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Windows 98 Plus! - Underwater

Using Choice for collection development and reading a lot of reviews — I appreciate the wry humor and sparks of personality that occasionally appear. One interesting thing I’ve noticed is that reviewers *really* want illustrations/maps, when visual arts or geography are in the picture. I agree!

I’ve noticed this, too. Unfortunate since BluRays require more than a library loaner disc drive + laptop to play.

Who says science isn’t whimsical? 😁

www.cell.com/action/showP...

On this day where librarians consider the closing of Baker & Taylor, I would like to remind you that Sandy Berman still walks this earth and today is his birthday.

www.sanfordberman.org

During a recent spate of b&t rumors I looked up their history. Founded in 1828, so this is truly the end of an era that spanned multiple other eras here. Wow...

Thanks, Tricia! And thank you for starting and encouraging conversations about these topics!

California National Guard Members Arrive in Portland Sophie Peel

Members of the California National Guard touched down in Portland this morning at the direction of the Trump administration, Gov. Tina Kotek confirmed today.

Oregon, California governors blast Trump for deploying California Guard despite court order Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said Sunday that the president's action to send 300 California National Guard members to Portland appears to circumvent the federal judge's Saturday ruling to temporarily block ...

Oregon leaders say California National Guard members were flown into Oregon last night in an effort to circumvent a federal court ruling.

(As you might imagine, I've never much liked that old quote. Why requires more time than I'm willing to dedicate to a BSky thread rn)

Old quote: "Bad libraries build collections, good libraries build services, great libraries build communities"

Same person now: "The library community must shape AI toward ethical use and as a means of greater inclusion of authentic voice into the global conversation"

Reality of AI and community:

Universities teaching literature students how to cope with long novels Critics blame GCSE English for deterring teenagers from the subject, describing the literature syllabus as boring and repetitive

I think we’re really going to have to do a lot more of this. A massive deprogramming so that people can read more than ten words at a time without anxiety.

www.thetimes.com/uk/education...?

this, god. every time I see that I'm like, you know what ages you? Try illness, poverty, abuse, overwork, trauma, stress, sleeplessness, depression...

every time one of those "look how evil ages you" posts goes viral you get a reminder that much of us have heuristics for navigating the world that aren't much different from that of a middle ages peasant

this is, predictably, some wild reading

Oh, cool! Hope it’s the one!

Absolutely Positively Not by David LaRochelle has stripes and maybe some of what you describe?

Librarians of Bluesky, may I request your help please?

In middle school (2006-09), I read a book about a teenager contemplating their sexuality, I think there's a football player who is the bully but also comes out by the end, and there's a support group iirc. The cover is colorful and striped(?)

In my college Close Reading class, we read the first chapter of Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction, titled “What is literature and why does it matter?”, and since then I’ve taken that piece as a kind of guide for thinking about literary-ness, as it were.

Saw someone say, “Stop hoarding books, we don’t need paper books anyway” and I can’t express how misguided this is. Online libraries disappear, digital books can be altered, and with Big Tech seeking to destroy history and literacy, print media has never been more essential.

I’m glad to see this problem discussed. I would go further, I think, in saying it’s the work and not the position that drives the need for protection. So if someone in Facilities, or a library assistant, were engaging in work that needed academic freedom, I would want them to have that regardless.

Academic Staff Need Academic Freedom, Too (opinion) Colleges cannot continue to operate as if all staff work is identical, Aaron Stoller writes.

This. Absolutely this.
"While much has been written about the vulnerabilities of contingent faculty, there has been almost no discussion of the academic freedom needs of one of higher education’s most rapidly growing workforces: third-space professionals." #HigherEd #Staff #AcademicLibraries

This would be why I am such a strident critic of digitization as a substitute for actual archival preservation. My sixteenth century documents are far sturdier and likely to survive another 500 years than the detritus on the internet. And digitization is not democratization.

One year there was an issue with the Chromebook licenses at our kid’s school, so the teachers had to start the school year NOT having the kids work on laptops, and—shocking, I know—the students learned a ton, said they preferred “hands on”/analog teaching, and asked for more laptop-free lessons.

Cover of «Marx's Capital. Hegelian Sources», showing an image of Hegel, Marx and Vygotsky playing Cards, «created using MidJourney AI», as it says in inside the book. Published by Brill

If you need another reason to oppose corporate academic publishing, AI slop cover art might be one. Wonder what Marx would have said (or Hegel, for that matter) …

In general I think it's hard to combat scientific misinformation when some of the best research is locked behind an academic paywall, while lots of nonsense gets published free for everyone to read in predatory journals.

“Lyingly” is a good adverb. Broadly applicable, too.

I encourage all the media outlets who are about to send people to ”war ravaged” Portland to think twice. Some of the strongest extremism reporters in the country live in this region; journalists who understand the culture of the Northwest and the history of activism here. Do it right this time okay?

Troops. In an American city. Using full force.

Your now-regular reminder that Republican members of Congress are letting this happen.

Ok, Aeneid discourse time because the statement below is correct, but also, I think, significantly incomplete in ways that understate how good Vergil is as an author (he is very good).

Aeneas is supposed to be a self-righteous prig because Vergil is deeply ambivalent about the Augustan project.