iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Whitney Trettien @whitneytrettien.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Congrats to all those who nurtured this incredible network. I was a HASTAC scholar in 2009. It gave me the courage to pursue the kind of scholarship *I* wanted to when everything/everyone else in grad school told me not to. I try to carry that forward. HASTAC might be gone, but the flame stays lit.

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Sophie Weinberg @sophie-rose-reads.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Putting out a #bookhistory bat signal: does anyone have any resources on the history+production of ink balls/ball leathers? Finding it difficult to locate sources on preparing sheepskin for non-leather, non-parchment purposes…

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Whitney Trettien @whitneytrettien.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

At the MoMA today for THE SURREALIST BOOK, a fabulous new exhibit by Jodi Hauptman & Starr Figura. Ft. artists' books from the Zell collection, spanning surrealism to the present. I wrote the catalogue's epilogue on artsy bookmaking & "new" media. It was fun. Come see these gorgeous books.

moma.org

The Surrealist Book: Tomorrow Lives in Mirrors | MoMA

Exhibition. Oct 4, 2026–Jan 23, 2027. A book bound with shards of shattered glass. A manifesto enshrined in polished metal. Love poems seamlessly merging with solarized photographs. For artists and wr...

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Matthew Kirschenbaum @mkirschenbaum.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

CFP: Generative Digital Humanities, a volume on AI and DH in the long-running Minnesota Debates in DH book series. To be co-edited by @zentralwerkstatt.org, @laurenfklein.bsky.social, @lnakamura.bsky.social, and myself. Deadline Nov. 1. Please share widely! dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/page/cfp-gen...

dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu

CFP: Generative Digital Humanities | Debates in the Digital Humanities

Transforming scholarly publications into living digital works

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Whitney Trettien @whitneytrettien.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Why did everyone rag so hard on participation trophies, my 5yo just brought one home and I'm proud as punch. Not because I don't believe in academic achievement (duh), but because it awarded a v small thing he actually *has* been working hard on, and I could tell he appreciated it being recognized.

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Suzanne Karr Schmidt @drkarrschmidt.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

ImPRESSed Yet? I am thrilled to announce that Impressive Textiles: Premodern Printing on Fabric will be published October 27 in print and Open Access with @acmrs.bsky.social, thanks to 30 textile and print scholars, and 1 groundbreaking exhibition @newberrylibrary.bsky.social! #CoverReveal 1/5

Cover art for Impressive Textiles: Premodern Printing on Fabric!

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Sarah Brouillette @sarahbrouillette.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

my book is out now 🫶 💗 $18 with coupon code E26CNTNT enjoy!!!??? :)

dukeupress.edu

Content Machines: Reading and Writing in the Platform Era

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Whitney Trettien @whitneytrettien.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

In the 1860s, chess player Howard Staunton produced a photo-facsimile of Shakespeare's First Folio. It was one of the earliest attempts to use new technology to reproduce an old book. @folger.edu has Staunton’s proof sheets. I looked at them last week. If you like media/books/history, they're fun.

whitneytrettien.substack.com

“How on earth came the t turned into s?!!!!”

On Howard Staunton’s photozincographic facsimile of Shakespeare’s First Folio

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Dot Porter @leoba.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

If you are in or around Philly, come hear me talk about the work I'm doing at @sims-mss.bsky.social , inspired by #DHMakes! Free lunch! Don't miss it - next week at @pricelab.bsky.social on Tuesday, 12pm-1:30pm. pricelab.sas.upenn.edu/events/dot-p...

pricelab.sas.upenn.edu

Price Lab for Digital Humanities

The Price Lab is the University of Pennsylvania's center for innovative uses of technology in the study and teaching of history, art, and culture.

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Whitney Trettien @whitneytrettien.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

In an essay from 1950, Norbert Weiner describes a guy who buys a player piano. It's clear he doesn't care about music, he's only interested in the mechanics of the thing. For Weiner, this is the difference between KNOW-HOW (technical skill) and KNOW-WHAT (how to use tech for human flourishing).

Quote from Norbert Weiner reading: "Some years ago, a prominent American engineer bought an expensive player-piano. It became clear after a week or two that this purchase did not correspond to any
particular interest in the music played by the piano but rather to an overwhelming interest in the piano mechanism. For this gentleman, the player-piano was not a means of producing music, but a means of giving
some inventor the chance of showing how skillful he was at overcoming certain difficulties in the production of music. This is an estimable attitude in a second-year high-school student. How estimable it is in one of those on whom the whole cultural future of the country depends, I leave to the reader."

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Vauhini Vara @vauhinivara.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

I profiled the startup behind Pangram, the AI detector everyone’s talking about. It works really, really well. I wanted to understand how they did it. and also: why people still don’t trust them. (also, news: Penguin Random House is using it.) gift link! ✨

bloomberg.com

The World’s Most Reliable AI Detector Has a Human Problem

Armed with a near-perfect detection tool, Pangram is fighting to convince the public AI cheating can be caught.

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Dr David Rundle @drdavidrundle.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Some nice #fragment news here:

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Sarah Bull @sarahebull.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

fascinated by this next layer of abstraction, where the text becomes something else entirely, a substrate where its historical and geographic idiosyncrasies can become a problem (or opportunity), and wonder how it might change, or is already changing, how we talk about digitization

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Sarah Bull @sarahebull.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

It's a contrast to the first few decades of digitization, where the point of digitization was initially conceived as preserving and disseminating books themselves in a new form. Digitization also made it possible to extract information *from* them new ways, including for scholars. I find myself +

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Whitney Trettien @whitneytrettien.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

I can’t stop thinking about Anthropic’s destructive book scanning. Obviously, it’s gross. People love books. Destroying books makes people mad. Even books they don't actually care about. AI companies know this, that’s why they try to keep their weird behavior a dirty little secret.

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Marie Léger-St-Jean @marielsj.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Lois Burke —formerly at Tilburg University, now at the University of Stirling— is making her pitch for the usefulness of manuscript magazines. There is for instance "The Sunbeam Magazine" (1866), edited by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894)... collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/1067... #BAVS2026

*The Sunbeam Magazine* front wrapper

Source: https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/11/digital_objects/251120

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Joseph Cox @josephcox.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

New from 404 Media: a company is selling tons of old books specifically to AI companies and says they have a strong NDA to never reveal which AI company bought all of the books. They don't want headlines of 'we scanned and destroyed millions of books for AI' www.404media.co/ai-companies...

404media.co

AI Companies Are Buying Tons of Old Books Because They're Free of AI Slop

ISBNdb, a company that sources printed books for AI companies to turn into training data, tells clients “the optics problem is real.”

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Leonardo Flores @leoflores.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

I love the sentiment and agree with it! But this is a very temperate zone perspective. The tropics are another manner. As someone born and raised in Puerto Rico, maintaining my book collection was a constant battle against mold, flying termites, humidity (book covers stick together), and so on.

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Alan Liu @alanyliu.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

For the last section of Critical Infrastructure Studies & DH on “Reenvisioning DH Infrastructure” (beginning with Ch 14) we sought briefer pieces that are speculative, creative, or playful, including through visual & interactive means. dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/critica... @uminnpress.bsky.social

Screenshot of text from p. 21 of our editors' introduction chapter in _Critical Infrastructure Studies & Digital Humanities_, where we introduce the third and final section of the book. Transcription:

"REENVISIONING DIGITAL HUMANITIES INFRASTRUCTURE
To complement the primarily analytical, theoretical, and critical work of the chapters in the book’s first two sections, a final section includes briefer chapters that conclude the volume more speculatively, creatively, or playfully (thus segueing from the playful zest of Wershler making a virtue of scrounging). These final chapters include position statements, what-if scenarios or plans, and multimodal arguments (visualizations, infographics, other forms of graphics, and a Twine narrative). They argue for, and in some cases enact, critical infrastructure studies by imagining con brio how DH infrastructures could be different and better."

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Cynthia Heider @cynthiaheider.com · 09/06/2026

Mid-Atlantic DH folks, what are you doing June 24-26? We hope you'll join us at Penn for the free in-person @ach.bsky.social Regional Hub for #ACH2026, featuring watch parties, a Happy Hour, Lightning Talks, a #DHMakes space, a sticker exchange & more! RSVP at www.library.upenn.edu/events/ach-2....

library.upenn.edu

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The Price Lab @pricelab.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

We wrapped up Dream Lab 2026 yesterday 🌩️ Thank you to all our instructors, participants, and collaborators—what a week!

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Laurie Allen @lallen.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

In my personal non-work time, I wrote about public libraries as public spaces, and their connection to civic life. Thanks to the William Penn Foundation for giving me the opportunity. williampennfoundation.org/news/public-...

williampennfoundation.org

Public Libraries as Sites of Democratic Activity | William Penn Foundation

The function of libraries in creating an informed citizenry capable of participating in shared governance has been a key feature in the development of US democracy.

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Whitney Trettien @whitneytrettien.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

It's hard to believe AGI is imminent when we here in academia are still scheduling moderately sized meetings by reply-all email chains.

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Leonardo Flores @leoflores.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

I’m thrilled to share the new issue of Taper 16: For Good Measure. In this issue, we’ve published 21 tiny (<2048 bytes) computational works. Explore, share, and enjoy! taper.badquar.to/16/ Relevant tags: #elit #DH #poetry #creativecoding #art #literature

taper.badquar.to

Taper #16

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Dr. Liz Hebbard @lizhebbard.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

So excited to kick off ✨Newberry FragmentFest 2026✨ today with Otto Ege and Megan Kelly 😍🥰🤩 Program (with actual event title): www.newberry.org/calendar/pre... @newberrylibrary.bsky.social #medievalsky #fragments #fragmentology

Megan Kelly, Director of Collections Services at the Newberry Library, introducing a collection presentation of medieval manuscript fragments laid out on two long tables

A leaf in its mat and with a descriptive label from an Otto Ege portfolio of medieval leaves at the Newberry Library

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Lori Emerson @loriemerson.net · 23/04/2026

next up is this incredible small, black book by Mindy Seu the size of a smartphone that turns Instagram Stories (which evolved into a live lecture-performance) into a performance script. it is a deeply moving, feminist account of the early Web that includes some painfully pointed moments 1/2

light skinned left hand holds a small black book the size of a smartphone. the only text that appears on the cover (in silver) reads "A SEXUAL HISTORY OF THE INTERNET / MINDY SEU"

a light skinned hand holds open a book containing black pages and silver-colored text. the left page indicates the time elapsed in the original performance: 03:35. the text on the right page reads, "I'm looking for my third wife, and you'd make a great option."

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Whitney Trettien @whitneytrettien.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

Library chain! From the Laurentian Library! Collected by hardware magnate Henry Probasco, now at the @newberrylibrary.bsky.social. (Paging @shannonmattern.bsky.social)

Library chain from the Laurentian Library, Florence, lying on a blue pillow.

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Whitney Trettien @whitneytrettien.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

Oh look, it's "The Last Supper" as ASCII art. (MS Typ 1334 at Houghton Library)

Image of Jesus at the Last Supper, done as ASCII art after Leonardo da Vinci's painting. The image is made entirely from the character 'X'.

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Kate Ozment @grubstreetwomen.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

The Women's Print History Project collects bibliographic data on printed objects associated with women's production. I've been itching to query the data not limited by the UI, and ✨ I finally get to ✨ Here are some things I've been able to surface... womensprinthistoryproject.com

womensprinthistoryproject.com

Making sure you're not a bot!

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Whitney Trettien @whitneytrettien.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

Penn has a powerful new supercomputing cluster, now available to researchers. Cool! I do, however, have some thoughts on the decision to name it "Betty", after Frances Elizabeth Snyder Holberton, one of ENIAC's original programmers.

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The Price Lab @pricelab.bsky.social · 06/04/2026

Back again at Dream Lab this summer ⚡️ DIGITAL HUMANITIES IN THE CLASSROOM with @amandalicastro.bsky.social and @betovargas.github.io 🧑‍🏫

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Feminist Media Histories @femmediahist.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

In "Speculative Knowledge and the Situated 'Dispositifs' of Zora Neale Hurston and Stella Adler’s Digital Film Collections," Tanya Clement and Zoe Bursztajn-Illingworth propose strategies for speculating in dialogue these recently digitized artifacts. Don't miss it! doi.org/10.1525/fmh....

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The Price Lab @pricelab.bsky.social · 23/03/2026

Back again at Dream Lab this summer ⚡️ DIGITAL APPROACHES TO EARLY MODERN BOOKS with @jrladd.com 📖

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Alex Gil @elotroalex.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

Thesis #6: Close reading can be used for good or evil without being able to predetermine either.

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Janneke Adema @openreflections.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

This is going to be a wonderful online conference (8-9 April) showcasing the @copim.bsky.social experimental book pilots we supported & featuring discussions with speakers & panelists as part of 3 themed sessions on Infrastructuring, Open Peer Reviewing, and Binding. Register here 👉 buff.ly/zX0kSlC

buff.ly

Online Conference: Practicing Experimental Books: Celebrating Copim’s Book Pilots - Copim

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Whitney Trettien @whitneytrettien.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

Keeping me afloat is the 5yo, who leaves little merz-y dada "books" he made on my bookshelf. Tonight, a small quarto titled TOOTODTDO. Stick figures box; a rocket sits atop a trampoline. Caption, "OFG/OEG/GPZ." I ask, what's it mean? He says, heavy: You may only read what you want it to mean.

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J.D. Porter @jdporter.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

The Price Lab’s Critical Approaches to AI Working Group has released a white paper in which we advocate for AI-free instruction in reading, writing, & research. These are fundamental skills in the humanities (& in general), & with decisive action we can keep teaching them well in the age of AI!

pricelab.sas.upenn.edu

Critical Approaches to AI Working Group | Price Lab for Digital Humanities

The Price Lab is the University of Pennsylvania's center for innovative uses of technology in the study and teaching of history, art, and culture.

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The Bibliographical Society of America @bibsocamer.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

The BSA Events Committee is proud to support the Text & Textuality Symposium at Bryn Mawr College next month! The symposium features two days of lectures and panels, including keynotes by Jesse Erickson (The Morgan Library & Museum) and Whitney Trettien (University of Pennsylvania).

The image is a promotional graphic for a symposium titled "Text & Textuality" at Bryn Mawr College. The upper portion features white text over an out-of-focus black and brown background resembling keyboard keys. Dates and times are specified for Friday, March 20 and Saturday, March 21, along with the location, Old Library 224. The lower portion is a bright pink background with white text reiterating event details and emphasizing that no registration is required.

Pink text on a white background with information about the Text and Textuality Symposium at Bryn Mawr College in March 2026.

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Cynthia Heider @cynthiaheider.com · 19/02/2026

Penn Libraries seeks a (FT, hybrid) AI & ML Developer w an annual salary of $66-$92,700.00; apply by 3/8. Please share widely! As a future colleague of this person, I esp. welcome those with a background in the humanities, arts, or social sciences to apply. wd1.myworkdaysite.com/recruiting/u...

wd1.myworkdaysite.com

AI & Machine Learning Developer

University Overview The University of Pennsylvania, the largest private employer in Philadelphia, is a world-renowned leader in education, research, and innovation. This historic, Ivy League school co...

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Whitney Trettien @whitneytrettien.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

My book history course is largely taught using this amazing archive of lectures. Just taught @illdottore.bsky.social on Roman writing tools last week, Margaret Bruchac on wampum belts today. So much better than texts with few/no images, and you get to see amazing scholars work through their method.

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Penn Material Texts @pennmaterialtexts.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

✨John Garcia @jgarc.bsky.social speaks tomorrow at 5:15pm EST - hope that you can make it! Attend in-person on the sixth floor of Penn's Van Pelt Library or remotely via Zoom. Feb 16 • 🕔 5:15 PM EST Full details at: pennmaterialtexts.org (Pic: Indenture form, Historical Society of Pennsylvania)

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Inscription: the Journal of Material Text @inscriptionjournal.bsky.social · 14/02/2026

Call for papers! INSCRIPTION 7 (out 2027) will be all about BLANKS. It will be (as ever) a BEAUTIFUL and MAXIMAL object. Send us your ideas! Historical / theoretical / creative / creative-critical -- or some strange blend. First step: 400-word proposal + brief CV by 1 April 2026. CFP attached.

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The Price Lab @pricelab.bsky.social · 13/02/2026

Douglass Day 2026 is under way at Penn! Join us in RDDSx on the first floor of Van Pelt. We will be here until 3pm—we have coffee and snacks to fuel your transcriptions ☕️🍊 (not to mention lots of these stickers!) @douglassday.bsky.social @ccp-org.bsky.social

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The Bibliographical Society of America @bibsocamer.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

🚨 Funding Alert! 🚨 Are you passionate about book history, bibliography, or book arts? Submit your proposal today for financial support for upcoming events in your community! 📖✨ 📅 Deadline: 1 April (7 weeks away!) Learn more & apply today 👉 bibsocamer.org/events/funding-opportunities

Pink background with white text about applying for funding from the BSA for a book-related events by 1 April.

White background with dark pink text providing some details about the types of events BSA can fund

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ACH @ach.bsky.social · 28/01/2026

ACH is holding our annual virtual conference, ACH 2026, from June 24 to 26, 2026. We are excited to announce that we have extended our call for papers to February 23, 2026: buff.ly/Rltfrcu

ach2026.ach.org

ACH 2026 CFP

Submit a proposal: ACH 2026 ConfTool

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