A big week! Fine Books & Collections published my article about "From the Brink," Cornell University Library's exhibition series highlighting collections and research that help us think deeply about sustainability in a rapidly changing world. www.finebooksmagazine.com/author/e-hav... And... (1/2)

Thrilled to announce publication of "A Perfect Machine: The Adams Power Press" by The Legacy Press! www.thelegacypress.com Grippers! Press sizes! Industrial transistion in the U.S.! Book history scholars, bibliographers, and historians of technology, gender, and the 19th c., geek out with me

"Codicological genomes". Not a term I expected to hear, but I guess it will become part of the medievalist vocabulary now. Great summary of an intriguing study. (And no, fellow codicologists, you still do not have to wear gloves. The DNA in your books is too degraded to do any damage.) #MedievalSky

Andrew Curry@andrewcurry.com · 3w ago

Ancient parchments, covered in ancient disease DNA! Researchers led by @ucddublin.bsky.social's @gingerhowley.bsky.social recover the genes of a deadly animal pathogen from medieval manuscripts. @science.org

Yawn. Wake me when AI can do my dishes.

Jahnavi is a historian of science, the Founding Director of the Science Gallery Bengaluru and one smart cookie #histSTM 📜

Thomas Spiteri@tespiteri.bsky.social · 4w ago

I enjoyed speaking to Dr Jahnavi Phalkey about India’s place in the history of modern science, the ways in which that history has been constructed, & how the pursuit of nuclear physics became intertwined with a newly independent nation’s efforts to define its own identity. linktr.ee/thehpspodcast

#academicsky #celebratebookchapter Let's celebrate the edited book chapter. What is an edited book chapter that you're particularly proud of or you think deserves more readers? "Women’s Work in the 19th-Century Economy of Pornography" in Making Impressions: Women in Printing and Publishing (2020)

Leon Jackson@drleonj.bsky.social · last mo.

#academicsky let's celebrate the edited book chapter. What is an edited book chapter that you're particularly proud of, or you think deserves more readers? #celebratebookchapter I really enjoyed researching & writing this chapter on the use of threatening letters in C19 America ☠️ ✍️

"The Constitution is the boss of everyone, including the president." Kim Wehle, U Balt law faculty, this am in news interview. She sure knows how to throw out a sound bite!

Hiring a new full-time colleague in the School of Library and Information Science in Iowa. Particularly well-suited (but not limited) to special collections librarians or academic library instruction librarians who want to switch to full-time teaching. 📜 jobs.uiowa.edu/faculty/view...

Every idea that captures the collective imagination is usually much, *much* older than we think it is. I'd place that stake in the ground as one of the starting points of humanistic inquiry. "Novelty" is frequently an intriguing deception.

Daniel Bellingradt@dbellingradt.bsky.social · 2mo ago

The idea of collecting it all, store it in new form, and later create new meaning from this, can already be found in the attempts to build universal libraries (16 century), and later by the encyclopedists of the eighteenth century. This is not a 19th century thing.

The Smithsonian should put bright “Forbidden History” signs on the displays Trump doesn’t like.

Eileen Clancy 🧿@clancyny.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Trump Orders Warnings Placed at ‘Inaccurate’ Smithsonian History Museum By Robin Pogrebin and Zachary Small President Trump said the signage at the National Museum of American History would correct what a ... White House report described as “extreme political activism.” @zacharyhsmall.bsky.social

Ugh.

Katie Birkwood@girlinthe.bsky.social · 2mo ago

In things I wish I hadn't seen, but now I have and you will too... New research published in the Journal of the Institute of Conservation recommends PPE for handling all red rot because of the risk of heavy metal contamination (lead, arsenic, cadmium). #GLAMS 📚 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

1. We—@eduede.bsky.social, @mjcrockett.bsky.social, Kevin Gross, and I—have a new preprint on the arXiv today, based on ideas that emerged during an @sfiscience.bsky.social workshop in November 2024: The unintended consequences of large language models as a labor-augmenting technology in science.

The unintended consequences of large language models as a labor-augmenting technology in science

As a labor-augmenting technology, large language models (LLMs) have the potential to accelerate scientific activity across the research pipeline. But even if LLMs perform on par with human experts at ...

arxiv.org

A man cleaning a car in Euston aims a bucket of dirty water at the road but it just goes over his shoes. Man: Didn't go well. His wife: No.

my kind of Jubilee, the Japanese national team vs. 100 kids

Chilling case of zines being used as evidence to convict anti-ICE protestors of “material support to terrorists” “The Sotos’ crimes largely stem from a ‘printing press’ that the FBI noticed during the initial raid of their home: a standard office printer, a paper cutter and a book binder”

‘This is injustice’: how leftist zines were used to sentence anti-ICE protesters to decades in prison

Advocates sound alarm after zines were used as evidence to convict protesters of terrorism charges tied to 2025 protest at Texas ICE facility

theguardian.com

🚨 The CHSTM is offering 13(!!) new dissertation completion fellowships! Each provides $15k for three months of research for PhD candidates at US schools. Residence at SHI is optional, but comes with a place in our research community also - we’d be delighted to welcome any fellows! More info here:

It's getting real! Just got layout of dust jacket and text for A Perfect Machine: The Adams Power Press, to be published in 2026 by The Legacy Press. Woohoo! Listed among some greats in forthcoming books: www.thelegacypress.com/forthcoming-...

Sweltering in the UK heatwave?? Why not visit your Local Archival Repository! Low temperatures and humidity GUARANTEED* And we throw in the history for free😍 *by regulatory standard BS4971:2017 Archives - Where the records are cool and so are you.

We did it! Another sold out night at Carnegie Hall in the books. Thank you to everyone who was a part of my show: The Hidden Soundtrack of America. As I said onstage, WE get to choose the parts of America’s history that we celebrate.

@sarahebull.bsky.social, Selling Sexual Knowledge: Medical Publishing and Obscenity in Victorian Britain, @universitypress.cambridge.org www.cambridge.org/us/universit...

Selling Sexual Knowledge | Cambridge University Press & Assessment

cambridge.org

Hey, #Boston friends! I'll be giving a talk on David Walker at Boston Public Library on 21 May, and I'd love it if you were able to join me! The talk is free, and you can sign up at the link below! 🗃️

David Walker's Declaration of Independence

Join the Boston Public Library's Special Collections for a talk from scholar Dr. Leon Jackson entitled David Walker’s Declaration of Independence: Building Community and Fighting Racism in Antebellum ...

bpl.bibliocommons.com

Regina Martínez Lorenzo is the first Mexican woman to compete in Olympics cross-country skiing. Other racers waited at the finish line to hug her. Brazil’s Bruna Moura, an 3 medalists, Karlsson, Ebba Andersson of Sweden, and Jessie Diggins from the US. She learned to ski while in med school in MN.

∙ ᴘᴀᴜʟɪɴᴀ ∙@iamthepaulina.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Glad you brought this up - this Mexican is the first and only in this sport, and everyone was impressed by her determination - the USA gold medalists were so sweet, she removed her skis and hugged her dearly. The MSNBC cut out all of it. Why? That's the best of the #Olympics! empathy and love.

Things I hear on campus as we continue to adapt to AI. Plenty try to incorporate it. Others: - med school faculty going back to oral exams - comp sci faculty building no-network linux systems with IT for exams in programming courses

thank you for everything you did for we here and for the library and information science profession, fobazi. you were an incredible friend, thinker, writer, supporter. you’ll be dearly missed 🤍

Fobazi M. Ettarh@fobettarh.bsky.social · 8mo ago

I may have a stroke. Someone said protests don’t belong in church and it took every ounce of self-censure within me not to say “Deborah you are literally a Protestant.” A PROTESTant. I assume they think Luther was nailing Bed, Bath, & Beyond coupons to the door.

Just giant dabbers flying around while people are dancing. I am unsure what they are celebrating, but giant ink-balls were used in #earlymodern printing offices in the last step before printing. Such dabbers consist of pieces of leather filled with wool or hair and a wooden handle. #bookhistory

Looks like Ice has united most of the country into kind of a general strike for the next day or two.

Last term I tried an experiment: I walked into my Tech and Design Ethics class, admitted that I had *no idea* what to do about ChatGPT - so I would let them figure it out. As in: their first project was to decide and write the ChatGPT policy for the class. Here's what happened:

Interested in coming to Champaign-Urbana and using the collections at @illinoisrbml.bsky.social ? We have a $3k visiting scholar program for that! Applications accepted beginning Nov 17. www.library.illinois.edu/rbx/research...

Here we go! Thousands of shiny, happy, people holding hands and singing their heads off in Melbourne. 🎉😀🦘 #PubChoir #Melbourne #Rem #Music #Singing #ShinyHappyPeople www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVcy...

2800 'Shiny Happy People' (R.E.M.) singing at Pub Choir

YouTube video by Pub Choir

youtube.com