"I think refusing is actually the more hopeful, expansive vision of the future than the one that is telling us that the future is already settled and decided. That's my daring idea. Just say no."
Carnegie Mellon has cancelled hosting the Code4Lib conference this year because Code4Lib has scholarships supporting diverse attendees. Some lame fuckery indeed.
This brings me joy.
I set the study aside to read and annotate. My first take is that the study conflates ability (re: navigating a system) and literacy (understanding the dynamics of the system and human computer interaction).
It reinforces the Dunning-Kruger effect and a research librarian would've spotted this
“From street cameras to drones and regional fusion hubs, surveillance systems are increasingly built atop AWS. The pitch Amazon makes to law enforcement is about more than raw infrastructure. It is also about access, connections, and momentum.“
Palantir is in the news a lot lately. However, the public discourse about the company often misconstrues it as a data broker, a data miner, a single centralized database, etc. But what does Palantir actually do?
I wrote a piece to firmly & clearly answer that question:
www.wired.com/story/palant...
Excited to finally announce the release of my first ever book, and the first ever book from we here press. It is a pocket-size guide to my archival theories and experiences in the form of essays- some you may have heard in part as lectures, some which are unpublished until now.
www.weherepress.org
An update from The Public Interest Corpus from
@thomaspadilla.bsky.social on our second workshop held at NYU Law School. Many thanks to @nyuengelberg.org for hosting us!
www.authorsalliance.org/2025/08/13/t...
Dr. Hayden is a consummate professional, career librarian, and public servant. I cannot think of anyone in the Trump administration who is fit to address the Librarian of Congress in this way:
I think these kinds of questions must be explicitly considered, as robust understanding of genAI agents limits and capabilities is incredibly uneven and unintentional harm/inaccuracies could too easily be introduced into the literature without foregrounding this.
What research question is the resulting paper supposed to be answering? I realize that “insights” can be derived from any collection of data, but where does intellectual discourse and critique come in?
And since AI cannot be an author, how does attribution occur?
Text screenshot: Meta employees spoke with multiple companies about licensing books and research papers, but they weren’t thrilled with their options. This “seems unreasonably expensive,” wrote one research scientist on an internal company chat, in reference to one potential deal, according to court records. A Llama-team senior manager added that this would also be an “incredibly slow” process: “They take like 4+ weeks to deliver data.” In a message found in another legal filing, a director of engineering noted another downside to this approach: “The problem is that people don’t realize that if we license one single book, we won’t be able to lean into fair use strategy,” a reference to a possible legal defense for using copyrighted books to train AI.
![Text screenshot: Court documents released last night show that the senior manager felt it was “really important for [Meta] to get books ASAP,” as “books are actually more important than web data.” Meta employees turned their attention to Library Genesis, or LibGen, one of the largest of the pirated libraries that circulate online. It currently contains more than 7.5 million books and 81 million research papers. Eventually, the team at Meta got permission from “MZ”—an apparent reference to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg—to download and use the data set.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:jxtnw3qiuq4wtx7sggjbbvi3/bafkreihorvm6uzvhjf5oely3gicfs4bj6cjtgw7pld4tcss4sxqoxu32p4@jpeg)
Text screenshot: Court documents released last night show that the senior manager felt it was “really important for [Meta] to get books ASAP,” as “books are actually more important than web data.” Meta employees turned their attention to Library Genesis, or LibGen, one of the largest of the pirated libraries that circulate online. It currently contains more than 7.5 million books and 81 million research papers. Eventually, the team at Meta got permission from “MZ”—an apparent reference to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg—to download and use the data set.
Meta initially considered licensing books. New legal docs show that a Llama senior manager felt it was “really important for [Meta] to get books ASAP,” as “books are actually more important than web data.” Paying and waiting wouldn't do. So they sought—and received—permission to torrent LibGen.
IMLS is the Institute of Museum and Library Services. It's about $200 million per year for libraries and $50 million for museums. Not a lot for the federal budget, but a huge piece of the culture and knowledge system - which is why MAGA is eliminating it.
Really shocking from the National Library of Australia. Tim's digital work is so fantastic but it's facilitated by OA to this corpus of newspapers. If other libraries follow suit, work like @ryancordell.org's will be threatened too. Stunningly bad.
updates.timsherratt.org/2025/03/02/t...
Are any users of NOAA data willing to share how potential loss might impact their work? We could use some for an event next week. Please share if you feel able: forms.gle/zvx2eoLLzKU5...
A new medium for age old strategies of data warfare 🤔 The scale though… oof.
The new ceo is hoping to increase their sales to the federal government, something that was less available during the previous administration because of its concerns about privacy and civil rights.
Definitely going to be something to assess and evaluate. I hope it does help support colleagues who are looking for this professional development.
But still important to interrogate all the things, all the time!
(I’m on the Board). I share your physical reactions to the optics and also dug into the autonomy of the foundation and how to best serve members who are looking for support. In the end, and with a great deal of investigation, the Board felt that this was an approach that did not sacrifice our values
I was part of the conversations where we were assured that the foundation would have no ties to the product-side of the company. It’s also my understanding that they are not involved in the content. ACRL is trying to meet member needs using available resourcing & I promise we are being critical.
This is my “daughter of a Black Panther breakfast program volunteer” coming out but anyone who tells you that you have to be public about all your resistance activity should immediately be under suspicion for being an op, or being under the influence of an op
Our recent post on Preserving Our Public Data Heritage is up. If you'd like to stay in touch, please subscribe to our newsletter. www.datarescueproject.org/preserving-o...
An important read about the firing of the Archivist of the Unites States.
www.linkedin.com/pulse/we-sho...
ABA It has been three weeks since Inauguration Day. Most Americans recognize that newly elected leaders bring change. That is expected. But most Americans also expect that changes will take place in accordance with the rule of law and in an orderly manner that respects the lives of affected individuals and the work they have been asked to perform. Instead, we see wide-scale affronts to the rule of law itself, such as attacks on constitutionally protected birthright citizenship, the dismantling of USAID and the attempts to criminalize those who support lawful programs to eliminate bias and enhance diversity. We have seen attempts at wholesale dismantling of departments and entities created by Congress without seeking the required congressional approval to change the law. There are efforts to dismiss employees with little regard for the law and protections they merit, and social media announcements that disparage and appear to be motivated by a desire to inflame without any stated factual basis. This is chaotic. It may appeal to a few. But it is wrong. And most Americans recognize it is wrong. It is also contrary to the rule of law. The American Bar Association supports the rule of law. That means holding governments, including our own, accountable under law. We stand for a legal process that is orderly and fair. We have consistently urged the administrations of both parties to adhere to the rule of law. We stand in that familiar place again today. And we do not stand alone. Our courts stand for the rule of law as well.
Someone at the American Bar Association ate their Wheaties this morning.
Great thread of resources related to endangered and disappeared data.
Since data sources are inconsistent these days, this account may be helpful for folks keeping an eye on current public health circumstances.
MIT has created an excellent checklist for those making data backups on their own: libraries.mit.edu/data-managem... Data is special. Treat it with care!
FINALLY
