Ed Sperr
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edsperr.bsky.social
Ed Sperr
@edsperr.bsky.social
300 followers 460 following 920 posts
Librarian/Developer
Currently serving as a Systems and Discovery Librarian

searchworkbench.info
https://esperr.github.io/visualizingpubmed/
https://esperr.github.io/collection-view/
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Ed Sperr
thatandromeda.bsky.social
Heya #code4lib-bers! Last call for keynote voting for #c4l26 -- this form closes tomorow. forms.gle/Ne99JsAcpFTL... 📚
Code4Lib 2026 Keynote Voting
The Code4Lib 2026 Keynote Committee is happy to open this year's invited speaker election. Please rate each nominee on a scale of 1 to 3, with 1 being least interested and 3 being most interested. Whe...
forms.gle
November 13, 2025 at 4:02 PM
Reposted by Ed Sperr
thebookinator.bsky.social
To all of my friends out there in #LibraryLand. This is an excellent position for a newish librarian OR a school librarian wanting to make the jump to higher ed. Please share broadly or with anyone you know that might be interested.
📚
Librarian II (Scholarly Communications Librarian)
Job TitleLibrarian II (Scholarly Communications Librarian) Agency West Texas A&M University Department Library Operations Proposed Minimum SalaryCommensurate Job LocationCanyon, Texas Job TypeStaf...
tamus.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com
November 13, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Reposted by Ed Sperr
astrokatie.com
You can disagree and argue as much as you like but the point of evaluating something scientifically is that not every statement should be given equal credence because evidence matters
atrupar.com Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d
JD Vance: "Science as practiced in its best form is that if you disagree with it, then you ought to criticize it and you ought to argue against it."
November 13, 2025 at 7:36 PM
Reposted by Ed Sperr
gbbranstetter.bsky.social
Predictable but still amazing to watch people who spent literally years accusing every librarian, teacher, and trans person they could find of sexually grooming children suddenly throw themselves in with "actually it's ephebophilia"
accountablegop.bsky.social Republican Accountability @accountablegop.bsky.social · 17h
Megyn Kelly: "I know somebody very close to this case…Jeffrey Epstein, in this person's view, was not a pedophile…He was into the barely legal type, like he liked 15 year old girls…He wasn't into like 8 year olds…There's a difference between a 15 year old and a 5 year old."
November 13, 2025 at 6:38 PM
Reposted by Ed Sperr
reichlinmelnick.bsky.social
In Bovino's upside down world, there is no difference between an armed gang member preying on others in his community and a guy working 12 hours a day washing cars, flipping burgers, or installing sheetrock to feed his family — and he wants you to hate and fear both men equally.
atrupar.com Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 14h
Bovino: "Whether they were criminals or individuals that were taking jobs from Americans -- you name it, that's what they were doing. And I'll tell you what's gonna happen. We're gonna go even harder on the streets. If he releases those 650, we're gonna apprehend 1,650 on the streets of Chicago."
November 13, 2025 at 7:49 PM
Reposted by Ed Sperr
ryanlcooper.com
here at the Paper of Record, when an open white supremacist leaks someone's college application in an attempt to imply he got unfair race-based special treatment, even though he was rejected, we know what to do: publish it immediately prospect.org/2025/07/09/2...
Much more interesting than the story was its source: Jordan Lasker, who got the Columbia data from a hacker. The Times initially identified him only as “Crémieux,” his Twitter handle, describing him as “an academic and an opponent of affirmative action” and even linking to his (incredibly racist) Substack. But not only had Lasker’s name already been published by The Guardian in an article about a “natalism” conference full of racists (sensing a theme here), one of his few published articles—another piece of “scientific” racism—was also so atrocious it got his co-author, Bryan Pesta, then a tenured professor at Cleveland State University, fired. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported the story back in 2022. Pesta published the article, “Global Ancestry and Cognitive Ability,” he co-wrote with Lasker in the first issue of a new journal of which he was the editor in chief. The entire issue was nothing but racist pseudoscience, but worse, it turned out that Pesta had gotten the data for his article by lying to the National Institutes of Health about what he intended to do. That got him canned, and deservedly so. There’s a reason why race “science” is on the fringes of academia: It’s complete nonsense, the province of freaks, liars, and failures. None of this was in the Times article. Either the authors and editors knew about it and chose to whitewash a racist troll, or they did no investigation whatsoever of their only source—perhaps because they were worried about being scooped by Chris Rufo. Their only concession was a stealth edit adding that Lasker “writes often about I.Q. and race.” Oh really? What, pray tell, does he write exactly?
November 13, 2025 at 7:54 PM
edsperr.bsky.social
Apparently the cure for the Loneliness Epidemic is to volunteer at your local station's fund drive: youtu.be/XnNCJI_LUhg?...
René Marie: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert
YouTube video by NPR Music
youtu.be
November 13, 2025 at 6:29 PM
Reposted by Ed Sperr
reichlinmelnick.bsky.social
NEW: @propublica.org investigated the Chicago apartment raid where kids were zip-tied and citizens detained for hours. They find:

- NONE of the arrested were criminally charged
- NO evidence the building was "filled with TdA terrorists."
- ZERO legitimate reason for DHS to rappel from a Blackhawk.
As a Black Hawk helicopter roared overhead, the slender, 28-year-old immigrant from Venezuela answered softly, his eyes darting to a television crew invited to film the raid. Next to Caicedo, masked Border Patrol agents inspected another man’s tattoos and asked him if he belonged to Tren de Aragua, the Venezuelan gang that the Trump administration has designated a terrorist group. Until that moment, Caicedo’s only interaction with law enforcement in his two-and-a-half years in the United States had been a traffic stop two weeks earlier for driving without a license or insurance, according to the records we reviewed. Chicago police had run a background check on him and found no prior arrests, no warrants and no evidence that he was in a gang. Caicedo said he had a pending asylum application, a steady job at a taco joint and a girlfriend whose daughter attended elementary school across the street. None of that mattered. The U.S. government paraded him and his neighbors in front of the cameras and called their arrests a spectacular victory against terrorism. But later, after the cameras had gone, prosecutors didn’t charge Caicedo with a crime. They didn’t accuse him of being a terrorist. And after a brief hearing in immigration court, the government sent him back to the country he had fled nine years earlier. “I lost everything,” he said in a phone interview from his mother’s home in the Venezuelan city of Valencia. “For those fools, everyone from Venezuela is a criminal.”
November 13, 2025 at 2:08 PM
Reposted by Ed Sperr
richove.bsky.social
There is still time to apply for one of our 50+ Visiting Fellowships @bodleian.ox.ac.uk for the 2026-27 academic year! A vibrant interdisciplinary research centre in the heart of one of the world’s great libraries!
bodleian.ox.ac.uk Bodleian Libraries @bodleian.ox.ac.uk · 1d
VISITING FELLOWSHIPS: Applications are now open for 2026-27!

The deadline for applications is Friday 28 November 2025.

For more information on how to apply: https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/csb/fellowships/bodleian-visiting-fellowships
Promotional banner inviting applications for Visiting Fellowships at the Bodleian Libraries for 2026-27, featuring an interior view of the library.
November 12, 2025 at 4:22 PM
Reposted by Ed Sperr
izzyed.bsky.social
From the German National Library of Medicine, beta version of site for tracking additions and deletions to PubMed now available #medlibs
idw-online.de Informationsdienst Wissenschaft - idw @idw-online.de · 1d
Datenqualität sichtbar gemacht: Mit Pubservatory zeigt @zbmed.bsky.social, wie sich Inhalte in #PubMed verändern. Neue Einträge und gelöschte Dubletten, transparent und interaktiv.
Beta-Version testen: https://pubservatory.zbmed.de/

#Fachl...
weiterlesen
Beta-Version von Pubservatory (Stand: 12.11.2025) - Copyright CC BY-SA 4.0
November 12, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Reposted by Ed Sperr
gretchenleigh.zone
I take it all back!!! UTF-8 was a mistake! A miiiiiistaaaaaake!!!!!
jtullock.bsky.social Janice Tullock @jtullock.bsky.social · 1d
No no no begs every archivist. You are never going to be able to find anything. Please don’t start using emojis in file names. Who asked for this? What fresh hell is next?
Screen grab from Dropbox saying Emojis in file names are finally here!
November 12, 2025 at 4:11 PM
Reposted by Ed Sperr
hawaiianimages.bsky.social
Tapping the XKCD sign again to explain that no, I won't be seeing an aurora tonight. Or at least I really hope not. That would be bad. :)
XKCD meaning of auroras cartoon, showing "normal" at poles, "cool and exciting" in temperate zone, "someone should go check on our satellites" in subtropics, and "A bunch of open questions in Solar-Terrestrial physics are about to be answered" at the tropics
November 12, 2025 at 2:08 AM
Reposted by Ed Sperr
midnitelibrary.bsky.social
A reminder that the (free to download!) zine Two-Fisted Library Studies contains my article "An Analysis of Funko Pop Ownership Among Library Workers."

twofistedstories.itch.io/two-fisted-l...

📚
November 10, 2025 at 11:07 PM
Reposted by Ed Sperr
shannonmattern.bsky.social
Our spring iteration of the Cross-Reference Coalition will focus on 🔎SEARCH + DISCOVERY💡 We'll work tgthr to design a scavenger hunt, map, or field guide that encourages defiantly-anti-AI exploration of NYC's knwldg resources + cultural heritage.

We'll distribute our call for apps early next week!
About the Spring 2026 Class: Search & Discovery Search engine optimization and generative artificial intelligence have progressively destroyed web search. Meanwhile, expanding privatization, surveillance, and the militarization of our public spaces have impeded our capacity to explore and inhabit the physical world — and the instrumentalization and “optimization” of education have precluded organic, curiosity-driven investigation. In this course, we’ll gather to survey the state of search and discovery, and to reclaim lost methods and imagine new approaches that offer an antidote to our contemporary darkness and destruction. Our journey will encompass the history of exploration and cartography, legacies of inquiry, tools of discovery, theories of curiosity, and counter-algorithmic means of “finding things out.” We’ll aim to engage with navigators and user-experience designers, tour guides and psychologists, artists and archaeologists. Each weekly session will exemplify a different mode of finding and exploring New York’s terrains and treasures, and our work will culminate in the collective creation of a scavenger hunt, map, or field guide promoting discovery of the city’s knowledge institutions and cultural heritage.
November 11, 2025 at 5:21 PM
Reposted by Ed Sperr
ajester.bsky.social
Working on some archival materials today & a box is missing two items: Disc 6 and Disc 7

It is as the prophecy warned . . .
November 10, 2025 at 7:15 PM
Reposted by Ed Sperr
noethematt.bsky.social
The amount of truly bad systematic reviews is about to skyrocket isn't it...

#medlibs 📚

www.elsevier.com/about/press-...
Where researchers find the most value in AI Most researchers (58%) say AI tools currently save them time, although they are selective about where they see the greatest impact. Researchers are currently using AI tools to: Find and summarize the latest research (61%) Perform literature reviews (51%) Analyze research data (38%) Draft grant proposals (41%) Draft research papers or reports (38%).
November 7, 2025 at 4:23 PM
Reposted by Ed Sperr
ugapress.bsky.social
Stop by the Main Library on Nov. 11–13 for our Dirty Book Sale between 9–3 PM! 📚 We will be selling a variety of books at 50% off. You don't want to miss out on this massive sale.

This is rain or shine. If raining, find us in the front library lobby.

#SpotlightontheArts #booksale #ugapress
November 8, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Reposted by Ed Sperr
noethematt.bsky.social
This has to stop

#medlibs 📚
ryanmarino.bsky.social Ryan Marino, MD @ryanmarino.bsky.social · 6d
Panera’s moderately caffeinated lemonade was loosely associated with 2 deaths before it was taken off market.

This article alone has 4 examples of ChatGPT encouraging young people to commit suicide, and OpenAI’s own public stats estimate over a million users discuss suicide with ChatGPT each week.
jonathancohn.bsky.social Jonathan Cohn @jonathancohn.bsky.social · 7d
I fully believe in the corporate death penalty and believe we would be a better world if OpenAI lost its corporate charter and was forcibly dissolved.

www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/u...
November 8, 2025 at 2:46 PM
Reposted by Ed Sperr
jamellebouie.net
oh so these people do pay attention to who politicians follow on social media, they just don’t care that the vice president follows a bunch of actual neo-nazis
gbbranstetter.bsky.social Gillian Branstetter @gbbranstetter.bsky.social · 5d
Axios tried to bust James Talarico for following adult content creators on Instagram and I'm genuinely impressed by his campaign's response
November 8, 2025 at 4:39 PM
Reposted by Ed Sperr
noethematt.bsky.social
"If discovery tools return hallucinated results, the credibility of the library itself could be undermined. Students may come to see the library’s systems as just another unreliable search engine."

BINGO
November 7, 2025 at 9:06 PM
Reposted by Ed Sperr
theorymeg.bsky.social
Hear me out, maybe libraries ... don't need AI for anything? This is a solution in search of a problem.
noethematt.bsky.social Matthew Noe @noethematt.bsky.social · 6d
Aside from my "was this really written in 2025, not two years ago" snarky response, I couldn't help thinking throughout this entire blog post that a huge part of why so many libraries are STUCK on dealing with AI is because we literally don't have the staff time or funding to deal with it.
librarycolleen.bsky.social Colleen [Redacted] @librarycolleen.bsky.social · 6d
Do Academic Libraries Have a Strategy for AI? 📚
"...while two-thirds of libraries are exploring AI features in vendor products, only about half are offering guidance to their communities on how to use AI responsibly in academic work."
scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/10/30/g...
November 8, 2025 at 4:59 PM
Reposted by Ed Sperr
bretdevereaux.bsky.social
::movie trailer voice:: They said he was retired, but Bill Kristol has one more regime to change...
billkristolbulwark.bsky.social Bill Kristol @billkristolbulwark.bsky.social · 6d
Abolish Border Patrol.
patriottakes.bsky.social PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 @patriottakes.bsky.social · 6d
Trump deportation agent: "I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.”
November 7, 2025 at 7:06 PM
Reposted by Ed Sperr
marijanewhite.bsky.social
Hey #medlibs, I built a tool for making it easier to create proximity search strings in PubMed. Check it out!

I presented at PNC-MLA this afternoon and will follow up with a link to the recording when it's posted.
Pairwise PubMed Search Generator
The Pairwise PubMed Search Generator is a web application for working around the truncation limit...
pairwise-pubmed.streamlit.app
November 6, 2025 at 11:32 PM
Reposted by Ed Sperr
stephestellar.bsky.social
📚📜
404media.co 404 Media @404media.co · 7d
Librarians told 404 Media they're being inundated with new pitches for AI library tech and catalogs are being flooded with AI slop books.

But more broadly, AI maximalism across society is supercharging the ideological war on libraries, schools, government workers, and academics.
AI Is Supercharging the War on Libraries, Education, and Human Knowledge
"Fascism and AI, whether or not they have the same goals, they sure are working to accelerate one another."
www.404media.co
November 7, 2025 at 12:47 AM