Heather Froehlich
@heatherfro.bsky.social
supporting researchers counting words in various ways with computers at university of arizona libraries; increasingly displaced new englander
"Land grant universities would, in effect, offer instruction and research in scientific, labor-saving agriculture so as to point away from labor-intensive slave agriculture [...] And while a liberal arts education was not mandated, it was permitted." www.texasmonthly.com/news-politic...
What’s the Matter With Texas A&M?
Five presidents in five years. Firings of “woke” professors. Crackdowns on Plato. Inside state leaders’ efforts to remake a great university.
www.texasmonthly.com
January 30, 2026 at 9:52 PM
"Land grant universities would, in effect, offer instruction and research in scientific, labor-saving agriculture so as to point away from labor-intensive slave agriculture [...] And while a liberal arts education was not mandated, it was permitted." www.texasmonthly.com/news-politic...
Why did they pull the "qualifications" section from every academic job ad for this
X is hiring a creative writing specialist at $40 an hour to make Grok better at writing and a true LOL at the qualifications
January 30, 2026 at 9:34 PM
Why did they pull the "qualifications" section from every academic job ad for this
Reposted by Heather Froehlich
I love this piece. It's a nice companion to @aresluna.org's analysis and celebration of Gorton, "the hardest working font in Manhattan" :)
January 29, 2026 at 6:58 PM
I love this piece. It's a nice companion to @aresluna.org's analysis and celebration of Gorton, "the hardest working font in Manhattan" :)
Reposted by Heather Froehlich
My brilliant friend Ån wrote a searing-yet-hopeful newsletter about the promises of computers, creativity, and connection in the current moment, where it all seems like a blasted landscape of ashes.
[Also there is a mixtape for you to listen to.]
feralresearch.org/newsletter/d...
[Also there is a mixtape for you to listen to.]
feralresearch.org/newsletter/d...
Don't die lil thing
A note: I am quite urgently looking for paid work right now.
I've been unemployed since July, which means the unemployment checks are dried up. And here I sit on the verge of nearly complete state fa...
feralresearch.org
January 30, 2026 at 1:39 PM
My brilliant friend Ån wrote a searing-yet-hopeful newsletter about the promises of computers, creativity, and connection in the current moment, where it all seems like a blasted landscape of ashes.
[Also there is a mixtape for you to listen to.]
feralresearch.org/newsletter/d...
[Also there is a mixtape for you to listen to.]
feralresearch.org/newsletter/d...
Reposted by Heather Froehlich
A quick plug for our @rsaorg.bsky.social San Francisco '26 session on building and using early modern libraries
rsa.confex.com/rsa/2026/mee...
Saturday, 21 Feb, 2.30pm–4pm.
rsa.confex.com/rsa/2026/mee...
Saturday, 21 Feb, 2.30pm–4pm.
Building Libraries, Reading Libraries: New Research from the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters
Social networks caught within the earliest donations to the Bodleian Library; Arabic language books on the shelves of English libraries; reading and annotating Spanish literature in an English lawyer'...
rsa.confex.com
January 29, 2026 at 5:05 PM
A quick plug for our @rsaorg.bsky.social San Francisco '26 session on building and using early modern libraries
rsa.confex.com/rsa/2026/mee...
Saturday, 21 Feb, 2.30pm–4pm.
rsa.confex.com/rsa/2026/mee...
Saturday, 21 Feb, 2.30pm–4pm.
Blueskeets of the @rsaorg.bsky.social persuasion, I hope you'll save the date for 3 excellent book history-digital humanities panels at the conf
Thurs 9-10:30 Collections as Data
Thurs 11-12:30 Network, Media, Method
Fri 2:30-4 Preserving Greek Texts
Details: rsa.confex.com/rsa/2026/mee...
Thurs 9-10:30 Collections as Data
Thurs 11-12:30 Network, Media, Method
Fri 2:30-4 Preserving Greek Texts
Details: rsa.confex.com/rsa/2026/mee...
The 72nd Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America
rsa.confex.com
January 29, 2026 at 4:19 PM
Blueskeets of the @rsaorg.bsky.social persuasion, I hope you'll save the date for 3 excellent book history-digital humanities panels at the conf
Thurs 9-10:30 Collections as Data
Thurs 11-12:30 Network, Media, Method
Fri 2:30-4 Preserving Greek Texts
Details: rsa.confex.com/rsa/2026/mee...
Thurs 9-10:30 Collections as Data
Thurs 11-12:30 Network, Media, Method
Fri 2:30-4 Preserving Greek Texts
Details: rsa.confex.com/rsa/2026/mee...
Reposted by Heather Froehlich
✨ We’re excited to share the first articles from AI & ARCHIVES — a special issue of the new journal Cambridge Forum on AI: Culture and Society (Cambridge University Press). www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
AI & Archives
AI & Archives
www.cambridge.org
January 29, 2026 at 1:28 PM
✨ We’re excited to share the first articles from AI & ARCHIVES — a special issue of the new journal Cambridge Forum on AI: Culture and Society (Cambridge University Press). www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
For literal years all I could remember about my half-year Latin intro course in middle school* is that it was about a family stuck in a ditch
Today I realized I could google it! Book was Ecce Romani. Immediately purchasing
*this represents about 90% my Latin knowledge, fyi
Today I realized I could google it! Book was Ecce Romani. Immediately purchasing
*this represents about 90% my Latin knowledge, fyi
January 28, 2026 at 10:07 PM
For literal years all I could remember about my half-year Latin intro course in middle school* is that it was about a family stuck in a ditch
Today I realized I could google it! Book was Ecce Romani. Immediately purchasing
*this represents about 90% my Latin knowledge, fyi
Today I realized I could google it! Book was Ecce Romani. Immediately purchasing
*this represents about 90% my Latin knowledge, fyi
someone I respect very much is very encouraged by vibe coding and I think we are reaching a new threshold we are not fully prepared for here
Canaries in the coal mine. Worth paying attention to.
(And yes, they are both obviously interested in seeing their own products used, but hearing enough from other, independent coders that make me believe them. I wrote more about the shift here: www.oneusefulthing.org/p/management...)
(And yes, they are both obviously interested in seeing their own products used, but hearing enough from other, independent coders that make me believe them. I wrote more about the shift here: www.oneusefulthing.org/p/management...)
January 28, 2026 at 9:44 PM
someone I respect very much is very encouraged by vibe coding and I think we are reaching a new threshold we are not fully prepared for here
Reposted by Heather Froehlich
Philosophy, history, and law were the top of the hierarchy in those spaces. In the "Great books", "reclaim the west" style liberal arts programs, there was a very strong vision of a humanities-driven reclamation of the education system with an agenda through law, education policy, and universities
January 28, 2026 at 6:43 PM
Philosophy, history, and law were the top of the hierarchy in those spaces. In the "Great books", "reclaim the west" style liberal arts programs, there was a very strong vision of a humanities-driven reclamation of the education system with an agenda through law, education policy, and universities
Reposted by Heather Froehlich
Anthropic's project to "destructively scan all the books in the world" was actually viewed as the *more* ethical and legally sound approach to training its AI.
Previously the industry standard had been simply to pirate vast "shadow libraries" of digitized books for free online. wapo.st/4rjXAMQ
Previously the industry standard had been simply to pirate vast "shadow libraries" of digitized books for free online. wapo.st/4rjXAMQ
January 27, 2026 at 3:30 PM
Anthropic's project to "destructively scan all the books in the world" was actually viewed as the *more* ethical and legally sound approach to training its AI.
Previously the industry standard had been simply to pirate vast "shadow libraries" of digitized books for free online. wapo.st/4rjXAMQ
Previously the industry standard had been simply to pirate vast "shadow libraries" of digitized books for free online. wapo.st/4rjXAMQ
Reposted by Heather Froehlich
📢 DPC Members 📢 Join us on 3 Feb, 14:00–16:00 UTC for 💾 Copy That Floppy… LIVE! 💾
An online workshop with Dr Leontien Talboom, covering floppy disk preservation and a live demo of the full workflow, from setting up a workstation to verifying results. Sign up […]
[Original post on digipres.club]
An online workshop with Dr Leontien Talboom, covering floppy disk preservation and a live demo of the full workflow, from setting up a workstation to verifying results. Sign up […]
[Original post on digipres.club]
January 27, 2026 at 4:29 PM
📢 DPC Members 📢 Join us on 3 Feb, 14:00–16:00 UTC for 💾 Copy That Floppy… LIVE! 💾
An online workshop with Dr Leontien Talboom, covering floppy disk preservation and a live demo of the full workflow, from setting up a workstation to verifying results. Sign up […]
[Original post on digipres.club]
An online workshop with Dr Leontien Talboom, covering floppy disk preservation and a live demo of the full workflow, from setting up a workstation to verifying results. Sign up […]
[Original post on digipres.club]
Reposted by Heather Froehlich
The article makes it sound scary, but this is actually THE most efficient and cost effective legal way to do it. The reason I've fought for DMCA exemptions to ebook cracking for scholars is they don't have AI-scale money to build corpora this way for understanding & teaching cultural history.
New: Unsealed court docs detail Big Tech’s yearslong, secret race to ingest the collective works of humanity, including Anthropic’s project to “destructively scan all the books in the world.”
Gift link: wapo.st/4rjXAMQ
Gift link: wapo.st/4rjXAMQ
How Silicon Valley built AI: Buying, scanning and destroying millions of books
Court filings reveal how AI companies raced to obtain more books to feed chatbots, including by buying, scanning and disposing of millions of titles.
wapo.st
January 27, 2026 at 3:44 PM
The article makes it sound scary, but this is actually THE most efficient and cost effective legal way to do it. The reason I've fought for DMCA exemptions to ebook cracking for scholars is they don't have AI-scale money to build corpora this way for understanding & teaching cultural history.
Reposted by Heather Froehlich
I would pair with snaccooperative.org. And a long rant about metadata!
Social Networks and Archival Context
SNAC is an aggregate of biographical information about people, both individuals and groups, who created or are documented in historical resources. Users can search for names of individual people, orga...
snaccooperative.org
January 26, 2026 at 6:39 PM
I would pair with snaccooperative.org. And a long rant about metadata!
Did everyone else know about researchworks.oclc.org/archivegrid/ already? Searches 7 million records at 1,400 archival institutions all in ONE PLACE
ArchiveGrid
ArchiveGrid connects you with archives around the world to find historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and more.
researchworks.oclc.org
January 26, 2026 at 5:22 PM
Did everyone else know about researchworks.oclc.org/archivegrid/ already? Searches 7 million records at 1,400 archival institutions all in ONE PLACE
Reposted by Heather Froehlich
For #monthofdick (from a couple days before the month started), a letterpress print made from lasercut wood made from a 1568 image (ty EEBO!) + quote from @heatherfro.bsky.social (re: her digital humanities text analysis paper repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150...)
"Moby Dick is about whales" + hi from yr 🐳 friend: printed a quote from @heatherfro.bsky.social using the 1568 whale image (bsky.app/profile/woke...) I lasercut into a bamboo printing block (bsky.app/profile/lite...):
January 25, 2026 at 3:41 PM
For #monthofdick (from a couple days before the month started), a letterpress print made from lasercut wood made from a 1568 image (ty EEBO!) + quote from @heatherfro.bsky.social (re: her digital humanities text analysis paper repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150...)
ok librarians love to talk about burnout as an organizational, structural problem, but it's also true of faculty and staff across the disciplines and the structures we *all* operate under in the modern university
crln.acrl.org/index.php/cr...
crln.acrl.org/index.php/cr...
Fixing Work, Not Workers: Burnout as an Organizational Problem | Johnson | College & Research Libraries News
Fixing Work, Not Workers: Burnout as an Organizational Problem
crln.acrl.org
January 23, 2026 at 6:11 PM
ok librarians love to talk about burnout as an organizational, structural problem, but it's also true of faculty and staff across the disciplines and the structures we *all* operate under in the modern university
crln.acrl.org/index.php/cr...
crln.acrl.org/index.php/cr...
Job: Canada Impact+ Research Chair in
Artificial Intelligence
viprecprod.ad.umanitoba.ca/DEFAULT.ASPX...
Artificial Intelligence
viprecprod.ad.umanitoba.ca/DEFAULT.ASPX...
viprecprod.ad.umanitoba.ca
January 23, 2026 at 6:07 PM
Job: Canada Impact+ Research Chair in
Artificial Intelligence
viprecprod.ad.umanitoba.ca/DEFAULT.ASPX...
Artificial Intelligence
viprecprod.ad.umanitoba.ca/DEFAULT.ASPX...
Reposted by Heather Froehlich
My new fun interactive toy is a data explorer [big table! many filters!] for the #18thC London Lives Home Office Criminal Registers: mindseye.sharonhoward.org/dashboards/h...
HO Criminal Registers Data Explorer – In Her Mind’s Eye
mindseye.sharonhoward.org
January 23, 2026 at 5:52 PM
My new fun interactive toy is a data explorer [big table! many filters!] for the #18thC London Lives Home Office Criminal Registers: mindseye.sharonhoward.org/dashboards/h...
Reposted by Heather Froehlich
*actually everyone should bit a copy of Elizabeth Zaleski’s The Trouble With Loving Poets” in which it appears
January 21, 2026 at 10:05 PM
*actually everyone should bit a copy of Elizabeth Zaleski’s The Trouble With Loving Poets” in which it appears
Reposted by Heather Froehlich
This is probably long overdue, but here's the guide I give my students on how to do public scholarship and engage with media.
drive.google.com/file/d/1mHMu...
drive.google.com/file/d/1mHMu...
Public Scholarship Primer.pdf
drive.google.com
January 21, 2026 at 5:16 PM
This is probably long overdue, but here's the guide I give my students on how to do public scholarship and engage with media.
drive.google.com/file/d/1mHMu...
drive.google.com/file/d/1mHMu...
Preserving eBooks: where are we now? - Digital Preservation Coalition
www.dpconline.org
January 20, 2026 at 4:23 PM
Everything is terrible but I learned on Friday about a word guessing game where you have to guess the word in the same word2vec vector space!!! both hard and fun, played it all weekend semantle.com
Semantle | Daily Word Guessing Game
Semantle is an engaging word-guessing game that challenges you to find the hidden word through semantic clues. Sharpen your linguistic skills!
semantle.com
January 20, 2026 at 1:54 PM
Everything is terrible but I learned on Friday about a word guessing game where you have to guess the word in the same word2vec vector space!!! both hard and fun, played it all weekend semantle.com
Reposted by Heather Froehlich
Had an intriguing editorial discussion recently: how did people in the past talk about 'minutes' when they didn't have watches or standardised times? How does that affect your thinking?
Come down an Elizabethan/Jacobean rabbit hole with me.
1/
Come down an Elizabethan/Jacobean rabbit hole with me.
1/
January 17, 2026 at 10:34 AM
Had an intriguing editorial discussion recently: how did people in the past talk about 'minutes' when they didn't have watches or standardised times? How does that affect your thinking?
Come down an Elizabethan/Jacobean rabbit hole with me.
1/
Come down an Elizabethan/Jacobean rabbit hole with me.
1/
Reposted by Heather Froehlich
And with the amount of money they're burning through, there's going to be *so* many ads.
Like, you think Google's above the fold looks bad? Just you wait.
Like, you think Google's above the fold looks bad? Just you wait.
January 16, 2026 at 7:38 PM
And with the amount of money they're burning through, there's going to be *so* many ads.
Like, you think Google's above the fold looks bad? Just you wait.
Like, you think Google's above the fold looks bad? Just you wait.