Fletcher Durant

@fletcherdurant.bsky.social

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Preservation : Conservation : Acad. Libraries : Archives : Stuff

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Poison Books, making news! www.washingtonpost.com/home/2024/07...

Old books can be loaded with poison. Some collectors love the thrill.www.washingtonpost.com The Poison Book Project examines antique books for heavy metal pigments — including mercury, lead and arsenic — commonly used in Victorian bookbinding.

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Fletcher Durant

This is a really interesting study -- thoughtful quant analysis around several important questions. Tl;dr: book banning is primarily a conservative *galvanization* tactic 📚📜 P. 5:

This is fascinating. In the results of this study, book bans correlated most highly to counties with **declining Republican/conservative vote share. I.e.: it’s always been a shit political tactic, not anyone’s “concern for the children” 📚 pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38864005/

Book bans in political context: Evidence from US schools - PubMedpubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov In the 2021-2022 school year, more books were banned in US school districts than in any previous year. Book banning and other forms of information censorship have serious implications for democratic p...

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Fletcher Durant

"Sunday’s record-setting heat was felt on nearly every continent. Huge swaths of Asia sweltered amid scorching days and dangerously hot nights. Triple-digit temperatures in the western US fueled out-of-control wildfires. Around much of Antarctica, temperatures were as high as 12° C above normal."

Sunday was the hottest day ever recorded on Earth, scientists saywww.washingtonpost.com The historic day comes on the heels of 13 straight months of unprecedented temperatures and the hottest year scientists have ever seen.

Truly, looking for a material culture history of Bartleby’s office. With a dash of 1840-1860 jobber printing history thrown in for depth.

Can anyone recommend any books, articles, or chapters on early 19th century office processes and materials? Extra bonus points for US centric pieces.

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Fletcher Durant

Today in 1961 — TWA became the first airline to screen movies. Customized 16mm projectors + reels (mounted horizontally) played a whole film without a changeover. The first in-flight movie? BY LOVE POSSESSED (1961) w/ Lana Turner. #FilmSky

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The best thing I saw on the internet today was that someone made an entire taxonomy of the little plastic clips you put on bread bags www.horg.com/horg/?page_i...

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If you're a scholar who is outraged about your work being used this way, I encourage you to do two things: 1. Don't post your outrage here. Take it to your next department meeting. Organize your colleagues against predatory publishing. Publishers will keep doing this to you as long as you allow it.

This piece from The Bookseller seems to confirm Informa /Taylor & Francis / Routledge intends to use academic work to train AI without any consultation with authors. www.thebookseller.com/news/academi...

Academic authors 'shocked' after Taylor & Francis sells access to their research to Microsoft AIwww.thebookseller.com Authors claim they have not been told about the AI deal, were not given the opportunity to opt out and are receiving no extra payment.

Ben Sasse resigning as the president of UF after less than 2 years is getting the headlines, but the results of the first round of UF post-tenure review found that 25% of the tenured faculty did not meet the arbitrary standards set in the process.

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Fletcher Durant

Ben Sasse’s tenure as UF president was like his tenure in the US Senate: occupying a position of genuine power and influence and doing nothing of note in it save meekly capitulating to authoritarianism. His only saving grace is his successor undoubtedly will be at least as bad if not worse.

University of Florida President Ben Sasse Announces Resignationnews.ufl.edu <p>University of Florida President Ben Sasse announced today that he will resign from his current position as President effective July 31, 2024 and has asked the Board to initiate a search for a new p...

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It’s true - “sustainability” should account for this

U.S. public transit systems are weathering the outage OK. Spoke for San Francisco Municipal Transportation System, (buses, trains and iconic cable cars) said the agency's main systems are not even connected to the internet. "Long live floppy disks, I guess!" link: www.nytimes.com/live/2024/07...

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Fletcher Durant

All of our essays for A DIGITAL FEAST: Working with Archives, Collections, and Recipe Books are up at The Recipes Project for your reading and enjoyment. Lots to digest (sorry): digital collections, metadata, working w historical recipes today recipes.hypotheses.org

Spring – Summer 2024recipes.hypotheses.org A Digital Feast Working with Archives, Collections, and Recipe Books Introduction By Heather Froehlich and R.A. Kashanipour We are proud to present a Spring-Summer volume of essays around the theme of...

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💚 this: "The Japanese Paper Film Project started at Bucknell University in 2019... The project gathered faculty + students from Film/Media Studies, East Asian Studies, Mechanical Engineering, + CompSci to create a custom digital film scanner along with bespoke software for reanimating paper films."

“In the 1930s, several Japanese companies produced films made on paper (called kami firumu, 紙フィルム) instead of celluloid. The films were often in color and some films had synchronized sound tracks on 78 rpm records.” lightindustry.org/paperfilms?m...

It's pretty exhausting out there, but fireflies, fireflies remain amazing.

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Fletcher Durant

This is an enormous scandal and reason for all academics to withhold labor from Taylor and Francis/Routledge

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This is a fun conversation with collection & preservation experts at the Library of Congress 🧪 Q: If the building was burning, what would you run out with? NADAL: I would do nothing. www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-...

How Does the World’s Largest Library Decide What Becomes History?www.scientificamerican.com From ancient clay tablets to TV shows to video games, the U.S. Library of Congress preserves far more than just books

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I made this into a proper response to the absolutely misplaced calls to "turn down the heat": newrepublic.com/article/1838...

My first thought this morning after I remembered the news was how many people over the last few years have put their bodies between armed far right guys and kids going to the library or a bookstore

Where Were Calls for De-Escalation When Libraries Were Being Targeted?newrepublic.com Trump’s fans seem determined to blame this shooting on their victims.

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Fletcher Durant

I can't stop thinking about how Trump would eliminate our free, public weather service, NOAA. It's an institution that goes back 53 years and protects Americans everyday with warnings for tornados, thunderstorms and more. That's the Project 2025 plan. www.theatlantic.com/science/arch...

The MAGA Plan to End Free Weather Reportswww.theatlantic.com Project 2025 would all but dissolve the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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This is a welcome change! “elevating structures by 2 additional feet adds around 2 percent to the cost of the average project, but that this spending will pay for itself over the next 60 years by preventing future damages.” grist.org/extreme-weat...

FEMA will now consider climate change when it rebuilds after floodsgrist.org The federal disaster relief agency is overhauling its rules in a bid to end a cycle of rebuilding in unsafe areas.

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Fletcher Durant

Scientists identify one victim of 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in a mass grave in a city-owned cemetery. C.L. Daniel was a WWI veteran killed in the massacre. wapo.st/4f1GsWB

Scientists identify victim of 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre in mass gravewapo.st Scientists have identified a victim of the Tulsa massacre whose remains were found in a mass grave in a city-owned cemetery, Tulsa’s mayor announced Friday.

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Fletcher Durant

They banned the book not because it contains any obscene content, but because it espouses a negative view of book bans.

Book about book bans banned by Florida school boardwww.theguardian.com Ban This Book by Alan Gratz banned in Indian River county after opposition from parents linked to Moms for Liberty

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Fletcher Durant

"We've had specifications falling on the floor but no one is dealing with funding. That's the myth of tech being down to genius instead of down to paying for infrastructure." - @meredithmeredith.bsky.social 🔥

Tech has become essential to democracy and @meredithmeredith.bsky.social is rocking that bridge at #DemocracyDrinks.

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Texas LG Dan Patrick is livid that Joe Biden said TX slowed down Hurricane Beryl aid. But the Houston Chronicle did the research, and TX filed major-disaster declarations with the White House BEFORE Hurricanes Harvey, Ike, and Hanna made landfall. They filed this one a day after the storm hit

NEW: President Biden says Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick delayed federal Hurricane Beryl aid getting to Texas. “I've been trying to track down the governor,” Biden said. Patrick, acting gov while Abbott is traveling in Asia, said he was "easy to find" and there was no delay.

President Biden says Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick delayed federal Beryl aidwww.houstonchronicle.com A White House spokesperson said officials tried to reach the Texas leaders multiple times as the hurricane hit the Gulf Coast.

Texas was slower to ask for federal Beryl aid than in past hurricaneswww.houstonchronicle.com Gov. Greg Abbott was quick to ask for the assistance when Hurricane Harvey hit in 2017 and again when Hurricane Hanna touched down in 2020.

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Similar situation in Spain where a statue for Franco's victims was shot up within a week of installation. The artist's comment was something like "Now it's complete." The documentary "El silencio de otros (The Silence of Others)" has the story.

Too much symbolism here with the vandalism of this statue in Houston. I love the sentiments of the artist to leave the damage and not repair it. Statue Honoring Women and Justice Vandalized at University of Houston www.nytimes.com/2024/07/09/a...

Statue Honoring Women and Justice Vandalized at University of Houstonwww.nytimes.com An anti-abortion group had previously denounced Shahzia Sikander’s sculpture as “satanic.” University officials said they are investigating the attack.

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Not good. Museum collections & research are essential to understanding both the history and future of life on Earth. "California Academy of Sciences reeling from budget cuts: a major natural history collection loses one-quarter of its curators"

California Academy of Sciences reeling from budget cutswww.science.org A major natural history collection loses one-quarter of its curators

27 hours! Don't be shy.

The digital preservation team at NARA is growing! We’re adding 2 more GS-13 Senior Digital Preservation Specialist/Analyst roles, starting salary $117,962. Located in College Park, MD. Apply by July 11. #digipres www.usajobs.gov/job/798130300 (public) www.usajobs.gov/job/798130400 (status)

Senior Digital Preservation Specialistwww.usajobs.gov This position is part of the National Archives and Records Administration. The incumbent serves as a Senior Digital Preservation Specialist and reports to the Deputy Director of Digital Preservation, ...

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There's a day and a half left to apply! ⬇️ #digipres

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Texans get more leadership from Whataburger and HEB than Greg Abbott.

WTF. The electric company in Texas doesn't have a map of outages so people have been using the Whataburger App to figure out who lost power. This is like when Homer was using the Krusty Burger map when they got lost at sea.

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Fletcher Durant

This is going to get expensive: If climate change has increased the outside temperature from 96F to 100F, the energy your air conditioner consumes increases by 42%, since the power consumed varies by the square of the temperature difference between the outside and inside.

Can we air condition our way out of extreme heat? A primer on air conditioning from The Climate Brink www.theclimatebrink....

Can we air condition our way out of extreme heat?www.theclimatebrink.com part 1: a primer on air conditioning

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Fletcher Durant

People act like OSHA is this gang of fun-haters who make up stupid rules to make their jobs annoying. Literally every single regulation OSHA has ever written was in response to someone getting maimed; usually killed, but sometimes merely losing a limb or two. Occasionally breathing corrosive gas.