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Melissa Terras

@melissaterras.bsky.social

6.9K followers 5.3K following 600 posts

Professor of Digital Cultural Heritage, Edinburgh College of Art, University of Edinburgh. Computers versus the past. Digital Humanities and somesuch, including CoSTAR network activities, Creative Informatics, and Transkribus. MBE FREng. .. more

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Melissa Mhairi Terras is a British scholar of Digital Humanities. Since 2017, she has been Professor of Digital Cultural Heritage at the University of Edinburgh, and director of its Centre for Digital Scholarship. She previously taught at University College London, where she was Professor of Digital Humanities and served as director of its Centre for Digital Humanities from 2012 to 2017: she remains an honorary professor. She has a wide ranging academic background: she has an undergraduate degree in art history and English literature, then took a Master of Science (MSc) degree in computer science, before undertaking a Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil) degree at the University of Oxford in engineering. .. more

Computer science 34%

Art 23%

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Reposted by Thessa Jensen

Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 7h

Job! Postdoc in Digital Cultural Heritage: Data Ethics & Software Ecosystems, on new EU funded grant. 3.5 years, @designinf.bsky.social, Edinburgh. Design ethical processes, & evaluate open source tools for Digital Cultural Heritage Objects, with me! elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com/hcmUI/Candid...

Postdoctoral Research Associate (Digital Cultural Heritage Data Ethics & Software Ecosystems)

We are looking for a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Digital Cultural Heritage Data Ethics & Software Ecosystems to join the Institute for Design Informatics, Edinburgh College of Art.

elxw.fa.em3.oraclecloud.com

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Reposted by Melissa Terras, Wilson McLeod

University and College Union (UCU) @ucu.org.uk · 8h

Universities planning cuts to jobs and courses are not cash strapped

Jo Grady highlights hypocrisy of the University of Edinburgh as it plans to make £140 million in cuts when then have £2.7 billion in net assets

Enough is enough

#WeAreTheUniversity

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Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 8h

@mkirschenbaum.bsky.social you may like...

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Reposted by Kris Inwood

Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 8h

Short BBC podcast about the history of Tippex, invented by Bette Graham 😍 - will be of interest to history of the book, and history of tech folks... www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Witness History - The secretary who made millions from her typos - BBC Sounds

In the 1950s, secretary Bette Graham invented correction fluid to cover up her errors

www.bbc.co.uk

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Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 1d

View from a b&b, #York. Last trip of this run before a whole four weeks at home…! #academicglamour

Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 2d

At the Guildhall, York today for our XRNetwork event - celebrating the projects we’ve funded but also Emma Brown now talking about the hard work we’ve put into EDI to make sure we’re reaching, supporting, and funding a wide range of people across the UK, via wonderful @xrstories.bsky.social team

Guildhall, York - beautiful medieval building

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Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 3d

I just walked around the perimeter 😂

Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 3d

York! 😍

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Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 3d

Today I got told off by a new computational system at work as I tried to book a meeting room more than 23 days in advance and that is AGAINST POLICY even tho I have meetings in my diary booked years ahead, thus creating more work for me at a time we are all having to do “more with less”. K Thanks 👍

a man is sitting at a desk with a panda bear on his shoulders

ALT: a man is sitting at a desk with a panda bear on his shoulders

media.tenor.com

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Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 8d

Museum cyberattacks “are no longer a question of if, but when.”Amy Adams and George Wilson on the National Museum of the Royal Navy attack www.museumnext.com/article/less...

Lessons from a Cyberattack: The National Museum of the Royal Navy’s Journey Through Crisis and Recovery

On 9 December 2024, the National Museum of the Royal Navy faced an event that every museum hopes never to experience: a ransomware cyberattack. Overnight,...

www.museumnext.com

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Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 10d

Rogue urban sunflowers. Love it. #edinburgh

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Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 11d

Interesting... can't wait to read the first edition!

The Nerve @thenerve.news · 14d

Coming soon…

pressgazette.co.uk/news/former-...

Former Observer big-hitters launch new title with redundancy payouts

Five former Observer journalists including Carole Cadwalladr have launched their own culture publication using their redundancy money.

pressgazette.co.uk

Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 13d

Oh I’m not defending Ancestry here! Very much on the side of NRS

Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 13d

Digital Cultural Heritage is big business… not that we fund our public institutions enough. This is an alarming, aggressive attack on a public institution that has found a way and a business model to offer a digital service.

Vivienne Dunstan @vivdunstan.bsky.social · 14d

From @chrismpaton.bsky.social Ancestry and the NRS - when the corporate genealogy world turns ugly. Extremely alarming legal saga involving US genealogy company Ancestry and National Records of Scotland re core Scottish genealogy and family history records. scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2025/09/ance...

Ancestry and the NRS - when the corporate genealogy world turns ugly

From Scotland, a daily news blog about genealogy, family history and personal heritage.

scottishgenes.blogspot.com

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Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 13d

Add to this worrying list “Library Washing” - persuading very prestigious university institutions to contribute their digital library collections to OpenAI’s model, to lend legitimacy, in exchange for a handful of (reduced cost!) magic AI beans.

Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 13d

OpenAI's VP for education recently said the company wanted to become "core infrastructure" for schools and universities. Any infrastructure, though, always depends on habituating users to its technical affordances - so I've been trying to track how it's doing that 🧵 www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/t...

Welcome to Campus. Here’s Your ChatGPT.

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Carl T. Bergstrom, Melissa Terras, Fabián Muniesa , and 6 more Carl T. Bergstrom, Melissa Terras, Fabián Muniesa, Michael Zimmer, Lesley Bartlett, John Hogan, Michael Veale, David Murakami Wood, Woodrow Hartzog

Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 13d

Welcome to Campus. Here’s Your ChatGPT.

www.nytimes.com

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Reposted by Melissa Terras

Internet Archive @archive.org · 14d

Wikimedia Foundation joins the fight for library digital rights! 🎉

@wikimediafoundation.org has signed onto the 4 Digital Rights of Memory Institutions, affirming memory institutions' rights to Collect, Preserve, Lend & Cooperate in the digital age.

➡️ www.internetarchive.eu/2025/09/26/w...

Wikimedia Signs Statement Supporting Digital Rights of Memory Institutions - Internet Archive Europe

The global Our Future Memory campaign to secure digital rights for libraries, archives, and other memory institutions has gained another powerful ally. Wikimedia, one of the world’s leading champions ...

www.internetarchive.eu

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Reposted by Melissa Terras, Adrian Vickers, Elizabeth Ewan

Vivienne Dunstan @vivdunstan.bsky.social · 14d

Ancestry and the NRS - when the corporate genealogy world turns ugly

From Scotland, a daily news blog about genealogy, family history and personal heritage.

scottishgenes.blogspot.com

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Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 14d

I think that's library label speak for "please pay attention to this but don't come at us for being too woke" - which is a real issue these days.

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Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 14d

On the big train home. Having just done Oxford-London-now en route to Edinburgh, I can report that EVERYONE is coughing badly. Absolutely everyone. Take care out there folks...

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Reposted by Melissa Terras

The Nerve @thenerve.news · 14d

Coming soon…

pressgazette.co.uk/news/former-...

Former Observer big-hitters launch new title with redundancy payouts

Five former Observer journalists including Carole Cadwalladr have launched their own culture publication using their redundancy money.

pressgazette.co.uk

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Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 14d

Had time to pop into the fab @bodleian.ox.ac.uk Treasure exhibition. The “problematic” case was eye opening. I hadn’t heard of this truly awful bible - the parallels today re what power is doing in the name of Christianity shows exactly why we need libraries, historians, & humanities scholars now.

Image of bible in case at bod. It was published particularly for black people (I won’t use the title they use) at the time of abolition but removed all bible passages on freedom.

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Reposted by Melissa Terras

Elena Trowsdale @elenatrowsdale.bsky.social · 14d

Thankyou to @discoxford.bsky.social for the final @theturing.bsky.social humanities and data science group. Our voices stand together championing the importance of the humanities in digital futures. Thank you @melissaterras.bsky.social you are a star
digitalscholarship.web.ox.ac.uk/event/networ...

Network power: the humanities and data science in collaboration

digitalscholarship.web.ox.ac.uk

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Reposted by Melissa Terras, Daniel S. Goldberg

Angela Woods @literarti.bsky.social · 15d

Tuning in to the final event of the discontinued @theturing.bsky.social Humanities & Data Science Interest Group and @melissaterras.bsky.social is absolutely smashing it. Power & politics cannot be purged from this conversation digitalscholarship.web.ox.ac.uk/event/networ...

Network power: the humanities and data science in collaboration

digitalscholarship.web.ox.ac.uk

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Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 15d

Great new tool from Flickr foundation - the Data Lifeboat, to package up Flickr image collections and get them out of dodge quickly, with metadata and readmes. Speaking to urgency of portability of digital cultural heritage given current times. They need some testers to play and give feedback 👇

Flickr Foundation @flickrfdn.bsky.social · 15d

Even great code has some bugs!

Be among the first to try out our new Flickr archiving tool Data Lifeboat, and help us find those bugs! Head over to datalifeboat.flickr.org to get started.

Original images from US National Archives and State Library of NSW on Flickr Commons.

A man in a suit makes an exaggerated - possible exasperated or confused -- facial expression with eyebrows arched and and eyes looking down and to the side.

Three children running and smiling in bug-like costumes that include antennae. Transcript: Calling all bug hunters! Data Lifeboat Alpha Release is live!

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Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 15d

A minute to admire the tropical palms of… #oxford

Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 15d

Update

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Reposted by Melissa Terras

Flickr Foundation @flickrfdn.bsky.social · 15d

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Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 15d

View from a college room, #Oxford. Love it. #academicglamour

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Melissa Terras @melissaterras.bsky.social · 16d

Actually in this case I found an accessible physical copy via an online platform, but yes totally agree. I’ve written a lot about the labour of digitisation (and see more and more folks ignorant of how complex it is to do!)

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