Alex Wermer-Colan

Library director fired over LGBTQ+ books gets $700,000 from county Terri Lesley, a former library director, said she was wrongfully terminated for refusing to bow to county officials’ demands for censorship.

www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/...

Library director fired over LGBTQ+ books gets $700,000 from county

i am feeling, i am seeing, i am hearing, i am getting the vibes, that students this sem are better than they've been in years because learning offers a rare haven from authoritarianism, a place to convene, commune, think together, refuel for the fight

I’d like to amplify others’ pleas to *please* acknowledge and build upon the work of librarians and other organizers — @heykellyjensen.bsky.social, @tasslyn.bsky.social, @everylibrary.bsky.social, et al — who’ve been tracking *all of this* and developing expertise for YEARS.

Many book bans could be judging titles mainly by their covers A study of more than 1,600 books suggests that book ban advocates may not look past the cover art.

Many book bans could be judging titles mainly by their covers
@us.theconversation.com
@alexwermercolan.bsky.social
SaraGrace Stefan
theconversation.com/many-book-ba...

A line chart showing that 38% of webpages from 2013 were no longer accessible one decade later.

LINK ROT: 38% webpages that existed in 2013 were no longer available 10 years later.

Even among pages that existed in 2021, 22% no longer accessible just two years later. This is often because individual page was deleted or removed on otherwise functional website.

Many implications for knowledge 🧪

It is really demoralizing to try to operate normally in higher ed right now - even without the national context, the local context of do more with less is exhausting and upsetting.

Recent install in Kensington with volunteers and staff, expanding PCW’s network on the east side of Kensington Ave! Check out our live map at map.phillycommunitywireless.org to see where we’re currently located.

A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden A newly revived philosophy for publishing personal knowledge on the web

maggieappleton.com/garden-history

NEW YORK (AP) — Anthropic agrees to pay authors $3,000 per book in landmark settlement over pirated chatbot training material.

Desire/Expectations: The Films of Edward Yang Featuring newly restored and rarely screened films from the pioneering filmmaker’s profound body of work."Desire/Expectations: The Films of Edward Yang" is a comprehensive retrospective honoring one...

I’m so glad to see this Edward Yang series at Film at Lincoln Center. I’ve never regarded myself as a cinephile, but I somehow happened upon a bunch of Yang screenings while I was in grad school. Yi Yi, especially — which I think I saw at Quad, alone — shaped my interest in urban studies.

Binding Media | Stanford University Press Far from causing the "death of the book," the publishing industry's adoption of digital technologies has generated a multitude of new works that push the boundaries of literature and its presentation....

It's the half anniversary of the publication of Binding Media and it is still half off (only $37.50!!) until Sept 8 during the end-of-summer sale at @stanfordpress.bsky.social

With public media under siege, High Plains Public Radio builds a blueprint to cover more rural news with fewer resources To expand regional coverage while keeping costs down, HPPR aims to build out a “contributors network” of part-time and volunteer community members coordinated by a lean central editorial team.

"Because [High Plains Public Radio] covers such a wide area, its engineering costs are high: excluding labor, engineering = ~46% of the budget, inldg 🔌 the nwtrk of 18 transmitters, insurance, + maintenance... The contributors ntwrk... will consist of a mix of part-time + volunteer positions"

Help us expand internet access in Norris Square, Fairhill, and Kensington 💜🛜 No experience needed! Come join our team of everyday folks building community internet. Sign-up to volunteer with PCW through our “Volunteer Sign-up Form” in our linktree, and invite a friend!

Medicare Will Require Prior Approval for Certain Procedures

What a cursed sentence (gift link)

“The A.I. companies selected to oversee the program would have a strong financial incentive to deny claims. Medicare plans to pay them a share of the savings generated from rejections.”

oh shit, a state prosecutor may actually do the thing

From what I can tell, the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania State Senate seems to be motivated by pure cultural animus toward urban life. One state representative has already replied with a proposal to return tax revenues to the county from which they came, to make the point that the rural counties are actually net recipients of government spending that is funded by urban -generated prosperity. This raises one of the most insidious aspects of how many US states have constructed the powers of local governments. Conservative state leaders appear to be nearly unanimous in their view that big cities should be prevented from governing themselves. In particular, they are committed to denying local governments the freedom to ask their own voters to raise their own taxes to pay for things that they value. The idea is to make city governments helpless while continuing to blame them for everything that goes wrong in cities. It plays well in conservative media, but it’s not fair and it’s certainly not democracy. When dense cities are not allowed to fund their services in a way that reflects their needs and values, it guarantees that the city will be a site of failure — failure that will be especially visible to the media because in dense cities everything is more visible.

This is why public transit across Pennsylvania will start collapsing tomorrow. Unclear what can be done—Dems already passed bills with all of GOP's demands—other than for Dems to retaliate against rural funding and services until the GOP stops attacking urban areas.
humantransit.org/2025/08/the-...

Questions to ask yourself As GenAl poses to be a revolutionary tool that can change the academic space and beyond, it is important for you to understand why and how you intend to use these new, powerful tools. These are a few questions to consider and note that the answers to these questions will vary for each person. • Is using a GenAl-based tool helping me learn more and think better? • Is using a GenAl-based tool enabling or hindering my mastery of the stated course objectives? • Is the content I generate accurate and verifiable? Is it free of biases that might harm other groups of society? • How will I treat content that might have been generated using a GenAl-based tool? • Is using a GenAl-based tool equitable to my peers in my course? • How can my actions in using a GenAl-based tool lead to the greater good of society? Understand that your usage of GenAl-based tools can give you the means to better not just yourself, but also society as a whole, and there is an ethical responsibility towards doing so.

The University of Michigan is now claiming that students have an ‘ethical responsibility’ to use AI.

2025 Lost & Found Archival Research Fellows and Projects - Center for the Humanities Each year, Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative offers Archival Research Fellowships and Grants to CUNY Graduate Center doctoral students conducting archival research on poets, writers, ...

It's so good to see this year's cohort of CUNY Lost & Found Archival Research Fellows--always an inspiring program--with these luminous & necessary projects, including on Sam Delany's correspondence with Kevin Killian, Black Arts liner notes, & much more.

centerforthehumanities.org/2025-lost-fo...

How Small-Town Public Libraries Enrich the Generative Research Process Like many authors, I love doing background research. Also, like many authors, I do some of my research online. Setting a chapter in San Luis Obispo, but never been? Drop your little gingerbread dud…

“One reason that small-town library rsrch works so well is bc of its natural parameters. Rather than an ocean of information to click through, you get a small stack of 📚. A small stack of 📚 is manageable. It’s focusing. In our era of seemingly limitless data, I for one thrive on these boundaries.”

Nonprofit Refuses $1.5M Science Grant Due To New Federal DEI Rules A coding nonprofit turned down a $1.5M NSF grant after new DEI restrictions, highlighting the clash between federal policy and scientific community values.

The Carpentries (@carpentries.carpentries.org‬), a nonprofit that has trained over 100,000 researchers in coding and data skills, turned down a $1.5 million NSF grant after being asked to strip diversity-related content from its programming. www.forbes.com/sites/johndr...

Wanna see a crazy chart? Of course you do.

Spending on constructing datacenters and manufacturing facilities for computers & electronic products in the US now exceeds the entire retail and wholesale industry and almost as much as the rest of the office and manufacturing sectors combined.

Increasingly understanding "energy dominance" to mean energy authoritarianism. Rooftop and community solar helps democratize energy production, putting money in consumer pockets instead of centralized utilities. Illegally cutting these grants disempowers lower-income communities, in every sense.

This @today.yougov.com poll is why I'm going to become the Joker.

The US murder rate in 2024 was likely down nearly 30 percent relative to 2020 and down nearly 50 percent relative to 1990.

Hoo boy! I can’t believe it’s happening. We’ve been working on this for years. Thanks to @post45data.bsky.social you can now search our IB database, with a very cool interface!

Please share with anyone who might be interested

Special thanks to @ninasabak.bsky.social for aiding with the data source

🎉Hello, DH community! The official DH2026 account is now live!
🇰🇷 Daejeon, South Korea | July 27-31, 2026
🎯Theme: Engagement | Hosted by @kadhsocial.bsky.social
Can't wait to see you after @dh2025lisbon.bsky.social Following @dh2024.bsky.social let's build our community!
#DH2026 @adho-org.bsky.social

Comparisons Between Life in the UK and the USA For most of my life I have lived in the UK, but for six years I lived in the United States of America. Somewhat erratic and unpleasant polit...

I decided to make a long blog post combining general sociological things I am aware of with personal observations of cultural and lifestyle differences between the UK and USA.

sootyempiric.blogspot.com/2025/07/comp...

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...

Philly group knits community together with outdoor wi-fi Philly Community Wireless is trying to bridge the gap in outdoor wireless. They showed us why outdoor wi-fi is just important as indoor access

Thanks to @billy-penn.bsky.social for writing a feature story on our work here at PCW! We appreciate the opportunity to discuss the importance of having internet connectivity available for all in local parks, community centers, gardens, and public spaces. Read more here: tinyurl.com/Billy-Penn-A...

Bar chart titled “The Supreme Court vs. The Lower Courts: Rulings on the Trump Administration” showing three horizontal bar charts for May 1-June 23, 2025. Federal District Courts: large red bar (82 cases, 94.3% against) with tiny green bar (5 cases, 5.7% for). Circuit Courts of Appeal: medium red bar (15 cases, 68.2% against) with smaller green bar (7 cases, 31.8% for). Supreme Court: tiny red bar (1 case, 6.3% against) with large green bar (15 cases, 93.7% for). Shows dramatic reversal from lower courts ruling against Trump administration to Supreme Court ruling for it.

Since May:

Federal district courts have ruled against Trump admin 94% of the time.

Supreme Court has sided with the Trump admin 94% of the time.

A judiciary at war with itself.

Another way that Zohran shows the way forward is he has spent zero time lingering on smears. Part of what killed Corbyn, for example, is that he has to publicly address every fake scandal and it drove long media cycles. The left needs to move past apologizing and constantly justifying itself.