Hey fellow folks who work in libraries: does your library charge admission for special collections open house type events where there is no lecture component?
James Truitt
@linguistory.bsky.social
Digital archivist at Swarthmore College. Testing out bluesky; more active on Mastodon. Good at regular expressions; still working on irregular ones. https://jamestruitt.com/
When we talk about the importance of funding libraries and library workers - this is the result of being down just *six* people across the entire city of Chicago. Wherever you live, libraries have been running on shoestrings for years and years. Fighting for funding improves service you use!
Block Club Chicago@blockclubchi.bsky.social · 15h agoThousands of books are piling up in Chicago libraries due to staffing shortage. blockclubchi.co/3TFy5Kj
This is not a joke. This is a screenshot of the actual case management software used by Massachusetts' 11 District Attorneys. Must-read work here by @nasser.wiki nasser.blog/dial-up-just...
Daaaamn. “AI is the asbestos we're shovelling into the walls of our technological society. Our descendants will spend generations digging it out again, and the longer the bubble goes on without popping, the longer it will take to repair the damage." www.thenerve.news/p/cory-docto...
Cory Doctorow: The people who tell you ‘AI is changing everything’ are lying
It has become impossible to tell managers mesmerised by artificial intelligence that the tools are not, in fact, helpful. So employees just play along with the fiction to keep their jobs, writes our t...
thenerve.news
📚📜 Hey #archives / #memoryWorker friends! The Southern Memory Workers just opened applications for their new program An archives-training-for-non-archivists, this focuses on folks working in #socialJustice orgs in the US South www.southernmemoryworkers.org/programs/sav...
Save Your Progress — Southern Memory Workers
southernmemoryworkers.org
"Oh, I didn't read that far." The email was two sentences of 5 or fewer words, what are you even DOING
I do love the idea of a group of anointed language keepers from all the Indo-European languages meeting under cover of darkness at some forsaken crossroads to consult a copy of Pokorny.
Rick Caruso’s Private Fire Crew@amandasmith.bsky.social · yesterdayEvery fiber of my being is vibrating with desire to reply “no, you are the first. This is groundbreaking. Boosting for visibility” even though I know it would get me banned from r/askhistorians
Oy, chatbots + genealogists make for some really dreadful reference requests. Today we got one where the bot had told a patron that their ancestor was "explicitly cited" for doing X; it gave a quote from a transcript of the minutes, linked to the source, & spun a few ¶s of fluff on the significance
I'm just gonna say: it somewhat baffles me that people who are understandably skeptical of opaque LLMs as legitimate sources of information will suddenly go full on "the computer KNOWS" when they are using opaque tools to "detect" AI. The computer does not know.
Susanna Kearsley@susannakearsley.bsky.social · yesterday❤️ Gillian Green, publisher at Tor Bramble, told The Bookseller: “HM Wolfe has confirmed that Daggermouth was written entirely without AI. We stand behind our author, and we do not recognise third-party AI detection tools as a fair or reliable measure of authenticity when used on their own.”
For all my fellow summer Moby Dick readers
McSweeney's@mcsweeneys.net · 5d ago"Look, I’ve got nothing against Queequeg. He’s a nice guy. And he can spy a whale spout in a hurricane. And hit a nickel-sized moving target in open water in one steel stroke. But all those 'biggee' tattoos? Tell me they don’t scream 'diversity hire.'"
Two households, unalike in dignity, One fell prey to slop, one with fair Gritty
Current A/V backlog headache: we have 3 lecture series across 6 cassettes & 2 years by Bernard Phillips. Except that, if the inventory is to be believed, Bernard Phillips is only on the A sides. The B sides are all lectures by Barnard Walton. So it's Bernard on the A's and Barnard on the B's. 🫠
First came framing loan caps as protecting students by pressuring universities to keep costs down, with the likely outcome of pushing low-income students out of school. Here’s another policy framed as “helping,” but again premised on exclusion-- protecting students from "low-return” jobs
The New Republic@newrepublic.com · 3d agoPresident Trump is banning students majoring in degrees that don’t make enough money from taking out college loans. Degrees for social work, art, religious studies, teaching aides, and music will be hit the hardest. trib.al/aaAEu6v
yiddish cooking shows are the best, go make some black and white cookies and chase them down with an egg cream www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrgP...
This is what I mean when quote post stuff w/ “belief: still today’s issue.” The vast majority of true things you are going to know about reality you are going to know by believing the testimony of someone else. Consequently, “critical thinking” almost always means “evaluating credibility.”
Julian Sanchez@normative.bsky.social · 2d agoMillions of people have an absolutely insane concept of “critical thinking” that means “making a fully independent judgment on complex questions you are, if you’re at all honest with yourself, comically incompetent to evaluate & demand years of specialized training.”
They're so dangerously intoxicating: making novices feel expert and senior staff feel young again, filling you with the promise of your own unearned competence across any domain.
It’s almost as it never works to tell people to use “critically” or “with caution” a given technology known to fail for particular uses. One might suggest making the company itself responsible for refusing to give directions in certain conditions.
The New York Times@nytimes.com · 4d agoThree teenage boys printed directions for a hike on a trail in British Columbia, Canada that Google Maps estimated to be over five hours. In reality, their hike weeks ago lasted at least 12 hours and required the intervention of rescue crews, according to the Lions Bay Search and Rescue team.
here is another response to “well AI is good at ___” —the race to make LLMs the omniscient multitool is diverting resources and attention from the bespoke models like this protein folder, because a) most people don’t know the difference and b) this is about selling a product.
Dan McQuillan@danmcquillan.bsky.social · 6d agoAlphaFold was always bait-and-switch; now Google confirms it. A hyper-narrow bioinformatrics model with actual science bolted on whose guesses can be experimentally checked was never a licence for socially-applied slop at scale, but it's done its job. Effort transferred to LLMs.
I love the term "folk forensics"—and indeed, many cloying tells of AI use—like lists of threes, words deemed statistically likely to be LLM output, and em dashes—are mere superficialities. Not only that, they distract us from the underlying logic of textual production in the 21st century.
Matthew Kirschenbaum@mkirschenbaum.bsky.social · 5d agoRaise your hand if you look forward to a cultural future that consists of policing every artist, performer, entertainer, or author whom you love and admire for the slightest whiff of “AI,” defined by vibes and whatever set of folk forensics is currently in circulation.
The last library job search I was on had over 200 applicants. We had to narrow those to 10-15 for 1st round interviews. If you’re really excited about a position PLEASE use your cover letter to tell the committee why you’re right for the role. They need help seeing this is the perfect fit for you!
The labor librarian@laborlibrarian.bsky.social · last wk.I know I’m officially old because I finally see the value of cover letters. Related: #mlis grads, I am literally begging you to read the job posting before applying. I want so badly to give y’all a chance. But you have to prove you know what job you’re applying for (🧵)
‼️ALERT: KOSA is moving next week to the Senate Commerce Committee for markup! Call your reps today, again tomorrow, and all weekend leaving messages opposing this dangerous censorship bill. www.badinternetbills.com
Bad Internet Bills
All of the bad internet bills. One website.
badinternetbills.com
Harrison Ford, the actor behind loveable scoundrels Han Solo and Indiana Jones, started his career as an on-set carpenter. That makes him a roguelike deckbuilder.
About to share this on the Rutgers MI discord in hopes it helps my peers.
The labor librarian@laborlibrarian.bsky.social · last wk.I know I’m officially old because I finally see the value of cover letters. Related: #mlis grads, I am literally begging you to read the job posting before applying. I want so badly to give y’all a chance. But you have to prove you know what job you’re applying for (🧵)
UPDATE: After the publication of this piece, Google sent 404 Media a statement saying it was “rolling back this feature in Google Earth while we work on implementing stronger guardrails.” www.404media.co/google-earth...
Google Earth’s New AI Lets Anyone Fabricate Completely Bullshit Satellite Images
"Tonight I typed just one sentence into Google Earth and put refugees near the Mexican border. Then I planted a nuclear plant in Iran. Then I put a fatal crash on a street in Amsterdam."
404media.co
It’s important to understand “age verification” and “kick the kids off social media” laws as a gift to Big Tech. These policies allow surveillance capitalism to chug along full steam ahead and let Silicon Valley giants off the hook. Instead of regulating their biz model, we just put up age gates
I just want to say: ARCHIVISTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Do you work in libraries, archives, and/or digital preservation? Do you like to help others bring out the best in their writing? Consider volunteering as a bloggERS! editor!!! Applications are open for about one more week
James Truitt@linguistory.bsky.social · last mo.bloggERS!, the blog of the SAA's Electronic Records Section, fosters communication w/in the section & across the wider (digital) archives community. We’re seeking volunteers to join our intrepid editorial team as new Team Members! Details & a link to apply here: saaers.wordpress.com/2026/07/06/j...