We stand at an awkward moment for everyone who means well but doesn't want to rock the boat. It has been possible, in fact it is still possible if you don’t look too closely, to pretend that things are bad, but no more bad than a standard deviation or two…

Sometime soon, a point which I’ve known to be inevitable yet tried to ignore will be reached: Twitter will implement an algorithm that displays tweets to me not simply in the order in which anyone I follow has tweeted them, but in an order which it will decide. The degree…

It’s time to unlock the tools of research — An announcement yesterday sent shockwaves through Early Modern Twitter (yes, that’s a thing, and yes, it’s a big enough thing to have shockwaves). The Renaissance Society of America, an organization for scholars studying the period from 1300–1650, sent its members the following email:

It seems to me that the public, today, has a new relationship with corporations and brands. In contrast with previous generations, consumers are more sceptical, more curious, and are grasping for a semblance of autonomy. How did I come to formulate this profound insight? Why, I read it on CosmeticsDesign.com.

Librarianship is as vital as ever, and computers are why Librarians have a hard enough time pushing back against the widespread misconception that the internet age has diminished their relevance. It’s especially dismaying to me to see librarians who buy into a fundamental misunderstanding about what libraries are for. Libraries…

I am not, by temperament, someone who gets into a lot of fights on Twitter, but there are a couple of topics that tend to raise my hackles. I am a rare book and manuscript librarian at a university (and both my library and my university would probably like me…