Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by pam lach

Matthew Cheney @melikhovo.bsky.social · 14h

At an academic conference and the most common conversations I've had is stuff like, "How many faculty is your school trying to fire? Do you still have professional development funds? Do you still have an English department?" Fun times!

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Dr. Mag 🌿👾 @nobugsnous.bsky.social · 20h

I wrote this blog about how feeling like a killjoy whenever I talk about GenAI.
refusinggenai.wordpress.com/2025/10/09/o...

On Being a GenAI Killjoy

Maggie Fernandes, University of Arkansas Photo by Maksim Romashkin on Pexels.com At a recent teaching talk about GenAI refusal, an audience member asked Megan, Jen, and me this question: how d…

refusinggenai.wordpress.com

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pam lach @plach.bsky.social · 11h

Another incredible sunset here in SoCal 😍

A brilliant reddish-orange sunset over a SoCal backyard. Puffy clouds reflect a pinkish glow from the setting sun. Tree tops are partially visible in silhouette at the bottom of the frame

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Joshua Shapiro @josh.shapiro.foo · 14h

I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything by AI. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed with AI, or buy anything sold or processed with AI, or process anything sold, bought, or processed by AI, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed by AI.

Nancy Parmalee @nparmalee.bsky.social · 15h

I don’t want to generate or receive an email, document, manuscript, PowerPoint deck, post it note, grocery list, novel, film, or hit list that has been generated with AI.

Ned Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 15h

I write because I love writing. I love writing even when I'm struggling with a writing problem that is killing me. Finding a way through that problem is both intensely rewarding and also helps me become a better writer. There is no reason for me to ever outsource that.

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pam lach @plach.bsky.social · 14h

Idk maybe we expect too much from our institutions? 😔

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pam lach @plach.bsky.social · 14h

Sooner or later, the college/uni you attend(ed) or work at will do something terrible re budget, academics, shared governance, labor rights, student rights, and/or protection of free speech/academic freedom. As much as I try not to be a doomsayer, it feels inevitable. Our institutions are failing us

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pam lach @plach.bsky.social · 17h

Or rather, there’s some dispute/confusion about whether this will be a School of AI or … something else that includes AI as a central focus? 🤔

University leadership announces development of new school at Carolina | UNC-Chapel Hill

The School of Information and Library Science and the School of Data Science and Society will be founding leaders of a new school to amplify and lead Carolina’s response to the information and data ne...

www.unc.edu

pam lach @plach.bsky.social · 17h

It’s telling when the Dean hops onto the alumni listserv to try to do damage control, spin the messaging, and smack talk the student paper for the supposed inaccuracies in its coverage (there’s some dispute about what this new school will be called?)

UNC schools of data science and information science to merge, forming unnamed ‘School of AI’

SDSS Dean Stanley Ahalt will be made dean of the new school while SILS Dean Jeffrey Bardzell will stand as the University’s Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer and Vice Provost for AI.

www.dailytarheel.com

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In the Library with the Lead Pipe @libraryleadpipe.bsky.social · 22h

"The opaque protocols we used to redact images and text were also moments of refusal—of denying the reader access to stolen, coerced, and unethically extracted materials produced in biomedical research."

In the Library with the Lead Pipe @libraryleadpipe.bsky.social · 1d

The Digital Opaque: Refusing the Biomedical Object by Sean Purcell, Kalani Craig and Michelle Dalmau

www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2025/digital...

The Digital Opaque: Refusing the Biomedical Object – In the Library with the Lead Pipe

www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org

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pam lach @plach.bsky.social · 1d

Just when I think my alma mater can’t sink any lower … 😔

Triangle Blog Blog @triangleblogblog.bsky.social · 1d

Breaking: We’ve talked to multiple individuals who have confirmed that UNC-CH is merging SILS (library and information science) and SDSS (data science and society). Announcement will be tomorrow morning. Faculty were not consulted.

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Kate Crowe @kcrowe.bsky.social · 1d

"Faculty were not consulted" 👀

Triangle Blog Blog @triangleblogblog.bsky.social · 1d

Breaking: We’ve talked to multiple individuals who have confirmed that UNC-CH is merging SILS (library and information science) and SDSS (data science and society). Announcement will be tomorrow morning. Faculty were not consulted.

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pam lach @plach.bsky.social · 1d

Proud to serve as the publishing editor for this fantastic piece. The authors position refusal as an ethical/methodological stance for working with "materials that depend on the objectification of, and through that objectification the commodification of, human subjects." It's a must read!

In the Library with the Lead Pipe @libraryleadpipe.bsky.social · 1d

The Digital Opaque: Refusing the Biomedical Object by Sean Purcell, Kalani Craig and Michelle Dalmau

www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2025/digital...

The Digital Opaque: Refusing the Biomedical Object – In the Library with the Lead Pipe

www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org

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Tech Policy Press @techpolicypress.bsky.social · 2d

The increasing use of AI to surveil people’s emotions endangers not only privacy but also personal autonomy—the bedrock of democracy, writes Oznur Uguz. Newly emerging AI laws fail to provide adequate safeguards, she says.

How AI-Powered Emotional Surveillance Can Threaten Personal Autonomy and Democracy | TechPolicy.Press

If we do not regulate emotional AI surveillance now, we might soon have to fake how we feel to protect our privacy, writes Oznur Uguz.

www.techpolicy.press

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pam lach @plach.bsky.social · 2d

I’m in my 6th and final year of serving as a university senator. I joined at the height of Covid, served through the intrusion of GenAI into higher ed, and continued through the current assault on academic freedom and knowledge production. No wonder I’m totally cooked

pam lach @plach.bsky.social · Sep 5

Art but make it shared governance

Left: people sitting in a semicircle of rows in a lecture hall
Right: Hieronymus Bosch’s “The Harrowing of Hell” featuring numerous people in tortured agony

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Esther Schindler @estherschindler.bsky.social · 3d

I just saw someone use the abbreviation “AI;DR” and I’ll be laughing for a while.

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pam lach @plach.bsky.social · 3d

Actually called them “young people” which is way worse

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Matthew Kirschenbaum @mkirschenbaum.bsky.social · 3d

One thing that’s clear, one of the knock on effects of the “Compact” is it’s piling yet more labor on already maxed out faculty at targeted schools: meetings, resolutions, messaging, responding to admin requests for “input,” processing rumors and information . . . It’s just more more on top of more.

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Laprofmme @laprofmme.bsky.social · 3d

Is it any wonder we are all just exhausted? All of this on top of regular jobs that were just starting to settle back down after the covid “pivot” and then had to retool again to deal with the LLM bullshit …

Matthew Kirschenbaum @mkirschenbaum.bsky.social · 3d

One thing that’s clear, one of the knock on effects of the “Compact” is it’s piling yet more labor on already maxed out faculty at targeted schools: meetings, resolutions, messaging, responding to admin requests for “input,” processing rumors and information . . . It’s just more more on top of more.

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In the Library with the Lead Pipe @libraryleadpipe.bsky.social · 3d

Coming out Wednesday -

The Digital Opaque: Refusing the Biomedical Object

"... this essay creates frameworks for scholars working with archival or historical materials that were obtained through violent, deceitful, or otherwise unethical means."

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Joseph Rezek @rezekjoe.bsky.social · 3d

ACLS statement against White House “compact”: THIS IS SOVIET SHIT

Screenshot from statement “Universities and colleges have one mission: to advance knowledge. Faculty carry out the mission by conducting research and teaching students. The knowledge they produce and circulate is independently assessed by professional peers. Interfering with that process by forcing knowledge to pass through a political filter is a tactic adopted by the Soviet Union and other authoritarian states. The White House is dressing up its compact as a reasonable corrective to what it views as problems in campus culture. Let no one be deceived. This proposal imposes government censorship on academia. It is anti-American, and it weakens our democracy by devaluing academic expertise.”

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pam lach @plach.bsky.social · 4d

I just caught myself referring to my Gen Z nibblings and their friends as “younger people” and now I am officially old 😭

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Brett "Solidarity 2025" Banditelli @banditelli.org · 4d

I demand a union representative.

CNBC @cnbc.com · 4d

To shut down rude behavior instantly, try a simple yet powerful five-word response.

Use this 5-word phrase when someone is rude to you—it's like 'holding up a mirror,' says public speaking expert

When we encounter a rude person, our first instinct might be to fire back with a snarky comment. But that's not the right move, says public speaking expert John Bowe. Here's the perfect response to instantly shut down rude behavior.

cnb.cx

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Camilla Holm Soelseth @supercamilla.bsky.social · 4d

And this:

"discoverability increasingly depends on corporate decisions about interface design, search algorithms, and content filtering rather than intellectual analysis of scholarly materials."

🚨🚨🚨

Camilla Holm Soelseth @supercamilla.bsky.social · 4d

THIS THIS THIS 🚨

"Content-filtering layers designed for social media chatbots now “quietly block controversial topics from being searched” in academic library systems, undermining the careful subject analysis that catalogers perform to ensure comprehensive access to scholarly materials."

Guest Post — Beyond Classification: The Human Cost of Library and Information Labor Under Digital Capitalism - The Scholarly Kitchen

In an era of information abundance and epistemic chaos, libraries serve as crucial sites for democratic knowledge practices -- protecting them is critical to preserving the infrastructure of informed ...

scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org

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Erin Grievances @erinbartram.bsky.social · 4d

If you are a supporter and reader of @contingent-mag.bsky.social one of the biggest things you can do to help us at the moment is get this CFP to the NTT folks in your life. The fracturing of social media has made it very difficult to get the word out esp. to adjuncts and VAPs.

CFP: A Time of Monsters

The monster has been here all along. It is a historical constant that manifests in wildly different ways across time, place, and culture. Whatever form it takes, the monster claws at categories; it un...

contingentmagazine.org

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pam lach @plach.bsky.social · 4d

More birds of paradise 😍

A bird of paradise flower in full bloom, glowing in the sun. White hibiscus flowers with deep pink centers are visible in the background

Two bird of paradise flowers in full bloom, glowing in the sun. White hibiscus flowers with deep pink centers and stamen are visible in the background

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