iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Juliet E McKenna @julietemckenna.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Read back upthread for detailed evidence.

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Christopher W. Jones @cwjones.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Either way, LLMs are useless for most humanities research. And I mean, fundamentally, structurally useless. Unfixable. Not the right tool for the job. Like trying to change your car tire with a pair of pliers.

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Adam Chapman @adamchapman.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Get involved in your local histories with our wonderful colleagues in Leicestershire. #Skystorians #LocalHistory @balhnews.bsky.social @fcelh.bsky.social

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Alex Craven @dralexcraven.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

I was never a fan of JISC Historic Texts, but I can never remember how to find EEBO now.

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Alex Craven @dralexcraven.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Just had to teach my 8yo that, no, Guardiola is not famous for inventing the pep talk.

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Alex Craven @dralexcraven.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

I’ve been saving up all of the book tokens my generous family have given me since Christmas, and I finally took myself down to @chepstowbooks.bsky.social to pick up a copy of Steve Hindle’s latest magnificent tome. Very excited to get stuck into it.

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Alex Elizabeth Byrne McMillan @undeniablyalex.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

YOU’RE LISTENING TO SISYPHUS FM, THE HOME OF NON-STOP ROCK

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Trish Greenhalgh @trishgreenhalgh.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Every summer I repost this article on how to spot drowning. Please read it and pass on. In the last few years I’ve had SIX messages from people who saved a kid’s life after clicking on the link from my feed. slate.com/technology/2...

slate.com

Drowning Doesn’t Look Like Drowning

Drowning is not the violent, splashing call for help that most people expect.

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Rob @robsnottweeting.bsky.social · 16/03/2026

Failing the ‘Can you name the current US president’ cognitive question is particularly bad when you’re the answer.

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Alex Craven @dralexcraven.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

The absolute cheek of an American president whinging about countries being late to join in wars, and someone from the Trump administration criticising unreliable allies. Pot, kettle.

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Alex Craven @dralexcraven.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

Just getting stuck into my VCH colleague Stephen Mileson’s book on hunting and really enjoying it, but fuck me Harvard referencing is a proper dog’s dinner. Why would anyone opt for this?

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Beat Kümin @beatkumin.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

VACANCY - we are looking for a new early modern British colleague to join us at Warwick! Thematic focus open, with interests in religious change and/or social relations particularly welcome. Full details at warwick-careers.tal.net/vx/lang-en-G...

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Alex Craven @dralexcraven.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

Help! Can anybody more skilled than I in reading crabbing Tudor hands help me read what it is that the 100 oaks were cut down to make (the last word underlined)? [TNA, C 154/1 no. 3] #palaeography #skystorians

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Dr Matt Lodder @mattlodder.com · 04/02/2026

Also universities.

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Victoria County History @vch-home.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

Still time to book!

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Alex Craven @dralexcraven.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

Are there any experts of English place-names out there, who could offer me the benefit of their expertise? I’m curious whether anybody can suggest a meaning for a wood (or possibly the land below a wood) called Bittele (c.1408), Bythley (c.1522), Beteley (1651).

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Alex Craven @dralexcraven.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

I hate reading Victorian handwriting.

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Alex Craven @dralexcraven.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

Such a beautiful map. Brings to mind many happy memories of driving up and down the M6.

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Alex Craven @dralexcraven.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

Just look what I found on my desk yesterday. First sneak preview of the latest publication by Hampshire for @vch-home.bsky.social, written by yours truly (with important contributions by colleagues). Beautifully set once again by @hobnobpress.bsky.social. That cover is so striking!

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vchgloucester.bsky.social @vchgloucester.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

Think that migration from outside Europe is only a modern phenomenon? Our research sometimes throws up evidence of the presence of people of colour centuries ago, like this payment to an itinerant Yemani man by the parish of Charlton King’s in 1733.

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Alex Craven @dralexcraven.bsky.social · 20/11/2025

One for historians of migration and diversity: Just found a reference to a payment by the overseers of Charlton Kings (Glos.) to 'an Arabia Felix man' in 1733. I'd never come across the term before, but Google tells me it's an old name for southern Arabia, or the Yeman.

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Lesley A Hall @erinacean.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

See also, past activist movements which eventually achieved at least some of their aims are Part Of Our Great Heritage (anti-slavery, the suffrage movement, etc etc), unlike these horrible modern Wokes (who may even point out the oppressions and injustices they were fighting against, shock horror).

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Alex Craven @dralexcraven.bsky.social · 09/10/2025

Medievalists! I'm writing about a church where it was said that in 1224 'there is no font to baptise boys, but one of unadorned lead in its place', and I have questions.

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Alex Craven @dralexcraven.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

Sellafirld is certainly going to make for one of the more interesting VCH Cumbria. Volumes, that’s for sure. And @vch-home.bsky.social volumes are all already incredibly interesting, obviously.

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Victoria County History @vch-home.bsky.social · 01/10/2025

This volume - one of three that @vchgloucester.bsky.social are currently working on - focuses on the town of Cirencester, a medieval town on a Roman site. Work is also under way towards volumes on #Cheltenham, and on #Yate and the Sodburys - to learn more and support these projects:

history.ac.uk

Gloucestershire

Learn about the Victoria County History of Gloucestershire.

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Alex Craven @dralexcraven.bsky.social · 20/08/2025

Out in the field taking final illustrations for the book on Herriard, and the late evening sun is picking out the mass dials on the parish church perfectly.

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Robert Wright @reporterrwright.ft.com · 11/08/2025

But the fundamental point is that the rail network is far, far more crowded than 30 years ago. In the year to March 1996, there were 761mn passenger journeys on GB's mainline railways. In the year to March this year, there were 1.73bn, almost back to the 1.75bn peak in the year to March 2019.

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Emily Vine @emilymayvine.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

Delighted that the print copies of my first book 'Birth, Death, and Domestic Religion in early modern London', just published with @universitypress.cambridge.org, have arrived! 📚📚📚

A photo of the author holding up a copy of her book, which has a red cover.

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Alex Craven @dralexcraven.bsky.social · 02/08/2025

Railway historians/enthusiasts - can anyone suggest how/where I can find photos of obscure railways and trains? I would like photos of the L&SWR Basingstoke-Alton branch - ideally of Herriard station, and the railmotors that ran on the line.

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Alex Craven @dralexcraven.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Looking through the 1921 census for one of my @vchgloucester.bsky.social parishes, and I was intrigued to find a professional footballer amongst all the ag labs and other rural workers. Intriguingly, he was actually under contract to @safc.com whilst apparently living near Cirencester.

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Alex Craven @dralexcraven.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

Oh... oh my. So, @vchlondon.bsky.social... history of the post office??

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Jonathan Healey @jonathanhealey.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Part-time, permanent tutor job in my Department. We're looking for a local/architectural historian to teach two asynchronous online courses. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DMV263/d...

jobs.ac.uk

Departmental Tutor at University of Oxford

Discover an exciting academic career path as a Departmental Tutor at jobs.ac.uk. Don't miss out on this job opportunity - apply today!

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Alex Craven @dralexcraven.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

Very exciting news, especially excited for the long overdue project on Dorset. Good luck @markforrest.bsky.social!

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Victoria County History @vch-home.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

We are SUPER excited to share the news that the #VCH network is growing & has recently added 4 new projects in #Dorset, #Kent, #Lincolnshire & #London. These are all really exciting, collaborative projects, which you can find out more about here: blog.history.ac.uk/2025/04/four...

blog.history.ac.uk

Four New Victoria County History Projects - On History

This blog post was written by Ruth Slatter and Adam Chapman, Co-General Editors of the VCH. The Victoria County History (VCH), is delighted to announce that its national network of place-based history...

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Dave Andress @davidandress.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

All genuine historical work is revisionist. It revises what we thought we knew, with new evidence & new interpretations, in the present, for the present, respecting the reality of the past AND the multiple things it can be made to say. Everything else is self-interested myth-making.

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Dr Dave Hitchcock @davehitchcock.bsky.social · 13/03/2025

My piece for History Workshop looks back at what feels, I'm sure to me and so many other academics in the UK, like a decade-long crisis in universities. A crisis of politics, of a particularly venomous form of "education as market" ideology, and now a crisis of desperate, annihilating job cuts. 1/2

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Dave Andress @davidandress.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

As has been widely noted, this country, and the whole of Western Europe, FOUGHT THE COLD WAR AND BUILT A WELFARE STATE AT THE SAME TIME. AND TAXED WEALTH TO DO IT. So fuck you, you neoliberal pimp.

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Susie Dent @susiedentwords.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

Word of the day is ‘huff-snuff’ (16th century): a hectoring bully or braggart.

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Juan José Ponce Vázquez @jjponcevazquez.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

If you elect a clown, expect a circus.

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Alex Craven @dralexcraven.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

Jesus, what a depressing car crash. Слава Україні!

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Alex Craven @dralexcraven.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Enjoy it Canada. What's the betting that next time Trump insists Canada be replaced by Russia?

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The Onion @theonion.com · 18/02/2025

Historians Politely Remind Nation To Check What's Happened In Past Before Making Any Big Decisions theonion.com/historians-p...

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John Gallagher @earlymodernjohn.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

Great thread. I'm not the only history lecturer who expends significant effort trying to get students to go and find the book they need in the library in order to force the realisation that the books next to and near it -- which they didn't know existed -- are going to help them too.

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Alex Craven @dralexcraven.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

Fantastic to see more new draft histories coming from @wiltshistory.bsky.social. I recall being once asked by a local councillor "but what has the VCH ever done for the people of Alderbury?", so I'm glad that the project finally has an adequate riposte for him. Hope the people of Alderbury enjoy it!

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Alex Craven @dralexcraven.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

I’m at the National archives again today, about to treat myself to some juicy STAC files now I’ve diligently worked through the modern stuff, and it occurs to me that it must be about the 25th anniversary of my first visit here. I felt like a proper little historian when I saw Cromwell’s signature.

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