Jonathan

See @ubiquity75.xyz’s Behind the Screen for more on the US tech industry’s outsourcing of content moderation

Very glad to have been able to read it ahead of everyone else! It's already informing my thinking about revising the US-centrism of my intro libraries grad seminar!

ALL IMLS grants restored in every state & territory.

In response to a ruling from a federal judge in Rhode Island, the Institute of Museum and Library Services reinstated all previously canceled grants in every state and territory. It's a huge win for libraries and our communities.

"The reinstatement of all IMLS grants means that libraries across the country will be able to resume vital services for learning, imagination, and economic opportunity. We are breathing a sigh of relief, but the fight is not over." ALA President Sam Helmick. Show up for our libraries, American Library Association.

NEWS: The Institute of Museum & Library Services has restored ALL previously canceled federal grants to libraries, following a ruling by a federal judge in Rhode Island last month.

This is a massive win for libraries & communities in every state & territory!

Learn more: www.ala.org/news/2025/12...

Two books on a wood table, on the left: Peculiar Satisfaction: Thomas Jefferson and Mastery of Subjects and Bibliotactics: Libraries and the Colonial Public in Vietnam.

HUGE mail week for critical library histories. @cindyanguyen.bsky.social @murmz.bsky.social

Thaler's post (click it for graph showing striking decreases in science spending) immediately under yet another repost of this fantastic letter to London Times. And I'd just like to say: can we PLEASE have a Democratic candidate who knows we need a massive reinvestment in US arts & humanities too?

If you ever wondered what GOP gerrymandering looks like in red states with blue cities, I present:

Total buyouts for 15 fired coaches in 2025: $228 million. That's a record by nearly $100M. Kelly $54M Stoops $38M Smith $33.5M Napier $21M Freeze $15.8M Gundy $15M Wilcox $10.9M Pittman $9.8M Franklin $9M Pry $6M Foster $5M Bray $4M Dilfer $2.4M Beck $1.7M Norvell $1.5M

This year, universities are giving $228 million to football coaches who failed at coaching football so that they won't coach football anymore.

“Have Yourself A Merriam Little Christmas”

Merriam, a career-oriented lexicographer from the city, returns to her small town for the holidays and meets Webster, a ruggedly handsome librarian, who shows her the true DEFINITION of Christmas.

The problem is protecting boys from the realities, challenges and opportunities of the world, thus preventing them from growing up.

The way I see it, white power and all the social consequences of white power is a form of child abuse that no one talks about.

Several major universities are essentially giving up their ability to teach students much of anything with the hopes of avoiding repercussions from awful people, that care nothing about the academy. Seems like a losing battle to me.

💯

A Christmas wreath of evergreen boughs, red and white berries, three pinecones, and holly. Hangs from a wood and glass door.

Annual wreath made of stuff cut from yards on my block.

It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.

Dying at the first time Swedish Chef sees Big Bird

Nothing says happy Thanksgiving like seeing Shaggy sing “It Wasn’t Me” from atop a huge turkey.

“Research doesn't have to be exploitative.”

I think @brendannyhan.bsky.social is exactly right in this piece, but I’d go one step further here. Elites very explicitly told young people to sit down and shut up. Society punished them for standing up for their beliefs, and targeted and vilified the organizers. Now we need need them.

The Artist Who Reminds Us that Another Way Is Possible The late artist Abigail McGrath cultivated a creative life for herself filled with freedom, joy, and a commitment to beauty. In an age of authoritarianism and algorithms, it’s a kind of life worth pro...

“Authoritarian governments view culture as a threat because in the writing+ music +acting, you can sometimes glimpse alternatives to the current reality. We live in a timeline that says AI domination is inevitable, there will be no future except constant war.”

www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/art-...

There is a thread of philosophy/theory of media that never seems to get translated into English, but does get translated into Portuguese and thus the two years of grad school Portuguese I took thinking I might write a dissertation about the US and Brasil in the C19 pays off in unexpected ways.

Wealthy People Have Always Shaped Universities. This Time Is Different.

Billionaires, who quite often do not see education as a common good, should not be guiding higher education policy.

“I kind of yearn,” Mr. Nassirian said, “for the gilded age when billionaires satisfied their extracurricular interests by collecting Fabergé eggs and prized ponies.”

#DefendHigherEd

I got the idea for this when talking to folks in the midwest who've just never been to NY. It makes sense, the Big City Trip for schools and families here is Chicago. And I happen to know NY and these institutions well from my work. So - let's go! Open to anyone 18+. No need to have a UW connection.

Do you (or does someone in your network) want to tour New York City's book world with me on a "study abroad - at home!" trip next May? We'll be going to the Morgan Library, Grolier Club, Christie's book department, and the NYPL (the one with the lions) and a few other places I'm still looking into!

An important factor here is administrative bloat that creates a whole tranche of staff who need to justify their jobs by creating rafts of busywork for faculty that we (rightly) resent, and exacerbates their sense that we are a bunch of obstreperous heel-draggers

Another thing this reveals is the seemingly universal attitude among Higher Ed admins that faculty are inimical or irrelevant to the achievement of the mission. The bunker mentality that leaves the faculty as the disloyal opposition is beyond me.

A map showing mostly Europe with red dots indicating book locations in the UK and Germany, nothing in France.

Today’s Wheatley Census mystery: are there really no copies of the 1773 first edition in France? Published in London in 1773 and distributed, in part, through Methodist networks of Selina Hastings, there are copies all over the UK. But none in France?

Are there really no 1773 first editions of Poems on Various Subjects in France? And if so, why? ⬇️

1) An administrative burden party is a brilliant idea.

2) This mundane crap is the stuff AI *should* be helping us with for a happier and more productive society, but capital prefers to weaponize it against us, including to make bureaucratic mazes more confusing and impenetrable.

What is the Wheatley Census number and how can you use them? ⬇️

This - the Wheatley Census - has been at the center of my research life for the last year (and a half, honestly)! Proud to finally share the first iteration of it publicly. Take a look. Poke around. And send me your info about copies you work with!