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Jarch

@itsokihaveabook.bsky.social
485 followers 490 following 602 posts

Massachusetts librarian, parent, greyhound adopter. "It's what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it." jenny-arch.com

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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
"It's hard to know how to feel when the Pope's favorite baseball team gets knocked out of the playoffs. I've probably shifted 10% towards believing there is no god."
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Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
My latest books cartoon for @theguardian.com
Title: Just announced! Three new Gruffalo books commissioned from bestselling authors!

Lee Chilld:
The Gruffalo just wants a quiet life, but when a crime syndicate moves into the deep dark wood, he must use his terrible claws and the terrible teeth in his terrible jaws to protect the fellow.

Sally Rooney:
The Gruffalo moves to contemporary Dublin. He  
ill ever see past his orange eyes, purple prickles and poisonous wart.

Kazuo Ishiguro:
After a long absence, the gruffalo returns to the forest and attempts to make sense of his past. Encounters with a mouse, a fox, an owl and a snake uncover long-buried memories, regrets and revelations.
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Orkney Library & Archive @orkneylibrary.bsky.social · 01/10/2026
a short poem name like when we meet a bovine and we say 'hi coo' #NationalPoetryDay #Haiku
A black and white archive photograph of a cow standing beside a track leading down to a mill. The cow is looking at the camera.
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Hannah Vardit @hannahvardit.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
i worry that men think being A Good Guy is dramatically and heroically intervening on behalf of an endangered woman and then being publicly rewarded on a grand scale when actually being A Good Guy is just usually saying, “hey man that’s not funny” or “wow that’s fucked up” and there is no reward
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
I asked my library to buy it and just finished reading it. SO good. What a monumental amount of work you did, and how beautifully and sensitively you presented it.
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
I also have a wide ball and narrow heel. Have you tried Clarks? Expensive but they FIT and they last a good long time.
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Jeff Sharlet @jeffsharlet.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The provost of Dartmouth, at which I teach, has been using AI to write both academic papers & national op-eds, according to brave reporting by @thedartmouth.bsky.social. Many students are already bitter about AI. This leaves us as faculty no ground to stand on. www.thedartmouth.com/article/2026...
thedartmouth.com
Op-eds, academic articles by Provost Santiago Schnell flagged as ‘AI-written’ by ‘near-zero error’ AI detector Pangram
Schnell said he used artificial intelligence for “making writing processes more efficient,” but that AI was not a “substitute” for his own “intellectual judgment or authorship.”
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Courtney Milan @courtneymilan.com · 22/09/2026
One of the few good things about the drought this year is watching so many of my neighbors replace dying grass with native plants.
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Great show!! Will your set at the Iron Horse in January be the same or different?
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Tonight! @joshgondelman.bsky.social starting soon
Photo of a door with a whiteboard announcing Josh Gondelman at the Comedy Studio
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NPR @npr.org · 19/09/2026
Friedman was in her early 20s when she landed her first position as an editorial assistant at NPR. She became an editor and reporter, and a co-creator of the annual Books We Love reading guide. n.pr/4yavrvC
n.pr
Editor Rose Friedman, who helped shape NPR's cultural coverage, dies at 38
Friedman was in her early 20s when she landed her first position as an editorial assistant at NPR. She became an editor and reporter, and a co-creator of the annual Books We Love reading guide.
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Vote!
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I hope so! I'll check back later.
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
There seems to be something wrong with the SLJ website and the Fuse8 blog...it says "slj.com has expired." Any idea what's going on?
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Alexandra Lange @langealexandra.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Newsflash: Kids need somewhere to go www.cnbc.com/2026/09/15/t...
cnbc.com
Teens need more places to meet IRL — their future success may depend on it
Malls and other physical third spaces have been on the decline for years. We’re finally beginning to understand the implications for today’s youth.
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
YES. THIS --> "Stop thinking about AI as an inevitability" -@maris.bsky.social
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WBUR @wbur.org · 14/09/2026
Three days into a pilot program with the Boston Police Department, city officials realized Flock Safety had been distributing data it promised not to share with external law enforcement agencies, according to the city’s annual Surveillance Technology Report.
trib.al
Flock Safety failed to secure Boston vehicle data during 2025 pilot, report finds
Three days into a pilot program with the Boston Police Department, city officials realized Flock Safety had been distributing data it promised not to share with external law enforcement agencies, according to the city’s annual Surveillance Technology Report.
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
"Many wonder how, or if, the United States will find its way out of authoritarianism. The only possible way is if people are joyfully running towards a better option, not fearfully backing away from the worst of what they face today."
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Tom Gauld @tomgauld.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
My latest books cartoon for @theguardian.com
Hercule Poirot dressed all in black speaks to Captain Hastings in a grand hallway “Please ask the suspects to gather in the library, Hastings: I wish to reveal that our births are random, our lives meaningless, and our deaths absurd.”

Caption “Having investigated so many awful murders over the years, it was perhaps unsurprising that Hercule Poirot turned to Existentialism”


p.s. Poirot had presumably been reading a lot of Sartre recently…

 "It is meaningless that we live and it is meaningless that we die," Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness (L'Être et le Néant)

“Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.” Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea (La Nausée)
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
"I am a big time proponent of speaking ill of the dead. But I'm also a believer in living a life such that if anyone tries to talk shit about you, they are roundly told to shut the fuck up. Truly the mark of a life well lived."
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
"But these stars' legacies do not just stem from their talent. They were also never colossal shitheads."
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WIRED @wired.com · 28/08/2026
California residents have a legal right to access the data that companies collect about them. Actually exercising that right is a burdensome nightmare. www.wired.com/story/i-dema...
wired.com
I Asked 100 Companies for My Data. I Got Deletion Notices Instead
California residents have a legal right to access the data that companies collect about them. Actually exercising that right is a burdensome nightmare.
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Library of Congress @librarycongress.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
The Library is devastated to learn of the passing of Dolly Parton, a music legend and titan of children's literacy. Her Imagination Library program has earned multiple Library Literacy Awards and, in 2018, she visited us to donate its 100 millionth book to our collection and host a story time. 🦋❤️
Dolly Parton reads to children in the Library’s Great Hall in 2018. Photo by Shawn Miller.
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Martha Hickson @sassylibrarian.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
“Freedom to Read/Anti-Book Ban Laws are a reminder that libraries represent the whole of a community and that library workers are professionals who deserve to be respected as such.”
bookriot.com
Massachusetts Passes Freedom to Read Law
After years of work by the state legislature and literary advocates, Massachusetts became the 13th state to pass a freedom to read law.
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
AZT, biodiversity, boy band, caller ID, heat dome, mixtape, steganography, tankini
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
"Has the passive voice historically functioned to deflect responsibility and consolidate unjust power arrangements?"
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
"The uncomfortable truth for MWRA is that residents and businesses in the Quabbin towns have been subsidizing the true cost of Quabbin water for the past 88 years."
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
“Whatever the ideals were, we never lived up to them, but at least we had them." -Art Spiegelman www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int...
theguardian.com
Art Spiegelman: ‘The US needs a counter-revolution’
More than four decades after his Holocaust story Maus transformed the graphic novel genre, Art Spiegelman discusses Trump, the shadow of 9/11 and the rise of fascism in America
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McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 12/08/2026
"RESTAURANT MANAGER: Someone said you needed to see me? DAD: Yes, I want you to turn up all of the lights in the dining room so I can see things better. MOM: Also, I’m cold. And very warm."
mcsweeneys.net
Imagined Conversations Between My Parents While on a Family Vacation
MOM: I’m going to the front desk. I want to embarrass our adult children. DAD: I was just there to do exactly that by getting a ridiculous number of washclot...
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McSweeney's @mcsweeneys.net · 17/08/2026
FIRST BABY: In his own crib, at 6 p.m. on the dot THIRD BABY: In an L.L.Bean wagon at a World Cup watch party at 9 p.m. buff.ly/vmc2QFM
mcsweeneys.net
Places My First Baby Slept as a Newborn vs. Places My Third Baby Has Slept as a Newborn
“On a blanket outdoors, covered with a hat, long sleeves, an umbrella, and a muslin cloth On a blanket outdoors, at a birthday party, being held by several v...
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
“When censorship starts in a democracy,” Ms. Morello wrote in a letter published in The Tribune in 1990, “where does it stop?”
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
There is no evidence-based reason for homework before fifth grade, with the exception of reading for 20 minutes/day. I'm delighted that my kid's (MA) public school follows this practice!
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
Started reading this yesterday, finished today. SO good. Great pacing, well researched, characters to root for.
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Leslie Ylinen @leslieylinen.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
My male boss, who I wrote this about, gave me unsolicited feedback about what would have made it funnier.
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Violet Fox 🦊 @violetbfox.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Adoptee friends & others impacted by adoption: I'm a librarian planning a display for November (National Adoption Month). These are just some of the books that'll be on display—I'd love your suggestions!
A stack of 12 library books about adoption with spine titles shown. The titles are: 
* Broken Links, Enduring Ties 
* Somebody's Children
* Culture Keeping
* Like Our Very Own: Adoption and the Changing Culture of Motherhood 1851-1950
* Following the Tambourine Man: a Birthmother's Memoir
* Giving Away Simone
* The Violence of Love: Race, Family, and Adoption in the United States
* Choosing Family
* Gay Fathers, Their Children, and the Making of Kinship
* BirthMarks: Transracial Adoption in Contemporary America
* Kinship by Design: A History of Adoption in the Modern United States 
* A Living Remedy
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
“AI doesn’t have the skills of a human, and it doesn’t have the judgment of a librarian.” americanlibrariesmagazine.org/blogs/the-sc...
americanlibrariesmagazine.org
Coexisting with the Machine | American Libraries Magazine
While AI remained a hot topic at this year’s “Top Tech Trends” panel, some speakers tempered their enthusiasm and focused on specific uses.
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
"People want art that–even if it's not challenging, per se–takes a little chewing before you swallow it....In an ideal world, the conclusion execs would draw is to produce even more thoughtful and engaging art, and to support more diverse artists..."
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
"What a gift, to realize that you're surrounded by such a furious consensus."
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Does anyone know how I can get ahold of Charlie Bailey to see if he'll share his slides? (yes I've tried his workplace website, the usual socials, checking to see if he had a website, yes I've seen his LinkedIn, we have no mutuals). If so, please let me know. And check out this library program idea.
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
This is adorable! I love this concept. Would buy for my library!
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The Guardian @theguardian.com · 25/07/2026
The AI jobs apocalypse probably isn’t coming anytime soon
theguardian.com
The AI jobs apocalypse probably isn’t coming anytime soon
Artificial intelligence may not deliver on its promise of vast economic opportunity at a price that humanity is willing to pay
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
"It's okay to have fun in the present as we work towards a better future for everyone." -@joshgondelman.bsky.social yes yes yes!
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
"No matter how oppressive the big picture feels, nothing can stop you from hearing a child pronounce a word incorrectly, and failing to correct them so that they keep doing it."
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
"With the only growing industries apparently being insider trading and plagiarism..."
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
"Far be it from me to imply that the guy whose commitment to science begins and ends with prodding at roadkill he found might be underqualified for the job of keeping America healthy..."
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Trung Le Nguyen @trungles.com · 28/05/2026
So I’ve started Pride and Prejudice, and already I feel bad for Mrs Bennet.
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
"Our 2020 survey revealed that one third of borrowers go on to purchase a book or an author that they first discovered at a public library. In this sense, libraries are showrooms for publishers’ products." www.libraryjournal.com/story/how-ge...
libraryjournal.com
How Gen Z Use (and Don’t Use) Public Libraries
The digital natives of Gen Z identify as readers, distrust algorithms, and increasingly turn to libraries.
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
"Throughout its history, librarianship has been grounded in principles of inquiry, evidence and intellectual honesty."
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Jarch @itsokihaveabook.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
"Librarians do not merely help people find information; they help people evaluate, contextualize, preserve and ethically engage with it."
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