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Samantha E Thompson

@harchivist.bsky.social
508 followers 336 following 1.1K posts

Brit-Canadian archivist-librarian, government records and local history museum staffer, trad-classical musician, post-academic philosophy PhD (on Augustine), and other hyphenated things. Can't help it: so much to learn.

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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Michaelmas bee
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
For my birthday I visited the grave of one of my favourite historical figures, the Rev. Peter Jones (Kahkewaquonaby). The inscription is now hardly legible. You can make out the word Ojibway and part of his name. The original wording may be in some archival records I catalogued.
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Canadian Cultural Heritage Advocacy Committee @cchac.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Register now for a free advocacy webinar with John Chrastka of the EveryLibrary Institute @everylibrary.bsky.social on October 13 at 3:00 pm ET. archivists.ca/event-6826891
archivists.ca
Association of Canadian Archivists - Making the Case for Archives: Funding, Coalitions, and Elected Officials - Free advocacy webinar presented by the Canadian Cultural Heritage Advocacy Committee
ORG description
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
Two of multiple tornado warnings via my phone yesterday (including of an actual tornado?). Looking for a country I can blame for this.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
Vast Lake Ontario was still as a pond this morning.
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Vaughan Williams Foundation @vwfndn.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
🗞️ A new song by Ralph Vaughan Williams has been discovered! ‘Before the Mirror’ is a setting of part of a poem by Swinburne. It was recently unearthed in a box of odd manuscripts in the archive of Morley College by Learning Resources Centre Manager, Elaine Andrews. 🧵1/3
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
One of my favorites among her renditions. youtu.be/qqXk7Fgxbtk?...
youtu.be
Coinleach Glas An Fhómhair
YouTube video by Clannad - Topic
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 14/04/2026
Big loss to the folk scene.
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Jess Calarco @jessicacalarco.com · 10/04/2026
Week 14 of my stitch-the-news daily news diary included: A Waffle House A Pope hat A devil's pitchfork A Michigan logo A white flag A Polymarket app A penguin
Embroidered icons representing 

A Waffle House for the FEMA official who claimed to have teleported to one
A Pope hat for Pope Leo's condemnation of the invocation of God to justify US war efforts
A devil's pitchfork for Trump's Easter threat that Iran will be "living in hell"
A Michigan logo for the Big-10's big wins in the NCAA tournaments
A white flag for Trump's threat to extinguish Iran, followed by his quick and dubious announcement of a peace agreement hours later
A Polymarket app icon for the big last-minute bets on a ceasefire deal, prompting concerns about insider trading
A penguin for the addition of the Emperor penguin and the fur seal to the endangered species list because of threats related to climate change
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
St. Jude's, Oakville, Ontario.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Yeah me too.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
Doctors have a remarkable ability to make you feel like an imposition no matter what you do. Test comes back negative, why are you wasting their time. Test comes back positive, sigh, now you're really going to waste their time.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 12/03/2026
I just suddenly recalled an entire Gregorian chant I learned 24 years ago and didn't know I knew. Unfortunately I can't remember what I had for breakfast today.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
Flowers from archival colleagues. 🥲
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
Old piano for sale at the Salvation Army Thrift Store. Somehow very touching.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 04/02/2026
Worst time of winter and and a long way to go yet. Brits and their snowdrops can buzz off.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 19/01/2026
Surprising how many people were out taking a walk last night at -15C. All of us grimly nodding as we passed one another.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 18/01/2026
Pressing tofu. Yes I still have a dictionary. Sometimes I even read it, not that you'd know by my spelling.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 17/01/2026
I am sad that this is so personally familiar.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 11/01/2026
Oh well.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
Bloody Teams notifications are an ice pick to my brain. God it was nice to have a break from the peck peck peck peck peck...
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 04/01/2026
Just finished processing new purchases for the parish library. (I tend to emphasize accessible books the public library likely won't have.) I miss working with books. They're so mellow compared to archival records which resist corralling at every turn.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 04/01/2026
Still recovering from a horrible realistic dream in which the US carpet-bombed Toronto. That kind of dream where you're thinking "this has to be a dream but it isn't."
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Allister Thompson @allistert.bsky.social · 17/12/2025
Hot tip: my elderly, very skittish cat was really calmed in the car on the way to the vet by the Hilliard Ensemble’s ECM recording of ‘The Lamentations of Jeremiah.’
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 28/12/2025
Not embarrassed that some of these were mine.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
A somber motet for tonight. Apt for the times.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 24/12/2025
My Hudson's Bay biscuit tin from just a few years ago. Too nice to throw out.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 23/12/2025
We don't get many manicules in this archive. Small Christmas present.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
The bank phone has the same on-hold musak that my old veterinarian used and it's reminding me of sad times.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 30/11/2025
The night is far gone; the day is near.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
Why is it so all-fired hard for me to get back to the UK given I am already a blasted citizen?
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
I'm not used to seeing actual books in a clinical context anymore.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
Overhearing a conversation at the hospital where a women talking to a nurse was blind for 10 years and regained her sight after two pregnancies in quick succession. They think it's due to a surge in stem cells. The blindness was neurological in some way, it sounds like.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
Random church shot. Embroidered chasuble draped on the altar rail during preparation. Beautiful work, almost always by women.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
"Please do not use Yamaha recorders for any other purposes besides musical performance."
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
Got an ALTO Yamaha recorder at a thrift store for $2. Not a professional grade instrument but all Yamahas are good. It can be dunked in the sink to clean it. Now I just need time and energy to learn the wretched F fingerings. Tenor was easier for an ex-flutist.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 24/10/2025
Chinese-Canadian anesthesiologists ways treat with deadly seriousness my concern for protecting the vocal tract during intubation. "She is a singer" at the top of my chart. Might have something to do with every Chinese-Canadian doctor I know being an accomplished musician.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 23/10/2025
Monkey!
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 22/10/2025
At Oxford County (Ontario) for regional archivists' meeting and ran into some great folklore. The old county building (ca. 1890) sports random monkey grotesques. Legend has it they represent ten councillors the builders disliked or are the result of a curse.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 21/10/2025
Lovely little stone walking bridge near Hamilton, Ontario. My city would have this down in a hot second.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 19/10/2025
I am looking forward to general anesthesia on Thursday because I won't have to be in traffic or think about traffic. Blessed oblivion.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 18/10/2025
??
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Charles T. Downey @ionarts.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
First encore at the Ronn McFarlane-Paul O'Dette lute duo recital today: John Dowland's "My Lord Chamberlain, His Galliard" - for two people to play on a single lute. And I thought playing piano, four hands, was tricky to coordinate!
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Matthew J Kuiper @matthewjkuiper.bsky.social · 13/10/2025
This is terrific. A great profile of Great Lakes shipping (and mandatory reminiscence on the Edmund Fitzgerald) featuring my all time favorite freighter, one I’ve seen dozens of times, the still hardworking “antique” steamship Wilfred Sykes. Gift article.
nytimes.com
In the Wake of the Edmund Fitzgerald
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Dr Karen McAulay @karenmca.bsky.social · 12/10/2025
Oral Transmission of Folk Songs - View from the organ stool! karenmcaulaymusicologist.blog/2025/10/12/o... #FolkSongs
karenmcaulaymusicologist.blog
Oral Transmission of Folk Songs
Attribution and Authorship When I’m talking to students about oral transmission of folk songs, my take is – perhaps a bit controversially – that I believe a lot of songs were actu…
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 12/10/2025
Anglican church cupboard is 50% carbs.
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Melinda Haunton @melindahaunton.bsky.social · 12/10/2025
Something that's so hard with reading history second-hand is to remember that no one knew what was going to come next. Which is archives magic. Nobody at *this exact moment* knows that Nurse Cavell will become a tragedy and a cause celebre. They just know what she has done, and her family.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
When I was young, we had green cars.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 09/10/2025
Ah that autumnal smell of burning dust as the electric heating is turned on for the first time.
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Samantha E Thompson @harchivist.bsky.social · 04/10/2025
The fact that I have survived for 11 years in a particularly corporate-y corporation is nothing short of a miracle.
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