Dorothy Berry
@dorothyjberry.bsky.social
Archives, DH, Museums, African American studies, C19 and early C20. I am, ashamedly, a curator now too
all opinions my own, not my employer's
www.dorothy-berry.com
Pinned
Dorothy Berry
@dorothyjberry.bsky.social
· Oct 16
I am beyond excited (and nervous!) to announce that my first book, "The House Archives Built and Other Thoughts on Black Archival Possibilities" is available for sale!
This series of essay includes reworked talks, new reflections, and a lot of my heart
weherespace.myshopify.com/products/the...
This series of essay includes reworked talks, new reflections, and a lot of my heart
weherespace.myshopify.com/products/the...
Now that I'm back and have received more feedback, even more awed that my writing about my own experiences and thoughts on Black archives in the US resonated so strongly with new and old friends in England
Lots of busy work things while I’m in London and Edinburgh, but the first will be very hard to beat. A very full crowd of students, faculty, and interested folks came out to UCL for my book talk. There is such a hunger for Black history and archives here, I hope I can continue to be in conversation!
December 15, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Now that I'm back and have received more feedback, even more awed that my writing about my own experiences and thoughts on Black archives in the US resonated so strongly with new and old friends in England
Reposted by Dorothy Berry
We are super excited to announce the launch of our flagship London Rare Books Summer School!
There are a number of bookish courses for you to choose from, check our website for details.
Book now to avoid disappointment: buff.ly/7cpbeU1
#RareBooks #SummerSchool
There are a number of bookish courses for you to choose from, check our website for details.
Book now to avoid disappointment: buff.ly/7cpbeU1
#RareBooks #SummerSchool
December 8, 2025 at 2:26 PM
We are super excited to announce the launch of our flagship London Rare Books Summer School!
There are a number of bookish courses for you to choose from, check our website for details.
Book now to avoid disappointment: buff.ly/7cpbeU1
#RareBooks #SummerSchool
There are a number of bookish courses for you to choose from, check our website for details.
Book now to avoid disappointment: buff.ly/7cpbeU1
#RareBooks #SummerSchool
Reposted by Dorothy Berry
People are taken back when many academics respond so viscerally to so many uses of GenAI, but this is why.
One of the only really good values you learn in academia--or at least in my corner of it--is citation. Choosing not to cite just makes you a low-down thief.
One of the only really good values you learn in academia--or at least in my corner of it--is citation. Choosing not to cite just makes you a low-down thief.
I read this piece 👆 after I had one of these incidents 👇 last week. Citation is *not* merely "academic." It's about honesty and honor and responsibility and generosity. And there are ways to do it that aren't clunky and intrusive!
I’ve occasionally been asked to offer feedback on “social entrepreneurship” projects; I almost always note the lack of acknwldgmt of relevant scholarship — and I’m told: “these aren’t scholars.” Sure, but the relevant rsch has lots of “real-world” implications + can prevent you from doing harm.
December 15, 2025 at 2:43 AM
People are taken back when many academics respond so viscerally to so many uses of GenAI, but this is why.
One of the only really good values you learn in academia--or at least in my corner of it--is citation. Choosing not to cite just makes you a low-down thief.
One of the only really good values you learn in academia--or at least in my corner of it--is citation. Choosing not to cite just makes you a low-down thief.
I can't imagine not caring about all the cruel and senseless and seemingly endless murder in our world, and it's a shame that others can
December 15, 2025 at 12:08 AM
I can't imagine not caring about all the cruel and senseless and seemingly endless murder in our world, and it's a shame that others can
Reposted by Dorothy Berry
For scholars interested in illustration and writing for children, we’re offering a research fellowship — $4,000 to support research, and a very easy application. Please apply! Please repost! library.uconn.edu/location/asc...
December 9, 2025 at 8:46 PM
For scholars interested in illustration and writing for children, we’re offering a research fellowship — $4,000 to support research, and a very easy application. Please apply! Please repost! library.uconn.edu/location/asc...
Reposted by Dorothy Berry
For anyone who uses archival methods, we’ve offering a $4,000 fellowship to use any of our holdings on site in Storrs, CT. Easy application! Please apply! Please repost! library.uconn.edu/location/asc...
December 9, 2025 at 8:50 PM
For anyone who uses archival methods, we’ve offering a $4,000 fellowship to use any of our holdings on site in Storrs, CT. Easy application! Please apply! Please repost! library.uconn.edu/location/asc...
Reposted by Dorothy Berry
“Ministers are facing calls for stronger safeguards on facial recognition technology after the Home Office admitted that it is more likely to incorrectly identify black and Asian people than their white counterparts on some settings.”
Facial recognition technologies are racist by design.
Facial recognition technologies are racist by design.
Home Office admits facial recognition tech issue with black and Asian subjects
Calls for review after technology found to return more false positives for ‘some demographic groups’ on certain settings
www.theguardian.com
December 5, 2025 at 11:50 AM
“Ministers are facing calls for stronger safeguards on facial recognition technology after the Home Office admitted that it is more likely to incorrectly identify black and Asian people than their white counterparts on some settings.”
Facial recognition technologies are racist by design.
Facial recognition technologies are racist by design.
I love that the alt text here makes very clear that I am, as usual, barely visible when standing behind a lectern
That's @dorothyjberry delivering an incredible closing keynote at #FF2025
Some focusing questions:
How do we describe archives?
Why do we describe archives?
What are we trying to automate?
Some focusing questions:
How do we describe archives?
Why do we describe archives?
What are we trying to automate?
December 13, 2025 at 10:34 AM
I love that the alt text here makes very clear that I am, as usual, barely visible when standing behind a lectern
Congrats to Jim and the team, and congrats to me for a record breaking keep-your-trap-shut !
I am beyond thrilled to share some good news:
1. I've moved to a new job at UC Santa Barbara.
2. We have been selected for a 2025 Humanities and AI Virtual
Institute award from @schmidtsciences.bsky.social!
Both, we hope, will allow us to continue building the work! +
hfa.ucsb.edu/news/schmidt...
1. I've moved to a new job at UC Santa Barbara.
2. We have been selected for a 2025 Humanities and AI Virtual
Institute award from @schmidtsciences.bsky.social!
Both, we hope, will allow us to continue building the work! +
hfa.ucsb.edu/news/schmidt...
Schmidt Sciences awards $750,000 to UCSB-led team to transform Black press archives with AI | Division of Humanities and Fine Arts
English professor Jim Casey leads a national coalition to recover 19th-century African American newspapers using machine learning and public crowdsourcing.
hfa.ucsb.edu
December 13, 2025 at 10:30 AM
Congrats to Jim and the team, and congrats to me for a record breaking keep-your-trap-shut !
Reposted by Dorothy Berry
'AI is coming' I tell the museum stakeholders as I proudly cut the ribbon of our new Artificial Insemination exhibition
December 12, 2025 at 11:03 AM
'AI is coming' I tell the museum stakeholders as I proudly cut the ribbon of our new Artificial Insemination exhibition
Reposted by Dorothy Berry
Reading a philosophical magazine of questions/answers from the 1690s:
"Quest: Why one hours Sermon seems longer than two hours Conversation?"
"Quest: Why one hours Sermon seems longer than two hours Conversation?"
December 9, 2025 at 9:32 PM
Reading a philosophical magazine of questions/answers from the 1690s:
"Quest: Why one hours Sermon seems longer than two hours Conversation?"
"Quest: Why one hours Sermon seems longer than two hours Conversation?"
I spent a lot of time embedding videos into my PowerPoint so as to not be embarrassed in front of you all! Brave the Edinburgh wind!
Today's the day! We're excited to welcome you to "How Users Imagine Archival Research" with Dorothy Berry. See you there! https://edin.ac/4pfKrDp #EdCDCS. Chair: Melissa Terras
December 10, 2025 at 1:18 PM
I spent a lot of time embedding videos into my PowerPoint so as to not be embarrassed in front of you all! Brave the Edinburgh wind!
Reposted by Dorothy Berry
Aaron Boehmer on finding books and more in community libraries in times like these: "These local libraries gesture toward a different kind of recordkeeping that is grounded in community stewardship rather than state authority."
Read more: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/freeing-the-library/
Read more: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/freeing-the-library/
December 6, 2025 at 8:36 PM
Aaron Boehmer on finding books and more in community libraries in times like these: "These local libraries gesture toward a different kind of recordkeeping that is grounded in community stewardship rather than state authority."
Read more: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/freeing-the-library/
Read more: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/freeing-the-library/
Reposted by Dorothy Berry
It's going to be fun when these fake archival sources just get copy-pasted directly from the chatbots into bibliographies and lazily re-cited for years/decades, until someone tries to actually find the original source, fail, and assume the archive has destroyed or misplaced it, rendering it "lost"
I wish a notice like this wasn't necessary.
www.icrc.org/en/article/i...
www.icrc.org/en/article/i...
Important notice: AI-generated archival references
www.icrc.org
December 8, 2025 at 2:36 PM
It's going to be fun when these fake archival sources just get copy-pasted directly from the chatbots into bibliographies and lazily re-cited for years/decades, until someone tries to actually find the original source, fail, and assume the archive has destroyed or misplaced it, rendering it "lost"
Reposted by Dorothy Berry
Torontonian, #18thc pals, the McMichael Gallery is exhibiting the photographer Stan Douglas' take on John Gay's ballad opera Polly (part of Douglas' long-term reinvention of history painting): Polly & Macheath come to life! Please, someone, ask me to review it .. ..
mcmichael.com/exhibition/s...
mcmichael.com/exhibition/s...
Stan Douglas: Tales of Empire | McMichael Canadian Art Collection
Tales of Empire presents bodies of work by Douglas that examine various colonization efforts globally, over time—an enduring theme that shapes much of his work. Curated by McMichael Executive Director...
mcmichael.com
December 7, 2025 at 2:13 PM
Torontonian, #18thc pals, the McMichael Gallery is exhibiting the photographer Stan Douglas' take on John Gay's ballad opera Polly (part of Douglas' long-term reinvention of history painting): Polly & Macheath come to life! Please, someone, ask me to review it .. ..
mcmichael.com/exhibition/s...
mcmichael.com/exhibition/s...
At least I know Sonja would have liked my keynote because this is mainly what I was talking about
To propose that GenAI can compensate for "archival silences" perverts Trouillot's work. It's is a contradiction to say that a product whose logic exacerbates power imbalances--creating a most-likely guess based on the existing record--can restore absences that are the product of those imbalances.
December 7, 2025 at 12:32 AM
At least I know Sonja would have liked my keynote because this is mainly what I was talking about
Reposted by Dorothy Berry
New York City had free college tuition at all CUNY schools for 130 years
Democratic congressman Tom Suozzi slams Zohran Mamdani as "a bad example" who made "lofty, utopian promises: free public transit, free college tuition, more public housing"
July 2, 2025 at 11:16 PM
New York City had free college tuition at all CUNY schools for 130 years
Reposted by Dorothy Berry
Loads of great talks at #ff2025 - this was fab 👇
Slides and code from my #ff2025 talk, "Reasoning with Small Language Models (SLM) for Trustworthy Generative AI (GenAI)."
Slides:
docs.google.com/presentation...
Code:
github.com/jasonclark/a...
Slides:
docs.google.com/presentation...
Code:
github.com/jasonclark/a...
small-language-models-trust-clark-ff2025-shared
Reasoning with Small Language Models (SLM) to Create Trustworthy GenAI Jason A. Clark @jasonclark Montana State University Fantastic Futures 2025
docs.google.com
December 5, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Loads of great talks at #ff2025 - this was fab 👇
Talk 2/3 on the international trip complete, as illustrated inception style in this photo @jeaninena.bsky.social texted me immediately after. Big talks are intimidating and so is an absolute lack of hands at the “questions” portion but I had a good time and later ate two pizza danishes
December 5, 2025 at 11:14 PM
Talk 2/3 on the international trip complete, as illustrated inception style in this photo @jeaninena.bsky.social texted me immediately after. Big talks are intimidating and so is an absolute lack of hands at the “questions” portion but I had a good time and later ate two pizza danishes
For how often I have stunned silence instead of questions during library talk Q&As I should change my final slide from “Thank you!“ to “Nuff said!”
December 5, 2025 at 4:53 PM
For how often I have stunned silence instead of questions during library talk Q&As I should change my final slide from “Thank you!“ to “Nuff said!”
Reposted by Dorothy Berry
What does it mean to imagine archival research through the eyes of its users? Join us for a conversation with Dorothy Berry of the Smithsonian (SI: Museum of African American History (Bot)) on 10th Dec. Secure your place: https://edin.ac/4pfKrDp #EdCDCS Chair: Melissa Terras
December 5, 2025 at 11:15 AM
What does it mean to imagine archival research through the eyes of its users? Join us for a conversation with Dorothy Berry of the Smithsonian (SI: Museum of African American History (Bot)) on 10th Dec. Secure your place: https://edin.ac/4pfKrDp #EdCDCS Chair: Melissa Terras
Lots of busy work things while I’m in London and Edinburgh, but the first will be very hard to beat. A very full crowd of students, faculty, and interested folks came out to UCL for my book talk. There is such a hunger for Black history and archives here, I hope I can continue to be in conversation!
December 5, 2025 at 12:05 PM
Lots of busy work things while I’m in London and Edinburgh, but the first will be very hard to beat. A very full crowd of students, faculty, and interested folks came out to UCL for my book talk. There is such a hunger for Black history and archives here, I hope I can continue to be in conversation!
Reposted by Dorothy Berry
11/11 "...our understandings of history and ourselves rest on those invisible foundations. This book clarifies those foundations [labor and theory that upholds archives] while offering new possibilities for imagining archival futures in and outside of institutional holdings."
www.weherepress.org
www.weherepress.org
November 30, 2025 at 2:18 PM
11/11 "...our understandings of history and ourselves rest on those invisible foundations. This book clarifies those foundations [labor and theory that upholds archives] while offering new possibilities for imagining archival futures in and outside of institutional holdings."
www.weherepress.org
www.weherepress.org
Reposted by Dorothy Berry
One week to go! "How Users Imagine Archival Research." Don't miss the chance to hear Dorothy Berry speaking about her work on the Johnson Publishing Company Archive (JPCA) #EdCDCS Chair: Melissa Terras
📆 Wed 10 Dec
🔗https://edin.ac/4pfKrDp
📆 Wed 10 Dec
🔗https://edin.ac/4pfKrDp
December 3, 2025 at 11:00 AM
One week to go! "How Users Imagine Archival Research." Don't miss the chance to hear Dorothy Berry speaking about her work on the Johnson Publishing Company Archive (JPCA) #EdCDCS Chair: Melissa Terras
📆 Wed 10 Dec
🔗https://edin.ac/4pfKrDp
📆 Wed 10 Dec
🔗https://edin.ac/4pfKrDp
Reposted by Dorothy Berry
WHO'S READY TO TEACH SOME HILDESHEIM DOORS?!
December 1, 2025 at 8:27 PM
WHO'S READY TO TEACH SOME HILDESHEIM DOORS?!