iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

"Speaking of 'I can't have normal conversations anymore,' I just had a chat with the ice cream barista about leeches." -me, about ten minutes ago, right before borrowing a book about arsenical wallpaper from a friend

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Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

My intern, who is fantastic, just came out of the archive with a 3.5" floppy disc to ask me what it was. Pretty sure I just took psychic damage. 😭

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Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

It finally happened! Someone asked me if my cats were adopted!! And I couldn't respond with the cheeky "no, they're my biological cats," because I was at WORK and sassing patrons is FROWNED UPON. 😭 Thank you for your support during this trying time

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Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Ugh, the rotten penny taste was the absolute worst (apart from, y'know, the plague). The only thing that worked for me was ginger chews, but at least the side effect stopped within hours of my last dose. May your symptoms be mild and brief!

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Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Rare Book School is always such an incredible experience, and I always need at least two days after to reconstitute myself into something resembling a human.

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Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

At the airport. They just announced that two flights to the same place will be boarding simultaneously at the same gate (we board with stairs) and to ABSOLUTELY NOT get on the wrong plane. New fear unlocked, thanks Charlottesville.

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Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

Through the windshield of my truck: a monarch on my echinacea.

A slightly blurry image of a monarch butterfly, wings open, resting on a purple coneflower amongst a cluster of purple coneflowers. We will pretend we don't see the bit of grimy whatever on the wall behind the flowers.

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Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

I frequently refer to the printer at work as my old enemy. Patrons laugh. It's not (entirely) a joke.

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Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

The mailbox harvest was bountiful today

On a dark grey couch cushion lie three publications, slightly atop each other. Bottom layer is Archival Outlook; middle is The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America; top layer is Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet. Not pictured is me whispering "my precious" as I tear open envelopes to access this bounty.

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Kate Ozment @grubstreetwomen.bsky.social · 21/05/2026

A far better binding than the lesser Shelley deserves 🩷 semi-professional Percy Shelley hater

Stunning tan binding with inset gold and dyed leather pieces in a decorative pattern. Percy Shelley's The Sensitive Plant by the guild of women bookbinders in 1899

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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

Also, unrelated, but of course it's all related, shoutout to The Massachusetts Trans Librarian Group, your work is important and helps us all. mblc.state.ma.us/mblc_blog/20...

mblc.state.ma.us

Close up: The Massachusetts Trans Librarians Group, 2025 Samuel Swett Green Award Winner – MBLC Blog

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Meg Elison @megelison.bsky.social · 08/03/2026

I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as the fuckin ice retreating from my driveway after three endless months

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Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

A man playing a ukulele in a pizza place while waiting for his food to be done told me he liked my "plot twist: the librarians fought back" patch, and now I'm afraid I'm in a Stephen King novel.

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Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

PSA: if something makes you cry, you are BAWLING. Not BALLING. Two completely different things, people! [this post sponsored by a "feel good" thread in which so many people were suddenly balling in public...]

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Tyler, from the Internet (Haunted) @tylerfromtheinternet.com · 11/02/2026

You can call fascists vile without using their tools. You don't need to make fun of bad people for being fat or ugly or for their gender or ableness of their bodies. It's just shitty, white guy behavior. None of us like Pam Bondi, but now none of us like you either.

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Colleen T @librarycolleen.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Newly acquired Louisa May Alcott collections at the Concord Free Public Library (MA) 📜https://concordlibrary.org/events/library-news/from-a-new-eden-in-concord-to-little-women-unveiling-the-new-alcott-collections

concordlibrary.org

From a New Eden in Concord to Little Women: Unveiling the New Alcott Collections | News & Announcements | Events | Concord Free Public Library

Concord Free Public Library website

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Anni Jyn @annijyn.com · 10/02/2026

sincerely telling myself i am a brave little toaster

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Katherine Addison/Sarah Monette @pennyvixen.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

IMPEACH EVERYONE WHO CAN'T BE FIRED. FIRE EVERYONE WHO CAN'T BE IMPEACHED.

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Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 02/02/2026

On top of all of the Epstein-related shit, I just saw that Ne*l Ga*man is publicly saying everything is a smear campaign and he did nothing wrong 🙄🤬. Take care of yourself, folks. Don't let yourself fall into the doomscroll trap; go watch Schitt's Creek instead.

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andy™ @andylevy.net · 31/01/2026

it’s not necessarily that all these people in the epstein files participated in the raping of girls it’s that none of them cared and if he hadn’t been arrested and died they’d still be out there trying to be his friend

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Ellen Kushner @ellenkushner.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

"You are scaring schools, people and the world." "My teacher said to keep it kind, so I wrote a poem"

nytimes.com

Opinion | ICE Took Liam Conejo Ramos. His Classmates Have Something to Say.

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Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

All of my application materials for Rare Book School have been submitted! Now, we wait*. *obsessively check my email and the application portal while contemplating sacrifices to various deities

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Kelly Barnhill @kellybarnhill.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

"Oh my gosh, it was so nice to see you! Have a lovely day, fuck ICE!" "Oh you too hon! Stay safe in that traffic, fuck ICE!' - two older Minnesota ladies, bidding farewell after the protest

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Michael W. Twitty @koshersoul.bsky.social · 09/01/2026

He's fighting hard but the die is cast.

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Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

Slipped in someone else's puddle of sweat on a floor mat; landed so hard on my ass that I fractured a vertebrae. FF a decade, fell down stairs at an old job, broke the one above it, much worse. Second would not have happened if the first hadn't. Only bones I've ever broken. 🥳

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Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 30/12/2025

If I disregard all of the author interactions I had while working at Book Moon, mine is seeing one of the founding members of Alabama at a cattle show. I was maybe 15, and there with my dad, who pointed the guy out. He apparently raised cattle after retiring from music; I can't recall his name.

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Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 29/12/2025

Congratulations! One of us!!! ❤️

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Mike Stabile @mikestabile.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

Officials in Tennessee aren't just banning books, they're now demanding information on who checked out contested (largely LGBTQ+) books, including names, addresses, and "household composition." A librarian who was given the directive has come forward asking for whistleblower protections.

advocate.com

Tennessee whistleblower says library board chair sought private data as part of state's book purge

A First Amendment expert told The Advocate that there are "huge" legal implications stemming from the situation.

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Quinn Daedal @quinnanya.me · 16/12/2025

Really seriously please take the 30 seconds and actually fill out the form.

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Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 16/12/2025

Public librarianship sometimes means writing slightly absurd notes.

A handwritten note reading: As I was locking things up, someone spilled what smelled like PICKLE JUICE at the computers, between 12 & 10. I cleaned it up, but the computers had already [scribble] shut down so I'm not sire if anything was damaged.

PICKLE. JUICE.

-wtf,
Kate

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Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

One argument I used to make to my students about why it was important to learn history (and historical thinking) is that someone was always going to be trying to tell you things were natural or had always been this way and that you needed to be able to see that as an exercise of power.

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Oliver Darkshire @deathbybadger.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

"don't you want to speak to your dead grandpa using ai" I think we should bring back proper necromancers and then set the skeletons on anyone who can rotate a pdf

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Bony 🦴 Skeletino 💀 @notalegalrecord.net · 07/12/2025

libraries are for everyone and i mean *everyone* 📚

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hark! a hellcat @harkahellcat.bsky.social · 07/12/2025

every librarian reading this and thinking about all the signage people just walk by

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Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

Possum prints after our last dusting of snow.

Multiple paw prints in a light coating of snow. The prints are slightly overlapping, have 5 toes each, and are complemented by faint tail drag marks.

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Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 06/12/2025

Remembering that I brought a slice of cheesecake with me while at work on a Saturday is the best thing that’s happened this week, except maybe for the initial buying of the cheesecake

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Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 06/12/2025

I’m eternally grateful that I finished my degree in time to not have to deal with this; my writing style will definitely flag as AI-generated, and I refuse to sacrifice my em-dashes.

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Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

Patron today kept pronouncing “archive” as “are-chive,” like the early-spring perennial. Are chives, or are chives not? Hmm. I perhaps need more sleep. Or more chives.

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BOO! k HistoriAAAH 🎃 @book-historia.bsky.social · 04/12/2025

Me, looking at an incunable on Instagram: I wish we had more older books at work Alex: Well good news for you, they’re getting older all the time

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Felicia Davin @feliciadavin.com · 04/12/2025

you know where I never hear ads for ICE? on my hard drive! on my cool local radio station! on the CD drive in my 13-year-old car! quitting Spotify feels great

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Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

Rocking my new @nightvaleradio.bsky.social shirt from @topa.to! It’s comfy, it’s creepy, it’s Night Vale, it’s appropriate for work. Perfection.

A torso-shot of a person wearing a shirt that reads “librarians are creatures of unimaginable power.” The shirt is black with white lettering, blue tentacles, and a pink spiral-swirl design. The person is also wearing a multi-colored shawl and a cardigan with cat faces on it, but that is itrelevant to the post.

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Marisa Kabas @marisakabas.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

i spent a little while going through the AIDS quilt and picked out a few panels that stuck out to me for one reason or another. may the memories of all these beautiful, far too young souls be a blessing.

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Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 02/12/2025

Everything is on fire but I got to talk with a patron today about why most AI is sh*t, and they actually seemed to take it to heart. So there’s that.

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Boston Comic Arts Foundation @bostoncomicarts.bsky.social · 30/11/2025

The Mass Senate passed "An Act Regarding Free Expression," which protects the right to access books in MA and safeguards creators, librarians, educators, and book professionals. The bill is now moving to the House! Visit www.massfreedomtoread.org/act and follow the steps there to show your support!

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Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

I am indeed Not An Author, but thanks all the same!

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Kate(rpillar) @bramblebites.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

My favorite bookstore is about to level up and buy their building!!! 🤩 Go forth, and help them by buying books!

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