Alana Kumbier

ilu Merriam-Webster

In a society, survival is collectivized

There’s no society without that

One of the many small bits of writing I'm doing this month is academic essay on #NatureWriting and disability, but not working in academia now I feel out of the loop about new scholarly work in the area. I know @louisekenward.bsky.social is working on this area, but who else should I be aware of?

Excited to finally announce the release of my first ever book, and the first ever book from we here press. It is a pocket-size guide to my archival theories and experiences in the form of essays- some you may have heard in part as lectures, some which are unpublished until now.

www.weherepress.org

I was glad to learn tonight about the @sealibrary.bsky.social project, which reminded me of these 👇 ⚓️🌊📚

Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People - Tiya Miles With her characteristic tenderness and imaginative genius, Miles explores beyond the stock historical grid to weave Tubman's life into the fabric of her world.

I was re-reading Tiya Miles's book about Harriet Tubman. And I was reminded again that we are all called to take action within our capacity to address injustice in our own time. And that Tubman was embedded within a COMMUNITY which is what enabled her to do+

tiyamiles.com/books/night-...

There are people everywhere. Look around.

Home Depot and Lowe's Share Data From Hundreds of AI Cameras With Cops Home improvement stores are finding ways to share data from their Flock license plate reader cameras with law enforcement, according to public records.

Home Depot and Lowe's share data from hundreds of AI-powered automated license plate reading cameras with law enforcement

Disability Zine Microgrants Wild Ramp Publishing offers four $250 grants to cover printing costs for zines with a disability justice focus. Our grants support zine production and distribution, focusing on marginalized and underr...

Also, disability justice zine microgrants are back for fall! This time I'll be giving out three $250 grants. Any kind of zine is welcome but I am giving a priority to perzines this time. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

The time is long overdue for Congress to stop funding Israel’s illegal and horrific war against the Palestinian people.

The U.S. must not support a government which is starving children.

Tomorrow, I will force votes in the Senate to block the sale of weapons to Netanyahu.

Letter from the Editor v2 2025 updates from the editor of DisLIS.

We are now open for even more submissions!

In addition to book reviews, we will now also be publishing academic articles and Notes from the Field (less formal, more blog) about library/archives work and disability

cornerstone.lib.mnsu.edu/dislis/vol2/...

I’m so sorry, Violet. What a massive loss.

Senate Democrats urge U.S. to stop funding GHF, resume support for U.N. food distribution in Gaza as more starve Senate Democrats told the secretary of state they have "grave concerns" about the U.S. role in financing GHF, the main group distributing aid in Gaza.

Families in Gaza are starving to death. Meanwhile, Trump & Netanyahu are using US taxpayer dollars to replace international aid orgs in Gaza with mercenaries — leading to even more deaths.

ENOUGH.

I led 20 Senators in calling on Trump to stop supporting this barbarity:

Your Guide on How to Support Mutual Aid Groups in Palestine as Humanitarian Crisis Deepens

Your Guide on How to Support Mutual Aid Groups in Palestine as Humanitarian Crisis Deepens

Many people in power are not offering an honest assessment of where we are politically in this country because that assessment would call on them to do things they simply refuse to do. That's where we are right now.

[W4G] $1,300 Matching Campaign for The Sameer Project July 22: New match! The wonderful people of Massive Bookshop have offered to match the next $1,300 in contributions!  (The $500 match from writer and professor Christina Sharpe has been met!) Today is...

@massivebookshop.bsky.social is matching donations to the Sameer Project up to $1300. Can you join me in contributing to their campaign?

open-books-a-poem-emporium.myshopify.com/products/w4g...

“You Feel Like Your Life is Over” The 92-page report, “‘You Feel Like Your Life is Over’: Abusive Practices at Three Florida Immigration Detention Centers Since January 2025,” documents that people detained at Krome North Service Proc...

In the United States people are treated like animals. www.hrw.org/report/2025/...

Slide with title Digital Humanities for a World Unmade, blue background with stylized images of a Dutch windmill, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Hagia Sofia, Big Ben, and the Singaporean lion.

Here's a write-up of my keynote from #DH2025, since academic publishing is slow and this was written for right now. roopikarisam.com/talks-cat/dh...

we can have nice things

My mom and stepdad are from the same diaspora group as Zohran Mamdani’s dad (same like “my stepdad was kicked out of the same town and knows some of his classmates”) and apparently the New York Times doesn’t understand how diaspora works, so I am going to tell you a little about my mom’s people!

It has a very real chance of failing—and *even if it passes with changes* it still has to go BACK to the Senate to get voted on AGAIN. And it barely made it through the first time

This thing is way more killable than you’d think and the longer we can drag out the process the more killable it gets

Called my Representative, Richard Neal, to thank him for his earlier No vote and to encourage the same today. Took less than a minute. If he’s your rep, too, call 202-225-5601.

libraries’ services and resources amount to a drop in the bucket for most public budgets. the bang-to-buck ratio is huge. killing the IMLS alters the federal government’s fiscal situation not one bit.

cruelty is the *only possible* point. 📚

Safety planning & preparation for organizers & community leaders in this moment of growing authoritarianism in the US is essential.

And, as I learned as an international accompanier in Colombia under an authoritarian government, we must also bring our values of community, care, & joy to that work.

I am sure everyone will look the other way, but the guy who just won the Democratic mayoral primary in NYC _ran on expanding access to trans healthcare._

Only two years left of world’s carbon budget to meet 1.5C target, scientists warn Breaching threshold would ramp up catastrophic weather events, further increasing human suffering

We’re wasting the remaining carbon budget on war and AI.

Green textured cover with the title: A zine reflection on Booker T. Washington's The Negro Rural School and its Relation to the Community:

A spread featuring photos and diagrams of Black rural schools, with an opening text: A Toolkit for Self-Determination"

A spread featuring photos of kids at play and a text titled "Play is Radical!"

A closing text: "Who are we in the creation of zines? We may attempt to place our experiences and perspectives aside to remain anonymous and objective - but we never truly are. I am a 3o-year-old white cis woman from Upstate New York living in Philadelphia, PA. I studied history and cultural heritage management and currently work in historic preservation. I came across the following text through work-related research. And feel very fortunate to share it with you. I don't know what it's like to have to fund the building of my own school and face subsequent violence and corruption at every turn. But I know what it feels like to find and nurture community and I wish to uplift a document which recognized this power. As my colleague Kelvin Vu states, The Rural Negro School and Its Relation to the Community, "Brings together architecture, landscape, public institutions, and construction knowledge as complementary vehicles for community self-determination." An early interdisciplinary model of what is possible. Thanks for reading And a special thanks to Shannon Mattern for your edits and encouragement!"

Last semester a staff member from a historic preservation lab audited my methods class and decided to create a series of zines highlighting the archival resources that inform preservation projects. She submitted a prototype in Dec — and today I received in the mail a hard copy of the first issue!