/07/25/l...
Librarians are hosting viral 'Avoiding AI' workshops for people who are fed up with Big Tech | TechCrunch
At libraries around the country, "Avoiding AI" workshops have elicited unprecedented demand.
techcrunch.com
In "American Independence as a Supply Chain Crisis: The Case of Nova Scotia 1783-94," Patrick Callaway writes about how post-revolution Nova Scotia relied on illegal American grain imports to survive. Originally published on: @ageofrevolutions.bsky.social niche-canada.org/2026/07/21/a... #cdnhist
American Independence as a Supply Chain Crisis: The Case of Nova Scotia 1783-94
Faced with starvation, post-Revolution Nova Scotia bypassed British trade bans to import essential grain from the United States.
niche-canada.org
Are we just collecting lots of little AI-proof-shaped stamps? New post: kucharski.substack.com/p/ai-mathema...
AI mathematicians might be correct, but that doesn’t mean they’re useful
Solving conjectures and collecting stamps
kucharski.substack.com
Time for another bit of book-buying!
Duke University Press@dukepress.bsky.social · 2w agoIn "How Dungeons & Dragons Changed the Way We Play," @aarontram.bsky.social reveals how popular culture influenced the design of the iconic tabletop game and how the game’s legacy, in turn, influences game design today. Read the intro for free: buff.ly/jLA2ctp
At libraries around the country, "Avoiding AI" workshops have elicited unprecedented demand.
Librarians are hosting viral 'Avoiding AI' workshops for people who are fed up with Big Tech | TechCrunch
At libraries around the country, "Avoiding AI" workshops have elicited unprecedented demand.
techcrunch.com
Keith David on his incredible career: ‘I want you to understand Black men as full-scope human beings’
Keith David on his incredible career: ‘I want you to understand Black men as full-scope human beings’
The hard-working character actor has over 400 screen credits, from The Thing to Platoon to Rick and Morty, and he isn’t slowing down any time soon
theguardian.com
networks.h-net.org/group/review...
Bullard on Katz, 'Delivering Knowledge: Jewish Midwives and Hidden Healing in Early Modern Europe' | H-Net
Katz, Jordan R.. Delivering Knowledge: Jewish Midwives and Hidden Healing in Early Modern Europe. : Stanford University Press, 2026. 306 pp. $30.00 (paper), ISBN 9781503646391. Reviewed by Kyna Noelle...
networks.h-net.org
Our second piece is out! A reflection by @jenniegouck.bsky.social & me on the online conference we organised in Feb, Thinking of the Children: Book Bans, Censorship and Literature for Young People (belated, huge thanks to our presenters & 370+ registered participants!) muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/articl...
![Screenshot from a short article. The first part reads:
Won't Somebody Think of the Children?
by JENNIFER GOUCK and SARAH PYKE
In January 2025, just four days into the new Trump administration, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announced that they had ended the so-called “book ban hoax.” Eleven pending civil rights complaints related to book bans in public schools were dismissed and the position of book ban coordinator—a role created by the Biden administration to address intellectual freedom violations in schools and federally funded institutions—was eliminated.
But book banning is not a hoax. It’s all too real. As writer and activist Kelly Jensen reminds us:
The young people [in the United
States] who will be entering college in the 2026–2027 school year were in the eighth grade when book banning began its latest national increase. For young people in some states…, this means they’ve never had access to a wide swath of books on topics like racism, gender, puberty, or sexuality that their peers in other states have.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:74rl7nhl643l4expcziiheax/bafkreihi4nfheuuthu7e4xx4cavoawjsulcg3vtdgzetx3xwwg4mx7eq7q)
Today is the deadline to apply for the Secretary position! If you’re interested in taking on the position of Association Secretary, please send an email to capalibrarians@capalacbes.org.
