Sign in

Richard Gerrard

@rhgerrard.bsky.social
226 followers 758 following 2 posts

Sort of retired archeologist.

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
International Committee of the Red Cross @icrc.org · 29/09/2026
Attacks on: Museums Religious sites Historic monuments Libraries Are attacks on: Our identity. Our history. Our humanity. Cultural property and places of worship are protected under international humanitarian law. Even during war.
Cultural property and places of worship are not a target. International humanitarian law is clear:  Even during wars, museums, libraries, places of worship, archaeological sites, and historic monuments are protected.
093
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Francesca Bouaoun @francescabouaoun.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
📍 Toronto Archives Exhibit open today! | Let’s Build a Collective Memory of Chinatown www.toronto.ca/city-governm... #Toronto
Restaurant blueprints and photographs on exhibit on a wall. Miniature model of Pearl Court Restaurant. A grid of archival inages Chinatowns in Toronto on display. Booklet “CO-ZINING MEMORIES IN CHINATOWN: A CREATIVE ZINE TO SHARE MEMORIES AND IMAGINE THE FUTURE TOGETHER”.
082
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Mar Hicks @histoftech.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
We never write history just once. Any person or group who thinks they can get to a “best version” of history and then be done does not understand anything about history, historiography, archives, or data.
625356
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Internet Archive @archive.org · 11/08/2026
Builders: here’s a chance to make something new from a massive public archive. Internet Archive Canada @internetarchiveca.bsky.social is offering a $5,000 fellowship to build new tools using 22M+ pages of open Canadian government publications. Applications close Aug. 21 → bc-ai.ca/fellowship
The public record is huge. Make it do something weird and useful.
317669
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Saganism @sagan.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
“It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.” — Albert Camus
121165
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Curt @neoriffic.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
If you're thinking of attending the Canadian Archaeological Association 2026 in Canmore, and you've got something to say about pseudoarchaeology and anti-intellectualism, come join the conversation! 🏺 We've already got some interesting abstracts listed and more on the way! Deadline is tomorrow!
1174
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
The Mary Rose Museum @maryrosemuseum.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
OFFICIAL STATEMENT

We would like to share our thoughts and condolences with Kit Kat following their recent sad news.

On an unrelated note, we’ve decided that we are going to rebuild the other side of the Mary Rose, using a surprising new building material – more info soon...
821247
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Career Centre - Parksville @careercentre.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
Qualicum Beach Museum is hiring a Community Museum Technician! More info: bit.ly/4djCbQ8
041
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
paulseesequasis @pseesequasis.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
In a world in flames, archives might seem inconsequential, yet they represent our collective memory, and their erasure also is a political act. apple.news/A_Mlcl43oQNm...
apple.news
Library and Archives planning deep cuts to access to information team, document shows — The Globe and Mail
Cuts will put at risk ability to comply with access and privacy laws, department acknowledged in a document
49145
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Toronto Archives @torontoarchives.cityof.toronto.ca · 23/02/2026
Did you know? In generations past, it was not uncommon for families to start with a garage or shack to live in while they built a permanent house. All homes have stories - join our FREE House History Workshop on March 13 to find out yours! More info: ow.ly/gUPM50Yf9wB
A woman and girl stand outside a small garage in an open field. Building materials and excavated earth are visible in front of and beside the garage.

Garage is home until house is built, Sheppard Avenue East, Lansing. October 3, 1922. Fonds 1244, Item 2300.
082
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
RDS (formerly shawphd) @rds773.myatproto.social · 12/02/2026
A historian colleague of mine once blew someone’s mind after he asked “can’t you just look that up online?” and she replied “who do you think finds that stuff and puts it online?”
7844145
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Gemsofindology GoI @gemsofindology.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
I held a piece of Delhi that remembers more than Delhi does. 80 feet below the ground. Beneath concrete. Beneath drains. Beneath maps that pretend history began late. When this layer was surface, there were no borders. No Najafgarh. No Delhi. No names. There was a river.
111
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Kate Strasdin @katestrasdin.bsky.social · 18/01/2026
This was such a clever design for a museum show. The pockets of the c18th were suspended from the waist so here, a recreation of the various layers, like an anatomical illustration. The yellow quilted pockets are original amongst the grey blue of the facsimile, #1740s #VandA #FashionHistory 🗃️🪡
Partial view of a fashion display that consists of a dark blue cotton recreation of an c18th pair of stays, skirt, underpinnings and then a view of a yellow quilted pocketsThe same quilted yellow silk pocket lying flat with a slit at tue top and a tie for the waistA full length view of the entire ensemble showing the various layers, fully clothed on one side and stripped back to show the construction on the other
234884
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 16/01/2026
"OU undergraduate publishes new research on ancient fossils housed in the Oklahoma Museum of Natural History" @oupaleobiology.bsky.social 🧪
ou.edu
OU Undergraduate Publishes New Research on Ancient Fossils Housed in the Oklahoma Museum of Natural History
In a rare achievement for an undergraduate student, Colby Higdon, a geology major on the paleontology track with the University of Oklahoma has published original paleontological research conducted at...
68418
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Anthony (Tony) J. Martin @ichnologist.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
Fantastic news for paleontology that the Paleontological Research Institute in Ithaca NY is staying open this year! Intensive fund-raising was successful & enough to pay off the mortgage for their building, helping to preserve this long-standing institution for national & international science. 🧪
611642
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Towched EU @towchedeu.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
🚫 MYTH: Only specific museum collections can be used for ESD. ✅ REALITY: Every artifact tells a story about sustainability. There are no limits. History already holds the lessons—we just need to know where to look. #TOWCHED #ESD #SustainableEducation
063
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Saganism @sagan.bsky.social · 28/12/2025
"Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back." ― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World
8456186
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Hannah Thomasy @hannahthomasy.bsky.social · 04/12/2025
Big news about the Toronto Subway Deer! Dug up in 1976 Torontoceros hypogaeus is a prehistoric cervid known only from 1 incomplete specimen. Originally classified as a caribou relative, ancient DNA analysis now suggests it belongs to the genus Odocoileus which includes mule deer & white-tailed deer🧪
Part of a large cervid skull with thick antlers on a white background
1124
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Megan Goodwin @mpgphd.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
there's a reason that my accommodations policy went from "you need to register officially with the whatever office" to "if you tell me you need accommodations, I believe you and you can have them" it's this
413927
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Jeff Allen @jamaps.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
recent map experiment of Toronto's terrain made via QGIS/Inkscape/GIMP and TIN data from @torontoopendata.cityof.toronto.ca higher-res here: jamaps.github.io/maps/terrain... #toronto #maps #terrain #topography
Map of the City of Toronto shaded on two gradients A) from light blue-ish green to light red based on elevation and B) from light to dark showing slope of the land. The map highlights overall elevation patterns in the City, as well as highlights big river valleys and escarpments
0104
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Dr. Brendan Anderson @fossilsndcoffee.bsky.social · 02/12/2025
This #givingtuesday please consider donating to the Paleontological Research Institution/Museum of the Earth PRI is a major US fossil collection and education center & has been struggling after a major donor was unable to fulfill a pledge but is almost out of the woods, any support helps! 🦑⚒️🧪🐌🐚
Graphic that says I'm supporting PRI today because it's where my type specimen is with a picture of a Vermicularia (snail) apex. The PRI logo is in the bottom right and text reads www.priweb.org/donate
11212
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
It’s “Mrs. Powers” during my day job @mrspowersdayjob.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
Sometimes I think it’s going to be the librarians who will save us all.
A large (maybe 3 feet wide by 5 feet tall) sign on the end of a row of bookshelves that tells the “address” of books that have sensitive content.
8597233071
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Saganism @sagan.bsky.social · 12/11/2025
"The lack is not in intelligence, which is in plentiful supply; rather, the scarce commodity is systematic training in critical thinking." -Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science
331574
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Mike Jones @mikejonesphd.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
Currently doing some marking. A reminder to everyone involved in archives and collections: digitisation is not preservation. If I digitise a box of records and put the files on a USB stick I haven't preserved a thing. It's all about what you do with the files post-digitisation. #archives #digipres
Colour photograph of a white USB stick. Printed text on the USB stick reads: '...this is not an archive.'
829299
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Saganism @sagan.bsky.social · 04/11/2025
"I promise to question everything my leaders tell me. I promise to use my critical faculties. I promise to develop my independence of thought. I promise to educate myself so I can make my own judgements." -Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
732287
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
divine beastmode @gunstreet.bsky.social · 26/09/2025
the post office is a public service. it doesn’t need to make money. public transit doesn’t need to make money. the library doesn’t need to make money. some things exist for the public good and we desperately need lawmakers to stop thinking about them in terms of capitalism. these are not businesses.
8796584378
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Dr Dan Shugar 🇨🇦 @watershedlab.bsky.social · 16/09/2025
At the stage in manuscript editing where one coauthor adds a word and another coauthor removes the same word, and repeat. 🧪
8918
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
MU-Peter Shimon 🀄 @mu-peter.bsky.social · 16/09/2025
🔆Good morning! Dedication to work is to be admired, provided the work itself is of value, but the more of a day’s hours you devote to it, the likelier returns diminish. Why You Should Only Work 3–4 Hours a Day, Like Charles Darwin, Virginia Woolf & Adam Smith 🧪 www.openculture.com/2025/09/why-...
Diagram of Darwin's day
0103
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Silvia Pineda-Munoz, PhD - Climate Ages @climateages.bsky.social · 15/09/2025
I’m a Paleontologist Here’s the most important tip I can give you: Pick a favorite dinosaur and learn two facts about it Why? Because sooner or later, you’ll meet a child with a dinosaur book (or an obsession) You’ll ask about their favorite They’ll tell you why And then, you’ll share yours 🧪 🧵
A young child dressed in a green dinosaur costume with a hood shaped like a dinosaur head, playfully raising one hand like a claw. A blue text box overlay reads, “Did you pick a favorite dinosaur yet?” with Silvia Pineda-Munoz, PhD and the Climate Ages logo at the bottom.
96613
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Bruce Stallsmith @laimosemion.bsky.social · 13/09/2025
Gould was absolutely right about this. For a sobering thought, how many people on the planet now are competent taxonomists for any group of organisms? Certainly fewer than 10,000. 🧪🌍🌿⚒️🐟 #TeamFish
3549
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Kayce Bell @kaycebell.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
October 1 deadline for @nhm.org Student Collections Study Award. Get some $$ to spend time collecting data in our collections, including @tarpits.org Open to: - current undergraduate and grad students - *not* local to Los Angeles (international applicants welcome) More: nhm.org/student-coll... 🧪
nhm.org
Student Collections Study Award
The NHM Collections Study Awards provide funding for undergraduate and graduate students to visit and study the collections of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, the La Brea Tar Pits & ...
01516
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Nature Portfolio @natureportfolio.nature.com · 13/08/2025
In a Comment article for Nature, Indigenous scholars set out eight steps to stop marginalization in academia and to enable a shared Indigenous agenda in science. #Academicsky 🧪
go.nature.com
Decolonize scientific institutions, don’t just diversify them
Indigenous scholars set out eight steps to stop marginalization in academia and to enable a shared Indigenous agenda in science.
2256
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Jeremy Hopkin @jeremyhopkin.bsky.social · 06/07/2025
Fort York, Toronto, 1913 Artist: Katherine A. Clarke Medium: Oil on canvas Credit: Baldwin Collection of Canadiana, Toronto Public Library #1910s #fortyork #oilpainting #Warof1812 #landscapepainting #torontoart #art #torontohistory #toronto #canada #jeremyhopkin
This impressionistic oil painting by Katherine A. Clarke captures a quiet corner of Fort York in 1913, just as the old military post was beginning to show its age amid a rapidly industrializing Toronto. Low wooden buildings with red chimneys sit nestled in a grassy clearing, their rustic forms rendered in loose, expressive brushstrokes. The foreground is wild and untamed, with a broken fence and footpath leading the eye into the scene. In the distance, hazy outlines of factory chimneys and smoke hint at the modern city closing in on this historic site. Clarke’s work evokes both the pastoral charm and creeping urbanization that defined early 20th-century Toronto.
0245
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Saganism @sagan.bsky.social · 22/06/2025
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." — Voltaire
121443401
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Saganism @sagan.bsky.social · 20/06/2025
If we can't think for ourselves, if we're unwilling to question authority, then we're just putty in the hands of those in power.
8716158
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Jens Notroff @jensnotroff.com · 19/06/2025
"Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a man’s mind ..." - Right out of the Butlerian Jihad and the Orange Catholic Bible.
183
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
ErrantScience @errantscience.com · 19/06/2025
Who can work in science, EVERYONE #pride
110833
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Dave Andress @davidandress.bsky.social · 08/06/2025
The argument for letting “AI” take over education is EXACTLY the same argument as for never teaching anyone to do maths, now we have calculators. Or it would be, if calculators sometimes gave you the wrong answer, randomly.
1266
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
The Mary Rose Museum @maryrosemuseum.bsky.social · 29/05/2025
Collecting souvenirs isn’t new – this cowrie shell was found in an officer’s chest on the Mary Rose.
3557
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Gillian Martin @gillmartin.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
Melville
442296
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Nina Willburger @drnwillburger.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
One of my all time favourites
An illustration mimicking ancient Greek pottery art. It shows a painted black-figure scene on an amphora where a woman, likely a mother, is scolding a child holding a slingshot. The child appears guilty, glancing at a large, fresh crack in the side of the vase. Broken shards lie outside the vase, comically blending the painted scene with the real-world damage.
1039763
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Ami Fields-Meyer @fieldsmeyer.com · 26/05/2025
“A law requiring contractors to pay for bricks, concrete, siding, and drywall will absolutely kill the building industry.” — Author of “How to Save Construction”
1434692
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Judith Barr @jebarr.bsky.social · 26/05/2025
This is also true for historical societies and local museums but that is a hard conversation
172
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Dr. Davey F. Wright ⛏️🦕🧬 @daveyfwright.bsky.social · 25/05/2025
"Science is a method for testing claims about the natural world, not an immutable compendium of absolute truths. The fundamentalists, by ‘knowing’ the answers before they start...lie outside the domain of science–or of any honest intellectual inquiry." - Stephen Jay Gould (1991) 🧪
612743
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Cécile Archives @cecilearchives.bsky.social · 23/05/2025
"The work of archive is justice. Hope is not helpful to the work of archive, nor its companion, optimism, but faith is indispensable. The voices of ghosts matter. And how we respond to them matters." V Harris I do not hope that what we do in the archive is important. I have absolute faith that it is
2286
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
(Dr) Rena Maguire @justrena.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
Such an awesome resource for any researcher
0123
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Tamsin C Russell @tamsincrussell.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
As someone brought up on Richard Scarry booked I highly recommend his approach to Self-care. For more hints and tips around caring within museums come along to @glamcares.bsky.social annual conference - 26 June 2025.
0289
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Alex Bozikovic @alexbozikovic.bsky.social · 20/05/2025
Don’t miss this important work by Natasha Henry-Dixon
0134
Reposted by Richard Gerrard
Nevermore L. Hoffman 🐦‍⬛🎃 @astroprofhoff.bsky.social · 19/05/2025
This is an excellent summary, but the whole thread is super insightful and important. 🧪
084