iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Andy Lewis @andylewis.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Every time someone links to this film, I have to repost it. It's one of the most significant bits of British 20th century art. Everything about it is incredible. Groundbreaking music production by Daphne Oram. Amazing camera work by Wolfgang Suschitzky (who later filmed Get Carter).-

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Opal @opalescentopal.bsky.social · 27/07/2025

With Tom Lehrer's passing, I suppose this is a moment to share the story of the prank he played on the National Security Agency, and how it went undiscovered for nearly 60 years.

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Elizabeth Oliver @elizabetholiver.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

18 years since my kidney transplant. Grateful thanks to the NHS & my donor’s family. More donors are needed. Please join the Organ Donor Register and discuss your wishes with your family.

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Lorna MacGillivray @elemjay.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

Nature will always find a way.

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Richard Ovenden @richove.bsky.social · 12/07/2025

American libraries are under attack. I have written a long piece for @theobserveruk.bsky.social on the MAGA assault on libraries (and archives), and the strong librarians fighting back. observer.co.uk/news/interna...

observer.co.uk

‘There is no political power without power over the archive’

Titles banned, data deleted, the nation’s librarians sacked without explanation – Donald Trump’s war on books is a threat to democracy across the world, ...

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Elizabeth Oliver @elizabetholiver.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

Wordle 1,480 2/6 🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Well, that was a fluke.

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

📢 IN CASE YOU MISSED IT 📢 Our very special 'Will of the Month' post - co-written by 2 of our @zooniverse.bsky.social volunteers, Will Johnson & Barbara Tearle, is now live! 📜 The testator, Edward Fetiplace, had links to Henry VIII & Anne of Cleves 👑 🧵1/2 sites.exeter.ac.uk/materialcult...

sites.exeter.ac.uk

Will of the Month: A country squire and Castle Keeper to a Duke and a King

Will Johnson, Barbara Tearle, Emily Vine This edition of our ‘Will of the Month’ series is a very special one. It’s the fruit of a collaboration: the research and transcription were completed by Zooni...

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Juliet E McKenna @julietemckenna.bsky.social · 06/05/2025

Now *this* is what AI is good for! This is an expert system developed by applying machine learning to a specialist, selected dataset, is designed for a specific, technical purpose, refined by human experts. And does not require the wholesale theft of creators' copyright intellectual property.

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

And we've also been thinking about future 'Will of the Month' blog posts 📜✍️ If you missed it, you can catch up on April's post here 👇 #skystorians #history #earlymodern @uoearchhist.bsky.social 2/2🧵

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

📢 NEW Will of the Month Post 📢 April's post explores the will of a Wiltshire gentleman who left remarkably detailed burial instructions He wished to be buried under the communion table, named his 6 coffin bearers, & even donated his funeral pall to the parish 1/2 sites.exeter.ac.uk/materialcult...

The black and white frontispiece from John Dunton’s book ‘A Mourning=Ring’ (1692). On the left are a series of images, and on the right is the book's title page. The series of images on the left shows a deceased man in his shroud, the black funeral pall or hearse-cloth draped over the coffin, and the carrying of the coffin to the burial ground.

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Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · 09/04/2025

Happy 97th birthday to one of America's greatest living satirists, Tom Lehrer! Here's a musical selection that seems particularly appropriate for the start of @aseh.bsky.social's annual meeting... #TomLehrer #Comedy #envhist #ASEH25 🗃️📜

youtu.be

Tom Lehrer - Pollution - with intro

YouTube video by The Tom Lehrer Wisdom Channel

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Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick @mrcwarwick.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

For archivists, the phrase ‘dusty archives’ is fighting talk! Behind the scenes cleaning & collections care helps to give documents the best chance of long-term survival We've been hard at work with a smoke sponge, de-griming those documents ready for researchers! #Archive30 #ArchiveConservation

Dirty document with a clean smoke sponge placed on it.

Cleaned document with a dirty smoke sponge placed on it.

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Cécile Archives @cecilearchives.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Don't mess with archivists. We keep receipts. "The Danish National Archives holds a ground-breaking document (...) With a single stroke of a pen, the USA accepted that the whole of Greenland was Danish territory". jyllands-posten.dk/indland/ECE1...

jyllands-posten.dk

The Danish National Archives holds a ground-breaking document proving that President Donald Trump is wrong about Greenland

In a high-security storage facility at the Danish National Archives (Rigsarkivet) is a 100 year old sheet of paper with an American promise about Greenland. This is the fascinating story which Preside...

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

📢 NEW WILL OF THE MONTH POST 📢 March's post takes us from the island of St Helena to Calcutta in 1720 It explores the will of the widow of an East India Company chaplain, including shipping 'moveable property' overseas, charity, & ownership of an enslaved woman. sites.exeter.ac.uk/materialcult...

An eighteenth-century watercolour of a scene from Calcutta. A river and boats fill the left half of the scene, with the river bank, a grand house, and palm trees on the right. Watercolour, In the Garden House Reach, Calcutta, India, by William Daniell, ca. 1786-1791. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2025 https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1245996/in-the-garden-house-reach-watercolour-william-daniell/

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Alison Park @parkali.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

Astonishing fact on #bbcr4today earlier, discussing the Heathrow power failure. Heathrow requires 41MW; a new data centre nearby needs 150MW. Stark illustration of the underpinning energy consequences of data storage.

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

We really enjoyed speaking to @transkribus.bsky.social recently, and are delighted to see this write-up of our project. The blog post provides an overview of our project and how we're using Handwritten Text Recognition 📜✍️ @uoearchhist.bsky.social @zooniverse.bsky.social @leverhulme.bsky.social

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

📢 WEBINAR NEXT WEEK! 📢 We're hosting a Zooniverse progress update Webinar on Wednesday 19 March @ 14.00 GMT We'll: Share some exciting volunteer finds 📜 Share updated stats about project progress 📈 Answer questions submitted in advance 🙋 Joining info: sites.exeter.ac.uk/materialcult... 🧵1/2

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Bodleian Libraries @bodleian.ox.ac.uk · 11/03/2025

A lovely bit of meta marginalia here by Hugh the Painter.

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 25/02/2025

📢 New 'Will of the Month' Post! 📢 For February @lsangha.bsky.social uncovers the fascinating story of a London citizen and former prisoner, who examined his conscience when he made his will in 1607 ⏳📜 sites.exeter.ac.uk/materialcult... #history #skystorians #earlymodern @uoearchhist.bsky.social

A greyscale map of London with Castle Baynard Ward surrounded in a red square. The base map is Wenceslaus Hollar, Map of London before the Fire of 1666, c. 1667, Davison Art Center, Wesleyan University. Gift of George W. Davison (B.A. Wesleyan 1892). The red square roughly indicates Baynard Castle ward, where John Pooke, the testator of this will resided.

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

📢 A Zooniverse Progress Update! 📢 We're delighted that (as of last week) 2,582 users (and counting!) have contributed to our Zooniverse site 👩‍👩‍👧‍👦 @zooniverse.bsky.social volunteers have checked 353,402 lines of transcribed text 📜✍️ The total time spent by volunteers is 7,816 hours 23 minutes ⏳ 1/3🧵

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Elizabeth Oliver @elizabetholiver.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

Wonderful exhibition at MK Gallery of Vanessa Bell’s paintings, furniture, china etc. On until 23 Feb. Only let down by disappointing selection of postcards. #VanessaBell

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

Hi Brigitte! Off the top of my head I don't know of examples but I can alert the team to look out for them. Down the line we will be able to search our data and find these and similar 'needles'! Gardening tools and musical instruments are examples of things on our list to look at ...

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Richard Ovenden @richove.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

A combination of AI, the particle accelerator @diamondlightsource.bsky.social & colleagues from Oxford’s Classics Faculty is helping us to see the unseen inside a scroll @bodleianlibraries.bsky.social www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

bbc.co.uk

First glimpse inside burnt scroll after 2,000 years

The document charred by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius is being 'unwrapped' using X-ray scans and AI.

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Elizabeth Oliver @elizabetholiver.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

Excellent service from HM Passport Office. On 21 Jan used Post Office in Aylesbury (v helpful staff member) to have photo taken and old passport sent off. New passport delivered 4 Feb. We complain about public services, so credit where it is due.

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 02/02/2025

Our Project Co-Investigator here talking about the meaning of a bequests in a sixteenth-century will: #EarlyModern 🗃️ #Skytorians

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Having a lovely time catching up on our Zooniverse 'Talk Boards' - our volunteers are flagging so much great 'stuff'! I particularly liked this thread on the emergence of hairdressing as an occupation. 💇💈💇‍♂️ #EarlyModern 🗃️ www.zooniverse.org/projects/hjs...

zooniverse.org

Zooniverse

The Zooniverse is the world’s largest and most popular platform for people-powered research.

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

📢 In Case You Missed It 📢 January's 'Will of the Month' Post is now live on our project blog! It's the will of a Berkshire gentleman who left over 50 bequests - so many objects are mentioned that we didn't know what to write about! 🪑🥄👞 sites.exeter.ac.uk/materialcult... #skystorians #history

A composite image showing a range of different early modern objects – similar to the wide range of objects found in Denton’s will. Individual images © Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2024 and © The Trustees of the British Museum

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Elizabeth Oliver @elizabetholiver.bsky.social · 25/01/2025

Trying to do the #BigGardenBirdwatch while my marmalade simmers on the stove. Birds not co-operating. Red kite circling overhead may have scared them off.

Extracting juice and pith from Seville oranges.

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

📢 SIXTEENTH-CENTURY WILLS NOW ON ZOONIVERSE! 📢 A new milestone for our @zooniverse.bsky.social site - we've gone back in time ⏳ & have uploaded new wills 📃dating 1538-1552. Practice your early modern palaeography✍️ & read Tudor wills made during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI 1/2

A screenshot of a Tudor will on our Zooniverse site - black and white text in sixteenth-century 'secretary hand' style handwriting.

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Buckinghamshire Archives @bucksarchives.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

quick PSA for anyone considering working in an archive

An 'archivist starter pack' meme, showing various stereotypes about archivists.

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RSPB @rspb.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

'Alright pal, got plans for the #BigGardenBirdwatch?' 'Nah, just the usual... hang out of sight whilst she's doing the count, then touch down once the hour's over. You?' 'Classic. Planning some fly-bys with a few of the boys, but we'll only land one at a time.' 'Niiice.'

A plump Wood Pigeon stands confidently on a bird table, chest puffed out, looking slightly smug. Beside it, a glossy Starling with shimmering green and purple feathers sits lower down, tilting its head up as if deep in conversation. The two birds appear to be mid-chat, giving off the vibe of scheming pals casually plotting how to dodge being counted in the Big Garden Birdwatch.

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Susie Dent @susiedentwords.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

I've always loved the fact that the word 'sneeze' is the result of a historical accident. The original form, in the Middle Ages, was 'fnese', but someone mistook the 'f' for the long medieval 's' and wrote down 'sn-' instead. Fneezing sounds much more like a proper, nasal sneeze.

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Lisa Constanti - Chronicology @chronicology.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

Stocktaking time at Cambridgeshire Archives. I'm not sure how much help I was whenever I found fascinating items to squeal at, like these documents with seals still attached and an old pre-Beck London underground map! #genealogy #archives

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The Public Domain Review @publicdomainrev.bsky.social · 08/01/2025

🥁 Announcing the Public Domain Image Archive! 🥁 We are v excited to share our new sister-project, the Public Domain Image Archive (PDIA), a curated collection of 10k+ out-of-copyright historical images, all free to explore and reuse: pdimagearchive.org @pdimagearchive

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Juliet E McKenna @julietemckenna.bsky.social · 07/01/2025

Quick polite request: if you're recommending or discussing a TV show or movie that you're watching via streaming, could you please mention the platform it's on. Thanks.

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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 04/01/2025

The last altar. Before leaving the Antonine Wall yesterday, I paid a visit to an absolutely unique object, the Carrick Stone - which is the sole altar from Roman Britain that has survived above ground

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Elizabeth Oliver @elizabetholiver.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Labelled from right to left. Took a while to realise this convention.

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Ros Wynne-Jones @roswynnejones.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

Working in remote South Sudan in '90s, everyone I met would proudly show off their 'Jimmy Carter cloth' or drinking straw. In '95 Carter brokered a 4-month “Guinea worm cease-fire”, allowing distribution of 200k cloth filters and straws that made river water safer. That legacy alone, mind-blowing.

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Professionally Nosy @professionallynosy.bsky.social · 27/12/2024

*Steps on to archivist soapbox, taps microphone* The biggest lie you can tell yourself is "I'll remember." No. You won't. Write down/add metadata about who/what/where/when. Put a year on EVERYTHING. Now is a great time to group project this with family!

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Fishbourne Roman Palace @romanpalace.bsky.social · 26/12/2024

It's Boxing Day. These are boxes (in our artefacts store). This is the quality content you're here for.

Row upon row of neatly arranged cardboard boxes on a shelf, each with a white label.

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

📢 NEW 'Will of the Month' post! 📢 🎄 It's time for a Christmassy one! 🎄 December's post looks at the 1786 will 📜of Mary Partridge, who left: - an orchard, but sadly no pear tree 🍐🌳 - some gold rings, but not quite five 💍💍💍💍💍 sites.exeter.ac.uk/materialcult... #skystorians #history #earlymodern

First page of the carol 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' from Mirth without Mischief, Anonymous (1780). Includes a woodcute of a partridge in a pear tree.

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Daniel F Gosling @thegozfather.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

It took a little while, but all 70,000 enrolled charitable trust deeds on the Close Rolls (TNA C 54), taken from the calendars at Kew, are now searchable on Discovery. Search by place name, county, or even charitable purpose. discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/results/r?_a...

discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk

Search results: Charitable | The National ArchivesThe National ArchivesThe National ArchivesOpen Government LicenceGOV.UK

The official archive of the UK government. Our vision is to lead and transform information management, guarantee the survival of today's information for tomorrow and bring history to life for everyone...

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

A cheesy find in an early modern will! 🧀🧀🧀 For this and other unusual bequests, have a look at our @zooniverse.bsky.social site and see what you can find: www.zooniverse.org/projects/hjs... #earlymodern #skystorians #History

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Gill Oliver @justajourno.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

If you haven't been already, please go this #medieval exhibition at the wonderful British Library about women achieving great things: medievalwomen.seetickets.com/timeslots/fi...

medievalwomen.seetickets.com

Buy Tickets

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