Finch Collins
@finchinthestacks.bsky.social
1.9K followers 700 following 910 posts
PGR at the Uni of Manchester | libraries and data, early modern books and bodies | posts my own
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finchinthestacks.bsky.social
The awaited life update: I’ve moved to the UK! At the end of the month, I’m beginning a PhD at the University of Manchester. I’ll be researching how library catalogue data can surface marginalized voices in early printed books, and working with Chetham’s Library as a case study. More to come!
Finch, a white person with short brown hair, standing in front of the John Rylands Library, a red stone building with an ornate fence and the library’s name in gold on the side. Finch is smiling at the camera.
Reposted by Finch Collins
saracharles.bsky.social
Homegrown madder pigment. It's wonderful to create medieval pigment from something grown in your garden #bookhistory #medievalpigments #medievalsky
Madder pigment in an oyster shell Dried madder roots in a bowl on some scales Madder pigment being mulled on a glass slab Madder pigment surrounded by examples of dried paint on paper and parchment
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jdsargan.bsky.social
It's true: I wrote a book. And what's more, the book is done and soon you'll be able to own a copy. And what's more more, if you want a hard copy you can order one for 50% off now, with the code SAR50. And if you want it digitally, it'll be open access!

www.arc-humanities.org/978180270163...
Trans Histories of the Medieval Book - Arc Humanities Press
Archival collections are political spaces: the decisions that govern whose histories are preserved, when, and by whom are not neutral. They reflect the commu...
www.arc-humanities.org
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rebeccasear.bsky.social
“More than half of the work done by women in the period between the 16th and 18th centuries took place outside of the home, and around half of all housework and three-quarters of care work was conducted professionally for other households” [England]

phys.org/news/2025-10...
A woman's place was not in the home: Challenging the assumptions about women's work in early modern history
New research has revealed that women played a fundamental role in the development of England's national economy before 1700.
phys.org
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jdsargan.bsky.social
Your challenge for this weekend is to put in an abstract for Queer Bibliography 2026. It's what all the cool kids are doing.

The theme is Space, Place, Community (widely understood, certainly not limited to the South). CFP: shorturl.at/XAVJ0; Submit: forms.gle/XD7FgrrStp3j...

Athens GA and online
Poster reads: March 12–14, 2026; Queer Bibliography in the South: Space, Place, Community; University of Georgia, Athens, GA.
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lauropea.bsky.social
crazy idea but hear me out: we print out information, like the internet but effectively 'digitising' it into physical form, and bind it together with related information relevant to the same topic within some covers. it then has zero energy need or subscription fees and lasts for centuries, wild huh
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noethematt.bsky.social
I am genuinely not convinced it is a good thing for everything to be available all of the time and the assumption and expectation that it will be is really troubling.

Libraries do not have to concede capitalist visions of the world. Nor do I think we should. We should aspire to better.

End/
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libraryleadpipe.bsky.social
"We refuse the processes that turn people into objects. We refuse to place the value these materials offer our institutions and disciplines above the people whose bodies were made into valuable epistemic resources."
finchinthestacks.bsky.social
Cinnamon raisin bagel with lox, tomato, and lettuce is my favorite, so past you was correct.
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richove.bsky.social
MLGB is back!! Delighted that Medieval Libraries of Great Britain @bodleian.ox.ac.uk is now back online. We are also working had on plans for the next phase of the resource, enhancing & adding data & functionality. HUGE thanks to my colleagues for their hard & clever work mlgb.bodleian.ox.ac.uk
Reposted by Finch Collins
ciliprarebooks.bsky.social
Don't miss the first talk in this year's series of the History Of Libraries Seminar, ✨ tonight ✨ online or in person @warburginstitute.bsky.social!

Libraries and delinquency: the case of Charles Burney (1757-1817)

Free of charge, but reservation is required: ies.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...
Libraries and Delinquency: The Case of Charles Burney (1757-1817)
ies.sas.ac.uk
finchinthestacks.bsky.social
HOW DID I MISS THIS (an international move, that’s how) KADIN CONGRATS
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oxinabox.bsky.social
as a girl with a PhD in natural language processing and machine learning it's actually offensive to me when you say "we don't know how LLMs work so they might be conscious"

I didn't spend 10 years in mines of academia to be told ignorance is morally equal knowledge.

We know exactly how LLMs work.
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katbrownwrites.com
Those tedious and mysteriously funded transphobes want to limit access to the Ponds so I’ve had a pleasant 10 mins filling this out on why seeing a variety of women is magic and judging by what people look like or can do is very slippery territory hampstead-heath-bathing-ponds.commonplace.isn
Future access to the Hampstead Heath Bathing Ponds
Inviting feedback from pond users, the local community, and stakeholders on how the Kenwood Ladies’, and Highgate Men’s ponds should operate in the future.
hampstead-heath-bathing-ponds.commonplace.is
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merriam-webster.com
We are thrilled to announce that our NEW Large Language Model will be released on 11.18.25.
Reposted by Finch Collins
georginaemw.bsky.social
Today is publication day for PAPER AND THE MAKING OF EARLY MODERN LITERATURE! Available in paper or digital form www.pennpress.org/978151282744... @pennpress.bsky.social
Reposted by Finch Collins
kawulf.bsky.social
Bibliographical Mysteries! "Share your successes and failures, cold cases, breakthroughs, speculative practices, novel uses of technology, collaborative momentum, and other stories."
CFP *by 10.7* for a special session of @bibsocamer.bsky.social annual meeting. bibsocamer.org/news/cfp-bsa26
The Bibliographical Society of America
The website of the Bibliographical Society of America, a 501(c)(3) non-profit membership organization and learned Society devoted to the study of the material text.
bibsocamer.org
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zoejardiniere.bsky.social
Ok. They’ve pissed me off.

I’m back to tell you 3 things about ID cards:

1. Migrants ALREADY HAVE biometric ID cards & govts have been trying to digitise them for years w repeated fuckups & failures causing complete chaos - they don’t work, you do not want that system for you.
Reposted by Finch Collins
jcblibrary.bsky.social
We have just launched our new application cycle for long- and short-term fellowships at the JCB!

Details at jcblibrary.org/fellowships/...
The image has pink and brown design elements, the JCB logo, and the text "Fellowship opportunities- Apply now!"
Reposted by Finch Collins
meganlcook.bsky.social
Y'all know this already but this is neither how trans people nor medieval currency nor alchemy work and also I'd hoped (foolishly, it would seem!) we'd moved beyond the traffic in women as an organizing social principle.
katjathieme.bsky.social
What it sounds like when philosophers who are also anti-trans activists submit an amicus brief to a US court where they argue for banning trans girls and women from women's sports.
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the option of interpreting the Idaho and West Virginia
statutes as motivated by the justified aim of excluding
all males from female sports, it is quite invidious to
interpret them as instead motivated by the unjustified
aim of excluding males who identify as female in par-
ticular.
Consider a simple analogy. Imagine that we are
back in Medieval Europe. Gold is the currency of the
land. Consequently, many merchants prefer to accept
gold and only gold as payment. However, a new move-
ment is afoot, whose members are known as the alche-
mists. The alchemists purport to have found a way of
turning iron pyrite (fool’s gold) into gold. Some people
are convinced by the claims of the alchemists, though
many others are not. This difference in attitudes
starts to lead to time-wasting interactions in which an
alchemist or fellow traveler tries to purchase a good
using iron pyrite from a merchant who, unmoved by
well-publicized insistence on the part of the alche-
mists that only irrational prejudice could lie behind
lingering doubts about the possibility of converting
iron pyrite into gold, continues to insist on only ac-
cepting gold as payment. One such merchant, whose
unofficial working policy has hitherto been to accept
only gold as payment, decides to make his policy offi-
cial by putting up a sign on his store saying, “Only
gold accepted (no iron pyrite!).”