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ejr

@elisjr4.bsky.social
28 followers 37 following 20 posts

Library tech manatee in a mermaid world. Listening and learning

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ejr @elisjr4.bsky.social · 14h
I always remember having to explain to a librarian that "Netflix and chill" wasn't actually about watching movies. 🤣 And adding a section on emoji's double meaning to our slack training after someone posted photos of their garden.
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Darren Dahly @statsepi.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
They hounded Aaron Swartz to death for downloading papers from jstor but society is now supposed to just accept mass theft because this thing can write that TPS report *for* you. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_S...
en.wikipedia.org
Aaron Swartz - Wikipedia
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tamara nopper @tamaranopper.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Ta-Nehisi Coates said, ”I‘ve been very, very careful to tell people what I am qualified to talk about and what I’m not qualified to talk about.” ”No one person should be the oracle or be the articulator…be skeptical of people who attempt to appoint themselves as that. I don‘t want that job at all.”
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Matthew Noe @noethematt.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I am so confused. We are under budgetary stress, but we are supposed to prioritize digital access to information, which costs anywhere from 2 to 20x more to provide than physical materials and doesn't actually require fewer staff to manage if done well. So what exactly are we supposed to do?
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Aparna Nair @disabilitystor1.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
I say this both as a disabled person and as someone who does disability studies, we don't get to be uncritical of the technologies that use our bodies and identities to silence dissent around Big Tech, even if they are useful for some of us. Thats not how any of this works.
“I have really thought it was responsible,” Currier told me. I asked Currier about privacy concerns around Meta glasses; he told me he was not “real invested in knowing what any sort of policy or answer should be moving forward,” but feels the positives outweigh the negatives.
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ejr @elisjr4.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I always remember that probably the only reason I learned 1950-1990s US History in high school was because of today. My teacher moved the section up because "we needed to know why this was happening".
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Pavel @spavel.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Imagine if you just gave mathematicians 22 million dollars
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Deva Woodly @devawo.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
This is a very serious problem for libraries, archives, and knowledge-keepers of all kinds. If you don’t control access to your collections, *you do not have collections.* If we do not have permanent access to records, stories, & sources of knowledge then our histories and memories are not our own.
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The PS1 startup sound as a lesbian @janus.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
everyone seems to be responding positively to this and i hate to burst anyone's bubble, but i recently went to a Luddite festival in NYC and this is something organizers specifically warned about: don't let capitalists sell your hatred of capitalism back to you
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Prisonculture @prisonculture.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Folks, no one has a RIGHT to higher office. OK? You aren't "canceling" anyone when you decide NOT TO SUPPORT THEIR QUEST FOR MORE POWER. Please let's be SERIOUS. This is not what is meant by "no one is disposable." I'm begging people to focus and use your brains. That man can still make a LIVING.
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Cheryl Lynn Eaton @cheryllynneaton.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
What do you mean abolishing ICE is not doable? It was created in 2003. There are Missy Elliot songs older than ICE.
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ejr @elisjr4.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
I wish people understood this. I'm constantly asked what would it take for the library to build a static Open Access repository with no staff or funding for maintenance. Even if that was realistic, bots will regularly break it. That's only increased in the past decade.
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Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 09/05/2026
A lot of people are gleefully pointing out various data elements this gets wrong, but the thing is, that doesn’t matter; this all gets lumped into a sellable product anyway. They’re not trying to individually identify you because they care about *you*; it’s just a way to add value to a data product.
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Matthew Noe @noethematt.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
"Not everything meaningful in our lives is efficient, nor should it be. Growth is supposed to be slow. Creativity and effort should be messy. Learning and producing something excellent requires failure, revision, and time that cannot be optimized away with a large language model or an algorithm."
thecrimson.com
The False Promise of AI Efficiency | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson
If everything becomes quicker and simpler with AI, we may eventually optimize away the very things that make our lives worth living.
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Nichole @tnwhiskeywoman.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
They’re so scared of us.
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Bony 🦴 Skeletino 💀 @notalegalrecord.net · 09/04/2026
Amazon may stop supporting your Kindle, but your public library won’t stop supporting *you.* just saying. 📚
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A. M. Vincent @vincent.northsky.social · 15/03/2026
Sad to see the Ides of March becoming commercialised like this. I really feel like we're losing track of the true spirit of the holiday. It's not about how many knives you can stick in a tyrant all at once, it's about the whole community coming together to stab the tyrant as many times as possible.
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Jessica Smith @thedaybooks.bsky.social · 12/01/2026
Librarianship is multifaceted, generalist, and must be robust and adroit to respond to a wide range of user demands, abilities, interests, etc. ... it can't just be counting things and running computer programs. That can be one thing, but it can't be everything.
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Mar Hicks @histoftech.bsky.social · 25/12/2025
lmaowww
Rachel @femaleredhead
reading for pleasure implies the existence of reading for pain

Neil Renic @NC_Renic
they're calling it a PhD
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PTK @leftveteran.bsky.social · 25/12/2025
The Onion, non-stop winning
The Onion- cat in Christmas Tree with title “Cat Clinging To Side Of Christmas Tree Admits That Was Extent Of Plan”
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Mar Hicks @histoftech.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
Glad Rolling Stone published this, especially given the loud silence from the rest of the media on this grim watershed moment in US political history.
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Greggo 🏳️‍🌈 @greggo.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
My response to anything over the next two weeks
A grey and red transit bus on the road in a city. The bus’ destination sign reads “NO? ?? ???????”
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Frank&Stein @brandtandstein.com · 11/12/2025
Also, congratulations everyone who made something this year. A comic, a song, a film, a novel, a painting, a poem, a short story, a sculpture, crochet, embroidery, whatever it is. In this era of slop and theft, if you *make* something you are a shining jewel and I am so grateful for you.
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ejr @elisjr4.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
Yep. So much wasted time.
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Thomas Helbig @thelbig.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
On AI cannibalism: "Calculators expanded reasoning; the printing press spread knowledge. ChatGPT, by contrast, doesn’t extend cognition—it automates it, turning thinking itself into a service. Rather than democratizing learning, it privatizes the act of thinking under corporate control."
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ejr @elisjr4.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
This!!!👇🏼👇🏼
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Bookshop.org @bookshop.org · 30/10/2025
Amazon is helping fund a $300 million build of a ballroom for the White House. Independent bookstores are donating to food banks and organizations that help with food insecurity. They are not the same.
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Miriam Posner @miriamposner.com · 24/10/2025
Every word of this.
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ejr @elisjr4.bsky.social · 17/10/2025
Reminder that just because CA seems blue and has decent consumer protections rn, doesn't mean we should expect it to stay that way without a fight.
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Sammy Roth @sammyroth.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
First sentence says it all: "Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed legislation that would have required data centers to report how much water they use." Read the rest of the story though. from @ianjames.bsky.social: www.latimes.com/environment/...
latimes.com
California cracks down on water theft but spares data centers from disclosing how much they use
Gov. Newsom vetoed a bill that would have required data centers to report their projected water use when applying for a business license.
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Lauren MacIvor Thompson @lmacthompson1.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
I am writing this because it has swiftly become crystal clear to me that many people have no idea what is happening or how this works. Here is a thread for non-academics to put into context what just happened to Dr. Mark Bray, a fellow historian.
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ejr @elisjr4.bsky.social · 25/09/2025
Oh good old ALA 🙄 what's that org racial demographic again?
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Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 12/09/2025
‘Booty’ and ‘butt’ are synonyms. ‘Call’ and ‘dial’ are synonyms. But, a ‘booty call’ and a ‘butt dial’ are VERY different things.
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Karen Attiah @karenattiah.bsky.social · 10/09/2025
For everyone saying political violence has no place in this country… Remember two Democratic legislators were shot in Minnesota just this year. And America shrugged and moved on.
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Greg Pak @gregpak.net · 10/09/2025
This should be illegal.
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Alex Brown 🇵🇸 (they/them) @bookjockeyalex.bsky.social · 25/08/2025
That's bc it doesn't "know" they've been retracted. Bc it cannot think, analyze, or evaluate.
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Alex Brown 🇵🇸 (they/them) @bookjockeyalex.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
CA is the kind of state where in 1847 our acting governor could say "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, unless for punishment of crimes, shall ever be tolerated in this State" then 1 year later we have slave auctions in Gold Country and legalized Indigenous slavery.
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Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett @crockett.house.gov · 20/08/2025
They’ve tried to erase us for centuries. Didn’t work then, won’t work now. Black history IS American history.
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Michelle Wu 吳弭 @wutrain.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
To my 10th grade English teacher, who said, “Make the conclusion count.”
A screenshot of the last paragraph of the letter to AG Bondi:

On behalf of the people of Boston, and in solidarity with the cities and communities targeted by this federal administration for our refusal to bow down to unconstitutional threats and unlawful coercion, we affirm our support for each other and for our democracy. Boston will never back down from being a beacon of freedom, and a home for everyone.

Sincerely,
Michelle Wu
Mayor of Boston
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AAUP @aaup.org · 19/08/2025
“We need a massive movement of higher ed workers & students...As higher ed goes, so goes democracy. But the converse isn’t absolutely true. Higher ed alone cannot save democracy, but we’re a critical part. We need a broader societal movement to save our country.” — Todd Wolfson, AAUP President
insidehighered.com
AAUP President: “Higher Ed Alone Cannot Save Democracy”
More than a year into his presidency of the American Association of University Professors—including nearly seven months of Trump’s targeting of universities—Todd Wolfson is calling for a “multisector”...
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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 20/08/2025
"Solving" the digital divide with AI bootcamps is like "solving" food insecurity with restaurant etiquette lessons. It doesn't touch the deeper inequities. It risks creating a culture of blame if kids don't use what they learn. And it risks reifying the idea that private wealth always knows best.
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Jacob Harris @jacobharr.is · 20/08/2025
One of the things you learned at 18F and USDS is that government isn’t like a business: it has to serve everybody and not just specific market segments that are the most convenient.
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Alex Brown 🇵🇸 (they/them) @bookjockeyalex.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
More work the public libraries will have to take on, even as they do their own recovery work. The library is pretty much the only place left where you can get free tech help and training on computer skills. Staff will have to manage personal recovery, employer recovery, and now patron recovery.
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Alex Brown 🇵🇸 (they/them) @bookjockeyalex.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
Again, why else do you think they're pushing so hard into education, esp K-12? You get subscribers by hooking them in young. AI EdTech is about locking in future consumers, not about better pedagogy.
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Kat Tenbarge @kattenbarge.bsky.social · 20/08/2025
Because banning social media for kids is not about protecting kids or making their lives better. It flies in the face of research, data, and what kids are telling us. It’s about controlling them, isolating them, and keeping them uninformed. It’s part of the fascist playbook.
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Thomas Lecaque @tlecaque.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
"How bad slavery was" is worse. Much worse. Much worse than you think, much worse than you're taught, much worse than museums depict. Worse.
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maxgbowman @maxgbowman.bsky.social · 09/08/2025
Meanwhile, here in Maine, AI crawlers have rendered the server that manages our statewide interlibrary loan unreachable by legitimate attempts to pass through requests/information Again, but louder: the server can’t be reached by libraries and the folks trying to use them BECAUSE OF AI CRAWLERS.
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Chris Shehan_Comic Art @chrisshehanart.bsky.social · 02/08/2025
“It’s just a tool! People used to hate on photoshop too.” Take away my photoshop, take away my tablets, I can still draw. Take away your plagiarism machine and what are you gonna do? Shout prompts at me?
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Chanda Prescod-Weinstein 🌌 @chanda.blacksky.app · 31/07/2025
At a disadvantage because we get punched in the face less? Because that’s inevitably going to happen to assholes who are recording other people without their permission Also WHY ARE WE IN THE PLOT OF THE CIRCLE
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