iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

"Having heard that Rabbits are being bred in various parts of the country, and knowing from experience, that their favourite food is parsley..." Famous last words from colonisers new to the Australian ecosystem. Hobart Town Gazette and Van Diemen's Land Advertiser, 25 June 1825, p.2

Newspaper clipping: "Having heard that Rabbits are being bred in various parts of the country, and knowing from experience, that their favourite food is parsley, we hope a few remarks on the mode of culturing this vegetable may not be considered uninteresting."

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Australian National Maritime Museum @seamuseum.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

⚓️ WE NEED YOUR HELP! HMAS Vampire turns 70 this year! Our curators are digging through the archives and found this photo of a gorgeous lab pup onboard. We have zero details. Who is this dog? When was this taken? Help us solve the mystery in the replies! 👇 #HMASVampire #MuseumArchives #NavyDogs

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 26/01/2026

Me, trying to convince friends *waves hands* out there that Tasmania is a normal and real place. The locals:

News headline: "Police locate dog seen driving ute on Tassie beach"

Police are investigating reports that a dog was allegedly driving a ute on a Tasmanian beach over the weekend.

Witnesses said the ute was seen being driven along White Beach at Nubeena about 9:30am Saturday, with a dog in the driver’s seat.

“Witnesses reported that a white Mitsubishi Triton was being driven on the beach, with a dog in the driver’s seat and a man in the passenger seat,” a police spokesperson told Pulse.

Officers later located the vehicle, man and dog at a nearby property, with police confirming multiple reports were made about the incident.

Police are calling for witnesses or footage, including dashcam vision, as investigations continue.

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 14/12/2025

For a few years now, I've been part of an online writing group that finally met in person at Mississippi State last year. Now our special issue of Agricultural History about place-based history is out online. The group has such diverse research, enjoy! read.dukeupress.edu/agricultural... #history

The abstract and main image of the article: Unraveling the Concepts of Place in a Colonial Estate Plan.

Abstract: Place-based histories often use historical maps to provide spatial clarity or pinpoint a specific location, but sometimes historians forget to interrogate the map we are using. Maps are always created for a purpose, which informs how they depict their scene, and historians need to read them analytically as we would any other historical source. This article demonstrates how to pull apart the narrative of one map of a small property in Van Diemen's Land (colonial Tasmania). In doing so, the ephemerality of both the map and the landscape becomes clear. A multitude of motives underpinned the creation of the map and the farm it shows. It is only by teasing apart its cracks and working in the few documentary records of Edward Foord Bromley's property that one can finally grasp its purpose: it was a form of colonial boosterism designed to encourage colonial settlers into productive agricultural ways.

I stand in front of a campus building at Mississippi State University. My hands are awkwardly in and out of my pockets at the same time, the sky is blue, and the low winter sun is golden across the buildings.

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 14/12/2025

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

My neighbours are moving out, which means my WFH companion is also moving away. I'm going to have to get a cat of my own, aren't I?

A ginger cat snoozes on an armchair beside a large window.

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

I know what I think this says, but what do you think? "between the swamps the soil _________ good but _______ to clear, great quantity of fern and sword grass." Grimes, King Island, 1802-3: nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2322... #history

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

Now its the time for the aurora to visit these nocturnal parts. Its 10:30pm and the beach has the gentle hum of a few small groups watching the lights, while the waves sway back and forth in time with the sky's dance.

A few glimmers of green aurora light up the sky between clouds, above the night lights of Hobart.

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

Where are my old-ish French handwriting readers? How did Freycinet's people describe the landscape around today's New Norfolk in Tasmania? I have bits and pieces, but some words are defeating me. Full map available from: nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2323... #history #archives

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Buckinghamshire Archives @bucksarchives.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

Hoping this helps our colleagues across the industry

A meme of 'Is this an archive?' showing a grid with various classifications of things that might be archives based on their content and structure.

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

Love to see that the Tasmanian Aboriginal palawa kani place names map has had a whole makeover. Great user info, a better layout, it's beautiful. tacinc.com.au/map/map (Of course, I discovered the update because an article in press has the old URL in a footnote & it's too late to change it...)

The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre palawa kani language program map of First Nations place names across the island, with a side bar showing instructions about how the public may use the place names.

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 17/10/2025

I think we can agree this conference catering is putting all others to shame. This is what happens when a conference is at Tasmania's favourite eccentric museum, MONA.

Lunch menu for the buffet tables, including boar salami sandwiches, wallaby burritos, and camel sausage rolls. Other options, including vegetarian, are also listed.

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Katie Parker @kparkerhistorian.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

Are you using #maps in research? Want to learn about their history and use as sources? In London in late January? Sign up for @ihr.bsky.social short course, Historic Maps: Interpreting Stories of Place! #maphistory #skystorians 🗃️

sas.ac.uk

Historic Maps: Interpreting Stories of Place

Discovery Course 1

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 10/10/2025

We are reaching the end of semester and the due date for final assignments. I have one phrase running permanently through my head, threatening to come out.

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 03/10/2025

Today I filmed my last lectures in our wonderful media studio. I don't know what we will have in our new building, but it seemed only right to mark this occasion with all due solemnity.

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

Me reading what was on a block of land in 1826: "A small idiot only on this allotment." Sure, that tracks. Oh, it's hut, not idiot. Well, it was the colonies, there was a high chance of an idiot on the allotment too. #history 🗃️

A clipping of a handwritten record that says "A small hut only on this allotment (P)". The cursive writing makes the word "hut" look a little like "idiot".

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 05/09/2025

My cranky bus driver may have been driving like the road was out to get him, but at least he was blasting ABC Classic so I could get motion sick to the soothing tones of Gabriel's Oboe and then be roused back to jollity by a brass marching band.

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 05/09/2025

Two weeks ago I was writing an intro lecture about tech being hungry for data & desperately scraping the internet. This week: 19th century science was hungry for data & desperately searching for bodies. I guess, spot the difference between an AI corpus and an old ethnology museum?

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 29/08/2025

You're all going to the wrong archives. My local is always amusing. Just last week I was treated to: Gossip about why X has been so grumpy lately. Whispers about a fab historian (umm, me, tucked out of sight). And Mr Ye Olde Sailor: "It's a yellow notebook, don't you know it, can't you find it?"

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Everyday Heritage @everydayheritage.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

Everyday Heritage team member Dr Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social takes a walk down Elizabeth St in central Hobart with Joel Rheinberger, ABC Hobart, and tells a few forgotten stories of characters who once lived in this town. Listen to the audio recording here everydayheritage.au/news/voxtrot...

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

The worst thing students can usually think to say about me in surveys is that I'm "too enthusiastic" and "have the vibe of a kindergarten teacher". Well, I challenge them to find any such vibes in my outfit today.

I am wearing a bright yellow shirt, under a chunky handknit cardigan that is green, edged with purple, and has bright pink buttons. My lipstick matches the buttons and my glasses are bright green. To top it all off, if one peers closely, you would see that my dangling earrings are goldfish in a blue bowl. The look is quite Ms Frizzle from the Magic Schoolbus.

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

And they will ask, 'Were there any signs?'

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

This morning, while internally thinking about how colonists celebrated someone I said aloud "she was apparently the first woman to walk to X", immediately erasing all First Peoples who'd been there before. The whole class called me out & I was so proud of them, but also mortified. Ahh, teaching.

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Patrick Stokes @patrickstokes.com · 04/08/2025

It is 2025, and someone *now* is preparing to publish an 1850s pastoralist’s diary *editing out* all the coded bits where he describes murdering Yamatji people. In 2025. But sure, let’s hear more about how the Great Australian Silence is over.

theguardian.com

The killing code: strange symbols in a WA settler’s diaries lay bare frontier atrocities

Exclusive: Stories of murders passed down by Yamatji elders are confirmed by a cipher hidden in the 1850s journals of prominent pastoralist Major Logue. Now descendants on both sides want to break the...

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

Me, absolutely hopeless in the music round of a pub quiz, catching up on the Triple J Hottest 100 of Australian Songs and surprising myself by knowing every single song. Then spoiling it by needing to double check the artist of this song and discovering it's Kylie or Midnight Oil.

abc.net.au

Countdown #1 to #100 - Hottest 100 Australian Songs - triple j

These are the songs you voted from #1 to #100 in triple j's Hottest 100 of Australian Songs.

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

When considering what toys to put into the household of a three year old who lives in an apartment block, why would "karaoke machine" ever even enter the equation?

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Alyssa S. @drsepinwall.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

Can any #skystorians 🗃️ play with me: are these different people's handwritings? I think 1 & 4 are the same person but want to double check. And I'm wondering if #3 is the same person as 1 & 4. #2 seems to be a different person from #1, right?

Author #1: Loopy handwriting: Has any other straightforward reconstruction of his life been prepared?

#2: Different author from Author #1? Téléphoner - écriver, Joe Landry, Catherine, Crusader, Gary Amer.

#3: handwriting says: the acre might even be nearby the park and leased to the city

#4: handwriting: different person? handwritten part says: the little that & ameliorate

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 16/07/2025

I'm in walking distance of two polling stations. One has cake stalls and sausages, but also long queues. The other one only promises a "strong chance" of snacks, but also has a lower chance of queues. It's the most Australian of election quandaries. #politas #tasvotes

A screenshot from a map of all the polling stations with details about what election day fundraising stalls each has (sausage sizzle, cakes, car wash etc). The data is self-reported, and this one says "This booth has a STRONG chance of having food. Based on reports from past elections."

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 15/07/2025

Also I catch the ferry so I can start my day like this. Winters in Tasmania are truly the worst.

Photo from the top of a ferry, looking across the water towards the city of nipaluna Hobart. A person in high visability orange cycling wear stands at the front of the boat, standing out in a small ray of sunshine while everything else is in shade. Their orange is matched by the colour of a ship, RSV Nuyina, an Australian icebreaker which sits at the dock. A slight sprinkle of snow covers the top of kunanyi Mount Wellington, but the sky is clear and blue.

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

I often send two profile photos to local groups, one serious and one fun. They always choose the fun one. Someone read my @ahsjournal.bsky.social piece about the first Euro map of the Derwent & asked for the public #history talky version. Happy to oblige! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

A poster for an upcoming talk: Meehan's Derwent: a Chain Reaction, a free talk by Dr Imogen Wegman.

The photo is of me in a colourful jumper, with my hands held up to my face and my mouth agape like a fish.

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

25mins of my 1 hour trip to work is waiting for a bus from town to Sandy Bay because bus service before 9am is so patchy. There's a direct 30min bus from home after 9am. I choose a walk+ferry+bus to avoid peak traffic, but I'm offended that the wasteful time this takes is "of little consequence".

A letter from a candidate, the independent David O'Byrne, in our upcoming state election, who represents my electorate. It says "The short trip from the CBD to Sandy Bay is of little consequence for potential students and the University’s own modelling suggested that there would only be a net increase of 700 enrolments over a 25 year period arising from the CBD location."

Our public transport's online planner, showing the routes that one could take from a busy bus stop in my area (no, I'm not identifying my bus stop) to get to the university before 9am. It shows four options, the first being the direct bus at 7:22am, then departing at 7:41am, 7:54am and 8:02am. It is about 10km, or 15-20 minute drive in normal traffic.

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The Material Culture of Wills Project @materialwills.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

Our hybrid Historic Wills Transcribathon is happening in 2 weeks' time! 📜✍️ 📅 Thurs 24 July 🕐 1-4pm BST Join us online or in person in Exeter: transcribe on Zooniverse alongside like-minded volunteers & help transcribe as many wills as possible! Sign up here: willstranscribathon.eventbrite.com

A poster advertising the 'Wills Project Transcribathon' on Thursday 24 July, 1-4pm BST, in the Digital Humanities Lab at the University of Exeter, and on zoom. The poster features black text on green and yellow backgrounds, and three images - a box of folded will manuscripts, an unfolded will manuscript, and the painting Thomas Braithwaite of Ambleside making his will, Abbot Hall, 1607. Photo: Lakeland Arts.

The poster text reads: ' - Transcribe on Zooniverse alongside like-minded volunteers, - Learn more about English wills from 1540-1790 during talks from the experts, - Share & discuss interesting discoveries, - Attend for all or part of the event, - Contribute to academic research & help make these remarkable documents more accessible for all'.
Details of the event can be found at this address: https://willstranscribathon.eventbrite.com

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

While perusing the upcoming lots at a local auction house, I am endlessly amused by the complete decontextualisation of the photographs.

The description of the photo says "Lot #1542 24 pine timber pieces"

The photo shows the pine stacked against a wall. On one side is a deconstructed mannequin, and on the side two child mannequins stand in an orderly line. These ones are painted in bright oranges, reds and greens, with black tape across their mouths.

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

Recently I was talking to an ex-boss of large HR depts in Europe in the 90s. One of their worst times was when they had to choose whether to make either Person A with Life X or Person B with Life Y redundant. "It took us days, it was so hard." Imagine such anguish over a single person.

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

I loved spending a couple of hours sitting in this box reading a great book. I'm not an especially blocked reader, but this reminded me just beautiful it can be to put all distractions aside and be told "the only thing you are allowed to do now is read".

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

We all must have some favourite #history docs that have nothing to do with our research? Here's mine – a set of letters that I've never actually read because I get distracted by the caricatures each time I see them. @utas.edu.au Special & Rare Collections, sparc.utas.edu.au/index.php/le...

Letter dated March 3rd 94 (meaning 1894) with a comic illustration in the top corner of a gangly man slipping over backwards while a pig trots under him. The caption is "Have you ever tried to catch a Greasy Pig? I tried the other Day."

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

'A pioneering project to fill gaps in Irish history is making 175,000 more records and millions more words of searchable content freely available to researchers and members of the public.' 1/2

theguardian.com

Pioneering project releases more lost Irish records spanning 700 years

Newly restored material from vast archive destroyed in civil war takes in Anglo-Norman conquest and 1798 rebellion

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

I don't think this test is supposed to be done by non-Americans. Or quite possibly Americans. Or historians. Are oysters classed as poor or rich person food here? www.idrlabs.com/food-choice/...

My survey results, which show that I eat an almost-equal amount of food in all the classes from Lower to Upper. At the bottom is a note saying "your food choices could not be tied to any one social class".

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Has anyone out there written about the words early colonial surveyors/explorers used on maps to describe land capability. "Good", "bad", "rocky" etc? I'm interested in any global or 17th, 18th, 19thC takes. I'm curious about how these words were interpreted and used over time. #envhist 🗃️ #history

An extract from Thomas Scott's Survey of a Part of the East Coast of Tasmania, showing labels like "very fine land", "very good land" and "good land". From the State Library of NSW, https://collection.sl.nsw.gov.au/record/74VvazO5APrA

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

Ideas came to me, I needed colours, my old undergraduate pencil case answered the call. Why don't we do more project planning with sparkly pens?

A mess of different kinds of pens in lots of different colours, including some sparkly ones, lies across scribbled notes.

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

A delivery man bedecked head to toe in high-vis and carrying some kind of flatpacked kid's bed, pauses mid-conversation with his delivery companion to smell the flowers blooming in the carpark.

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Imogen Wegman @imoweg.bsky.social · 24/06/2025

A delivery man bedecked head to toe in high-vis and carrying some kind of flatpacked kid's bed, pauses mid-conversation with his delivery companion to smell the flowers blooming in the carpark.

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