I am excited to receive the NSF REU award to support undergraduate students in researching Human-AI Interaction and Evaluation in Web and Information Systems. ws-dl.blogspot.com/2026/08/2026... Thanks, NSF, and all mentors! @webscidl.bsky.social @phonedudemln.bsky.social

2026-08-03: REU Renewal Proposal Awarded by NSF

The Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group at Old Dominion University.

ws-dl.blogspot.com

Jian Wu @fanchyna.bsky.social and WSDL @webscidl.bsky.social are on a heater -- we just received official confirmation that our NSF REU site was renewed for a second term. The topic this time is "Human-AI Interaction and Evaluation in Web and Information Systems". ws-dl.blogspot.com/2026/08/2026...

2026-08-03: REU Renewal Proposal Awarded by NSF

The Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group at Old Dominion University.

ws-dl.blogspot.com

Congratulations to Jian Wu and Sampath Jayarathna for securing NSF funding for the JCDL Doctoral Consortium for the next three years. I'm happy that WSDL @webscidl.bsky.social & the NSF are able to continue to support JCDL @jcdlconf.bsky.social. congrats to all! ws-dl.blogspot.com/2026/08/2026...

2026-08-03: JCDL Receives Sponsorship from the NSF to Support Its Doctoral Consortium Workshop

The Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group at Old Dominion University.

ws-dl.blogspot.com

The stuff I've been working on recently is finally public! I've spent the past bit revamping the social media site support in Browsertrix. We can capture much more content from Facebook and Instagram now, and I've also fixed Youtube video capture. webrecorder.net/blog/2026-07...

Social media improvements in Browsertrix • Webrecorder Blog

What’s new in the world of web archiving?

webrecorder.net

Imagine things being so bad that your best solution is to cut yourself off from Google Search traffic. I don't think that people realise just how much of a bad actor Google has been, for year. No other company has damaged the web nearly as much. 🧵 www.adweek.com/media/publis...

Publishers Are Preparing to Opt Out of Google Search

The nuclear option is gaining traction as web traffic collapses and Google refuses to negotiate with content creators

adweek.com

We've uploaded the video for Tuesday's 2026 WS-DL Research Expo -- be sure to check it out if you missed it. @webscidl.bsky.social ws-dl.blogspot.com/2026/06/2026...

2026-06-25: 2026 WS-DL Research Expo

The Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group at Old Dominion University.

ws-dl.blogspot.com

Michael L. Nelson@phonedudemln.bsky.social · 2mo ago

2026 WS-DL Research Expo Tuesday, June 23, 2pm EDT All are welcome: members, alumni, friends, etc. github.com/oduwsdl/2026... 5 students, 1 from each @webscidl.bsky.social prof, will give a ~15 min summary of their current research. Status updates from profs & alumni too! (zoom link in repo)

2026 WS-DL Research Expo Tuesday, June 23, 2pm EDT All are welcome: members, alumni, friends, etc. github.com/oduwsdl/2026... 5 students, 1 from each @webscidl.bsky.social prof, will give a ~15 min summary of their current research. Status updates from profs & alumni too! (zoom link in repo)

📣 TOMORROW! 📣 There’s still time to join us for THE FIGHT FOR THE PUBLIC RECORD, a LIVE #FutureKnowledge #podcast conversation on one of the defining information challenges of our time. 📅 Tues, Jun 23 🕙 10AM PT 📍ONLINE 🎟️ www.eventbrite.com/e/the-fight-... @merrileeiam.bsky.social

2026 WS-DL Research Expo Tuesday, June 23, 2pm EDT All are welcome: members, alumni, friends, etc. github.com/oduwsdl/2026... 5 students, 1 from each @webscidl.bsky.social prof, will give a ~15 min summary of their current research. Status updates from profs & alumni too! (zoom link in repo)

Recently, Sawood (ibnesayeed.bsky.social) & I uncovered a tricky web archiving replay problem. An API call several layers of JS deep had superfluous browser size args that would intermittently load the wrong JSON for the archived HTML ws-dl.blogspot.com/2026/05/2026... (all images/links are SFW)

2026-05-26: URL Arguments in API Calls Can Cause Intermittent Temporal Violations While Replaying Archived Web Pages

The Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group at Old Dominion University.

ws-dl.blogspot.com

Our research team is ramping up for coming midterms. Looks like we'll be busy. If you're interested, here's an interactive graph (thanks to Stephen Prochaska) showing how X influencers re-ran the "rigged election" narrative during/following the CA primaries. faculty.washington.edu/kstarbi/Cumu...

The #Library #Innovation Lab #Harvard has just launched #WARCbench, which they describe as a "Swiss Army Knife for #WARC Processing". This is a high benchmark because I frickin' love Swiss Army knives! 😀But, on a serious note, this WARCbench looks seriously useful. As someone who has recently […]

Excited to share that I passed my PhD proposal defense on April 24, 2026 -- another step closer to finishing my PhD 🎓 Special thanks to my dissertation committee: @weiglemc.bsky.social, @phonedudemln.bsky.social, @acnwala.bsky.social, & Erika Frydenlund for their guidance & support.

I want to take a moment, here, to highlight the very short yet utterly to-the-point blog post by my long time hero, David Rosenthal, in which he explains to his old boss, Eric Schmidt, why he and his ilk are getting booed at college commencements, and why laws […] [Original post on w3c.social]

Updated with additional examples from niigata-u.repo.nii.ac.jp, again courtesy of Martin Klein.

Michael L. Nelson@phonedudemln.bsky.social · 2mo ago

I've been trying to resolve the cognitive dissonance between "AI-generated summaries are useful" and the backlash that Dr. Fieisler (@cfiesler.bsky.social), myself, and many others felt at the ACM DL briefly making them default over authors' abstracts in December. ws-dl.blogspot.com/2026/05/2026...

I've been trying to resolve the cognitive dissonance between "AI-generated summaries are useful" and the backlash that Dr. Fieisler (@cfiesler.bsky.social), myself, and many others felt at the ACM DL briefly making them default over authors' abstracts in December. ws-dl.blogspot.com/2026/05/2026...

2026-05-28: If LLMs can write abstracts, what's our job? The Uncanny Valley and Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect in the ACM Digital Library

The Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group at Old Dominion University.

ws-dl.blogspot.com

Recently, Sawood (ibnesayeed.bsky.social) & I uncovered a tricky web archiving replay problem. An API call several layers of JS deep had superfluous browser size args that would intermittently load the wrong JSON for the archived HTML ws-dl.blogspot.com/2026/05/2026... (all images/links are SFW)

2026-05-26: URL Arguments in API Calls Can Cause Intermittent Temporal Violations While Replaying Archived Web Pages

The Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group at Old Dominion University.

ws-dl.blogspot.com

A follow up to the @tarannum44.bsky.social / @webscidl.bsky.social study on Twitter UI generations. This time, it's about acct pages, not just individual tweets. ws-dl.blogspot.com/2025/12/2025...

2025-12-03: Exploring the Different Generations of the UI for Twitter’s Account Pages

The Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group at Old Dominion University.

ws-dl.blogspot.com

Michael L. Nelson@phonedudemln.bsky.social · 10mo ago

To study Twitter is to study archived Twitter. And if you're replaying archived pages, you need to be familiar with the different generations of UIs. Tarannum Zaki of @webscidl.bsky.social explores and classifies the different UIs. ws-dl.blogspot.com/2025/10/2025...

On Thursday, May 14 2026, we held our WSDL gathering at Hank’s Filling Station. It also served as a promotion and tenure party for Vikas Ashok. Himarsha and Skanda brought the future WSDL member (and shared her with others), and former members were there too (Sawood, Yasith, Gavindya).

ArXiv is going to ban researchers for a year if they are caught submitting AI slop. ArXiv told us it's a one strike rule: do it once, you're out. www.404media.co/new-arxiv-ru...

ArXiv to Ban Researchers for a Year if They Submit AI Slop

The change comes as arXiv and others struggle to manage an influx of AI-generated materials masquerading as rigorous science.

404media.co

The Internet is disappearing before our very eyes and it’s why we should all support that absolutely critical work of @archive.org

NEW: ArXiv, the open-access repository of preprint academic research, will ban authors of papers for a year if they submit obviously AI-generated work. www.404media.co/new-arxiv-ru...

ArXiv to Ban Researchers for a Year if They Submit AI Slop

The change comes as arXiv and others struggle to manage an influx of AI-generated materials masquerading as rigorous science.

404media.co

#lazyweb I am wondering which schema.org term can be used to convey the URL of an institutional repository, current research information system, ...

"If writing about the science is where scientists figure out what their science actually means, then treating paper-writing as a decorative layer on top of formalized claims may remove important think-work from the writing process." Enjoyed this piece on replacing the scientific article.

Is the scientific paper due to be replaced?

AI is pushing scientific publishing to the brink. For neuroscience, the crisis may be an opportunity to finally connect findings across subfields.

thetransmitter.org

Web history disappears when it can’t be preserved. Today, some publishers are blocking the Wayback Machine from archiving parts of the public web, putting decades of digital history at risk. Tell publishers: don’t block the #WaybackMachine. Sign the petition ➡️ www.savethearchive.com/newsleaders/

Tell New York Times, The Atlantic, and USA Today to keep the crucial work of journalists in the Wayback Machine!

The news isn’t getting preserved in the Wayback Machine anymore because major media outlets are blocking it.

savethearchive.com

The Guardian: “‘Things Were Going Dark Left and Right’: The Race to Save US Government #Datasets Before They’re Deleted” www.infodocket.com/2026/05/07/t... @datarescueproject.org @envirodgi.bsky.social @archive.org #data #libraries #librarians

The AI-driven hard drive shortage is making it more expensive for the Internet Archive to operate, causing problems for Wikimedia, causing delays in academic and hobby archiving projects. Normal people and non AI companies simply can't find reasonably priced drives: www.404media.co/the-ai-hard-...

The AI Hard Drive Shortage Is Making It More Expensive and Harder to Archive the Internet

The Internet Archive, Wikimedia, academics, and hobby archivists are having trouble finding hard drives or are having to pay extremely high prices for them.

404media.co

The Internet Archive, Wikimedia, academics, and hobby archivists are having trouble finding hard drives or are having to pay extremely high prices for them.

The AI Hard Drive Shortage Is Making It More Expensive and Harder to Archive the Internet

The Internet Archive, Wikimedia, academics, and hobby archivists are having trouble finding hard drives or are having to pay extremely high prices for them.

404media.co

I don't think people fully understand yet just how fragile university-hosted digital resources are after external funding ends (especially if the lead academic retires or moves or is made redundant).

IrishPhilosophy@irishphilosophy.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Does anyone know what's happened to the Irish Legislation Database? When I go to www.qub.ac.uk/ild/ I get a not found message and a search isn't yielding anything. @irishstudiesqub.bsky.social @qubhistory.bsky.social @qubelfastofficial.bsky.social Panicking just a little here...

New Research: "Friendly #AI #Chatbots Make More Mistakes and Tell People What They Want to Hear, Study Finds" (via @oii.ox.ac.uk) www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/... #LLMs #GenAI