Natalie J. Ring

“I’m so tired of waiting, aren’t you, for the world to become good and beautiful and kind?”
— Langston Hughes

Really surprised to see the limitation on neurological disease to dementia and Parkinson's. No multiple sclerosis??

Car crash vibes captures it exactly. So amazing.

Can you send a gift link again? I can't seem to open it. Thanks!

About - AGAINST AI This site is a rough draft, shared to ease back to school prep.  Process is product!  Materials here are intended as solidarity solace for educators

I don't have an answer for you (in the same place) but am tagging this for the answers.
@annakornbluh.bsky.social created this site with ideas which I plan to scour this week.
against-a-i.com/about/

Omg, I remember that cartoon! But yes, you have to stop somewhere - I know it's time when I start to use more research into nitty gritty details as a form of procrastination to avoid writing.

Okay, I made it through season 1 (entertaining despite the we must all talk like it's the "olden times") and a bit of season 2, but got tired of the god awful writing. Except I am a HUGE Carrie Coon fan. And the costumes/sets are great. Maybe I should just embrace its terribleness?

The best part of research! Going down the rabbit holes until you can go no further.

Asked about PDFs because the one book I needed to cite from did not actually have a PDF. Grrrr!

Yup, I convinced them to disable the AI on the platform. Yeah! They are going to contact the vendor and ask/complain about the lack of footnotes in the text (and no page #s). But I just discovered there is AI in the ProQuest dissertation database now as well.

Matzo ball soup in a white bowl on a white plate on a white doily with a side of bagel chips. The matzo ball is large and fluffy and sitting in broth with chunks of carrots, pieces of chicken, and a few noodles.

Factors Deli in LA - my absolute favorite. Dallas has zero edible delis.

I have definitely asked for unlimited use in an ebook textbook before. And I asked them to purchase the book in question in print.

I am getting ready to rally the troops! This was a book I have used previously online with my library that had page numbers and footnotes (perhaps it was the older platform that allowed this) So now on the AI slop platform without a facsimile PDF it's like losing access to the book.

Such great advice and info. Thank you!

Two years ago I asked my library to buy print copies of anything published by UNC Press (one I rely on a lot). I need to check and see if they have continued to buy print only.

Thanks for the useful advice! I complained but now that I know the background in terms of how this came about I can make a much more reasoned pitch as to why it's REALLY bad. I will also contact the vendor. And thanks for suggesting that the librarians might not have had much say in the decision.

Wait what, JSTOR has added this? GAH! AI is being forced down our throats. As one poster said, it's the "enshitification" of research/knowledge. I did paper course readers 2 decades ago. You have inspired me to consider going back. I just fear the price for students would be a problem.

With regard to the Ebook Central platform I have been losing my mind over. ‼️‼️‼️

Okay thanks for the tip! I think I just lost my mind when I saw this and had no idea what was going on. But one book definitely said PDF is unavailable, or some such thing. But if course the default is pushing people (students etc) toward AI slop.

Omg!!

Okay thanks for explaining this distinction for me. I'm still trying to make my way through it. I already complained to the librarians. But should I request that my library use EBSCO instead?

Librarian here, and Ebook Central (formerly ebrary, longtime ProQuest platform) is moving away from a model where libraries can directly license individual books, alongside full AI integration. It’s led their top competition EBSCO to double down on… NOT doing that. Very happy to use EBSCO.

(Yes, I do include the no-opt-out inclusion of "AI" as a decrease in platform functionality.)
and 2) supporting and working with justifiably frustrated academics. 2/2

Clarivate/ProQuest Announces Subscription-Only Ebook Licensing Model Clarivate, the parent company of ProQuest and its Ebook Central platform, on February 18 announced the launch of a new subscription-based content access strategy for ebooks and digital collections. As...

As mentioned by @dbcii.bsky.social, these issues are making our jobs very, very difficult for many reasons. Here are two:
1) our own frustration with both the increasing costs for individual purchases (due to end) and decreasing functionality of platforms 1/2
www.libraryjournal.com/story/clariv...

Okay good to know! Maybe I jumped the gun with my complaint. I was just aghast about the AI. Although one book on the platform
didn't provide a pdf version. It said it wasn't available.

Good for the EBSCO speakers! I'm losing my mind over this, but I'm afraid I sounded like a nutcase when I wrote to my library complaining and raising a huge fuss.

It's so bad. See my latest post about it.

Okay this is worse than I thought. A large # of academic press books (incld. a textbook I use in class) have been moved to a platform called Ebook Central. It's like Kindle paired w/ AI. No footnotes. No page #s No facsimile PDFs are available. I just wrote a lengthy complaint to my library. Sigh.