Heather Froehlich
heatherfro.bsky.social
Heather Froehlich
@heatherfro.bsky.social
supporting researchers counting words in various ways with computers at university of arizona libraries; increasingly displaced new englander
Reposted by Heather Froehlich
We’re excited to share today that the Newberry has received a $4 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to expand access to our Indigenous Studies collections and strengthen collaboration with tribal nations. www.newberry.org/news/newberr...
Newberry Library Receives $4 Million Grant
Funding will expand access to Indigenous collections, enable community-led research, and strengthen tribal partnerships.
www.newberry.org
February 3, 2026 at 5:42 PM
Reposted by Heather Froehlich
We are pleased to announce the Digital Humanities and Digitization Workshop for Japanese Materials workshop, which will be held 3/13 during #AAS2026! Learn about text encoding, codicology, & more from field experts. 💻 The workshop is free, but please register by 2/15! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
December 29, 2025 at 4:13 PM
I can't tell you how many of the databases and vendors we work with are just adding AI stuff to their platforms. We are drowning trying to keep track and manage all of them!
Not a great look that so many university libraries are promoting AI. Libraries have always been a space for valuing authors' work and showing how to locate and properly cite sources--not encouraging tech that steals from authors and produces slop.
February 3, 2026 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Heather Froehlich
New blog post! This one describes the *my place* app which brings the place-based collections I worked on during my SLV residency together in a single interface – just try searching for an address! https://updates.timsherratt.org/2026/02/02/my-place-exploring-slv-collections.html #glam […]
Original post on hcommons.social
hcommons.social
February 2, 2026 at 11:54 AM
Girlfriend loves to bake and I sometimes get sent to work with cake, cookies, etc. everyone’s delighted when it happens! We also have a candy jar in our space, does so much for morale & well being. Snacks are the way!!
I once worked at a place that gave all employees a $50/y expense line to bring in treats for the office — snacks from vacation, cool local baked goods, etc. Such a small actual cost and created INSANE morale and community.
February 2, 2026 at 7:40 PM
Reposted by Heather Froehlich
Hey sociologists, I'm organizing an ASA Methodology session on AI! Submissions are due by 2/25. Looking forward to a timely cross-method convo on emerging research best practices and disciplinary norms and ethics in August.
February 2, 2026 at 5:49 PM
Applications for our rare books librarian position at the University of Arizona are open until Feb 9 (next week)
We have a fab diverse collection, great people to work with, and amazing Mexican food.
arizona.csod.com/ux/ats/caree...

I'm not on the search, please feel free to reach out w qs!
Librarian, Rare Books (Assistant or Associate)
CHARACTERISTIC DUTIESAcquire, appraise, and preserve collections of primary and significant research value, especially rare books.In partnership with ...
arizona.csod.com
February 2, 2026 at 7:02 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...
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
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
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
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...
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
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.
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
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...
The 72nd Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America
rsa.confex.com
January 29, 2026 at 4:19 PM
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
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
January 28, 2026 at 10:07 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
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...)
January 28, 2026 at 9:44 PM
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
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
January 27, 2026 at 3:30 PM
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]
January 27, 2026 at 4:29 PM
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
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
Reposted by Heather Froehlich
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
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
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...
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