Simon Bains

Good grief, like we needed any more!

Seagull flying dangerously close towards the camera man with food stalls in the background.

A seagull standing next to a Donuts sign.

One of the tall ships.

The entrance to the event, with a large ‘Ahoy! Welcome’ sign.

At the #TallShips event in #Aberdeen, where the weather could be better but we are all making the best of it, especially the seagulls.

Home Office announces ‘nationwide blitz’ on asylum seekers taking jobs Government under pressure on issue after stories of asylum seekers working illegally as takeaway delivery riders

Despite the rhetoric of the right, the allowance provided to people seeking asylum is miniscule. It is not enough for most to survive on. If this government wants to stop unscrupulous employers, they need to provide asylum seekers with the right to work.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Reform councillor’s boast about removing ‘trans-ideological’ books from children’s library sections falls flat Paul Webb said he ensured books and material were pulled from children’s section of Kent libraries, but it emerges they were never there

Reform UK councillor’s boast about removing ‘trans-ideological’ books from children’s library sections falls flat (they were never there) | The Guardian share.google/ZQVeLnLWpdw2...

Group shot of the SCURL 2025 audience in the Craig Suite,The Sir Duncan Rice Library.

SCURL 20205 Delegates clearly enjoying themselves! Photo shows two people laughing and some smiling faces in the background.

Last week @uniofaberdeen.bsky.social hosted @scurlscottish.bsky.social #SCURL2025 in @aberdeenunilib.bsky.social - I've never seen a happier group of conference delegates!

Great to see @cilipscotland.bsky.social and others fighting for the rights of Glasgow's children and young people

If our audience looked past the slides and out of the window, they would be able to see the University’s Cruickshank Botanic Garden just across the main road. There must be some library/garden plant humanities project funding potential here 🤔
#SCURL2025

I was hugely impressed by what GCU are doing and need to do a field trip. They’ve actually doing what I’ve only been aspiring to.
#SCURL2025

Totally is a barrier. We can find workarounds (locked down terminals etc.) but the sustainable solution is to stop handing our IP to a profit-driven oligopoly.

I’ve started collecting animal-like glass buildings…

bsky.app/profile/simo...

I was thrilled to announce this today, at the @scurlscottish.bsky.social annual meeting, here @uniofaberdeen.bsky.social

www.abdn.ac.uk/news/24473?d...

Thread.
👏

Have I sent Martina to sleep? 😂

Thanks @louiscoiffait-gunn.bsky.social @cilip.bsky.social for a shout out for @aberdeenunilib.bsky.social partnership with Aberdeen City to host a public library in our library building. That’s a good plug for my panel talk later! #cilips25

Heading to Dundee to join a panel with @scurlscottish.bsky.social colleagues at #cilips25. I never tire of the view along the Scottish east coast, though many folk clearly aren’t ready for Monday morning and are napping with their window blinds down.
@cilipscotland.bsky.social @cilip.bsky.social

Very belatedly, yes (but just today).

Anyone sane urges Labour to root out Blue Labour to get back to being decent and intelligent.

A double rainbow over the University of Aberdeen, looking to the east towards the coast, as seen from Floor 7 of The Sir Duncan Rice Library.

The view from @aberdeenunilib.bsky.social this afternoon during a short shower. At least one of the ends appeared to be on campus. Goodness knows we could do with a pot of gold just now.

2024/25 SCOTTISH CUP WINNERS 🏆

AI Is Eating Data Center Power Demand—and It’s Only Getting Worse A new analysis of AI hardware being produced and how it is being used attempts to estimate the vast amount of electricity being consumed by AI.

tired: people AI-generating rando images of themselves as anime

WIRED: AI’s energy use already represents as much as 20 percent of global data-center power demand, new analysis has found

A snakebite and black toast to the @aberdeenunilib.bsky.social Open Research team for finding an open access publishing angle to World Goth Day 🦇 Kudos!

I have so far managed to escape that experience!

I am in sunny Stirling for this event tomorrow, where I shall be ranting about the state of academic publishing to geoscientists.
I notice there are two #sages2025 hashtag events on Bluesky, and am guessing that this isn’t the one that’s discussing colorectal emergencies 🤔

"Reading #ethnographies is a very important part of learning about #anthropology ... but there’s very uneven access to those books."

Find out why @robotforaday.bsky.social chose to publish his book #OpenAccess and remove barriers to teaching and learning in this new blog post:

👉 bit.ly/3ZlKK52

It’s been six years now, and I’m still enjoying the novelty of working so close to the beach!

A 2001 verdigris bronze sculpture of former Princeton president John Witherspoon, by Alexander Stoddart, outside East Pyne Hall. By Joe Shlabotnik via Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA

We're pleased to announce the release of the latest issue of the Journal of Scottish Thought, available #OpenAccess at jst.aberdeenunipress.org/issue/37/info/
This issue focuses on the Scottish Presbyterian minister and thinker, and American Founding Father, John Witherspoon

Trump's press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, stated in a press briefing that Hayden had been dismissed because the Library had been providing "inappropriate books for children" It was another senior Trump aide, Kellyanne Conway, who in 2017 introduced the world to the notion that there could be "alternative facts". This reason for firing Hayden - who has, since 2016, greatly strengthened the institution she inherited - is another "alternative fact". The Library of Congress is a reference-only research library and has no lending library for children or adults, its collections being built through legal deposit legislation, passed by Congress in 1909 and updated as recently as 2016.

Good piece from @richove.bsky.social on the threat of the US govt to libraries, archives and thus knowledge
on.ft.com/3FbaZ7h

Heinrich Reacts to Trump’s Firing of Librarian of Congress | U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich of New Mexico WASHINGTON — U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch, released the...

Librarian of Congress fired by Trump by email. I had the pleasure of meeting Carla Hayden in 2017 and hugely admire her commitment to access and opportunity for all. The antithesis of the present administration.

www.heinrich.senate.gov/newsroom/pre...

This is a good response to recent criticism. PCE is doing the right thing. Now we need to focus on doing it right. That’s what the pilot process now underway is all about.

The front cover of the book Digital editing and publishing in the twenty-first century.

OUT NOW!

Digital editing and publishing in the twenty-first century, edited by @jamesosullivan.bsky.social et al. is now published #OpenAccess

20 chapters reflecting on the current state and future of the scholarly edition 📖

Read and download free: doi.org/10.62637/sup...

#DigitalHumanities