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jkshields (she/they)

@jkshields.bsky.social

680 followers 930 following 2.2K posts

💙📚 #ReligionNerd #OA #ScholComm #Ekkies How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks~Dorothy Sayers 🏳️‍🌈. BLM. Protect 🏳️‍⚧️. Open borders. End Prisons.

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jkshields (she/they) @jkshields.bsky.social · 5d

⬆️interaction lately so here's a 📌 for new faces...

I am a library worker, former religion & ethics prof, queer ✝️ parent in the Berkshires. I post about library stuff, schol comm, politics, religion, and daily life.

ISO: remote schol comm or library strategy internship for spring '26; essay invites

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jkshields (she/they) @jkshields.bsky.social · 12h

Sophie Kim, why you gotta torture a librarian… someone who dreams of the heavenly library ✅ but

Wants it catalogued with the Dewey Decimal system!!! ❌❌❌

It should be polished and grand and —and use the Dewey decimal system!

Book cover for The God and the Gwisin by Sophie Kim

jkshields (she/they) @jkshields.bsky.social · 13h

Just another day getting caught up in the new book shelf on my way home and adding to my impossible TBR pile.

These look really good though right?

Book cover for six Women who shaped what Americans Eat: Food Choice in an Age of Abundance shows an illustration of a woman in a skirted brown suit, heels,and red hat pushing a grocery cart full of food items.

Bookcase er for Industrial Islamism: How AUTHORITARIAN movements Mobilize Workers shows title in white over stylized/abstract buildings in red and green tones

Reposted by jkshields (she/they)

John McCafferty @jdmccafferty.bsky.social · 1d

Model Bakery and Brewery from the Tomb of Meketre ca. 1981–1975 B.C.E. Middle Kingdom (Met Museum)

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Reposted by jkshields (she/they)

Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net · 19h

ICE is not only chasing down every random brown person in Chicago, they have a cameraman following them to film this for social media. Cruelty and inhumanity as content.

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jkshields (she/they) @jkshields.bsky.social · 18h

What is the purpose of education?

inculcating appreciation for human dignity+responsibility to build, maintain, & protect common human heritage+resources (like knowledge) for all

enhancing individuals’ freedoms & abilities to pursue lives they value by giving them the skills & knowledge resources

jkshields (she/they) @jkshields.bsky.social · 21h

Honestly, I hear some (delayed) faculty angst in this report that

most students no longer think of *most* regular faculty as important people to network with and get recommendations from

grade inflation isn't helping, but its not at the crux

jkshields (she/they) @jkshields.bsky.social · 21h

“Many Harvard College students do not prioritize their courses and some view extensive extracurricular commitments as a more fulfilling, meaningful, and useful allocation of their time.”

Of course! Sorry, not sorry. People don't go to Harvard because they can't get an equal *education* elsewhere.

jkshields (she/they) @jkshields.bsky.social · 21h

"Around 60% of the grades given at Harvard are As (up from 40% in 2015)"

Why is anyone surprised?
Also,... candidly I'm actually it's a little surprised it's not higher... and I wonder if the other 40% includes withdrawals and incompletes.

jkshields (she/they) @jkshields.bsky.social · 22h

library committee faculty member, systems librarian, outreach librarian

three men sit at a grey table with an ESPN banner underneath. The first man on the left is older (55+) with a large white mustache and dressed in a grey suit with a red tie, the second man is younger (35+) wearing a casual patterned shirt and sporting a stubbly extended goatee and a newsboy golf cap, the last man is the youngest looking with darker complexion and is wearing a pink oxford with a pink patterned suit vest and pink silk tie. His hair and goatee are neatly groomed.

jkshields (she/they) @jkshields.bsky.social · 22h

I got so wet on my walk in this morning,... and that was just around the building from the parking lot to the door.

I keep thinking in this wet corner of the state I should get some gortex and better quality boots... but

boardgames, gardening, and kids activities eating all my disposable budget

jkshields (she/they) @jkshields.bsky.social · 22h

I'm not really excited about either version of EBS.

But I also think the negative reactions to the new UI are over-blown.

#LIS

Reposted by jkshields (she/they)

Daniel Knowles @dlknowles.bsky.social · 1d

Good reporting on the South Shore raid from South Side weekly here.

Confirms one thing I was told but didn't put in my own piece because I didn't have a second source and it seemed too insane: border agents segregated arrested residents by race

southsideweekly.com/federal-agen...

Federal Agents Storm South Shore Building, Detaining Families and Children

Families were woken by flashbangs and helicopters as hundreds of federal agents raided their homes. Days later, neighbors are still searching for the missing.

southsideweekly.com

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Reposted by jkshields (she/they)

Juan Pablo Alperin @juancommander.scholcommlab.ca · 1d

Reminder to spread the word about exciting OPPORTUNITY as PKP's Managing Director! It's a very exciting time at @pkp.sfu.ca. So much going on! A true scholar-led open infrastructure project, supporting 55,000+ journals. Read more: pkp.sfu.ca/2025/09/17/h... #scholcomm #openaccess #openscience

PKP is hiring a Managing Director - Public Knowledge Project

The Public Knowledge Project, a Core Research Facility of SFU, invites applications for the position of Managing Director

pkp.sfu.ca

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jkshields (she/they) @jkshields.bsky.social · 1d

I mean,... most excel/Sheets formulas are pretty google-able. It's rare that there is something you need to do in excel that someone hasn't written point by point instructions and explanation for... and then you can write it yourself next time because you won't forget?

jkshields (she/they) @jkshields.bsky.social · 1d

😬😬😬

Techmeme @techmeme.com · 1d

JPMorgan Chase reports that $1.2T of debt is now tied to AI-related companies, making it the largest segment in the investment-grade market (Caleb Mutua/Bloomberg)

Main Link | Techmeme Permalink

Reposted by jkshields (she/they)

Jessie Seiler @jessieish.bsky.social · 1d

And then there's their wildly anti-labor policies and the way they treat their employees (no, not the software engineers and other white-collar ones).

We can't fix Amazon ourselves as individuals but we can (and should) choose to spend our own hard-earned dollars elsewhere.

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jkshields (she/they) @jkshields.bsky.social · 1d

No one person should ever stand in for the will of the people, especially not for 4+ years.

Our system has never been that.

Andrew Tobolowsky @andytobo.bsky.social · 1d

Trump is not bound by laws because the president is an extension of the will of the people. If Trump was elected by a massive mandate (what they claim, not the reality), he was elected to do whatever he thinks is necessary. And Dems contributed to this argument inadvertently by agreeing that

jkshields (she/they) @jkshields.bsky.social · 1d

I DO care about democracy in the abstract BECAUSE

(1) all human beings are worthy of political involvement and
(2) collective action needs buy-in to be successful and participatory decision-making builds buy-in

What I don't care about is majoritarian democracy.

Andrew Tobolowsky @andytobo.bsky.social · 1d

is that even people who think they like democracy don't care about democracy in the abstract, they want to preserve the ability to win the game. It's like thinking people love refs because they want the game to be fair. But the argument they've been making from the beginning here is v. clear:

jkshields (she/they) @jkshields.bsky.social · 1d

Hey! My mutuals fee started working again. Hurrah!

jkshields (she/they) @jkshields.bsky.social · 1d

Why are we introducing AI-generated metadata to Ebook Central records?

REAL ANSWER: We are unwilling to pay a person to do this work.

Screenshot from Clarivate/Proquest email announcement:

Why are we introducing AI-generated metadata to Ebook Central records?

Most publishers include subject information in their metadata, but there are times when this information is not included, leading to limited search availability in discovery systems. For this reason, we are providing AI-generated Library of Congress subject headings only when not available from the publisher to improve the completeness of our metadata and discoverability of Ebook Central titles.  

Which AI-generated fields are included in Express MARC? 

The AI-generated fields will include Library of Congress Subject Heading (LCSH) (6XX); Library of Congress Classification (050); Dewey Decimal (082); Description (520); and Source of Description (588). To learn more, please visit our FAQ page.

Action required:

This functionality is auto-enabled for all customers. Libraries can choose to disable this feature ahead of the late October release through the System Settings page in LibCentral.

jkshields (she/they) @jkshields.bsky.social · 1d

Explain your username:

I'm pretty square. It's what I used on Twitter the 3rd or fourth time I became engaged their again. My first user name on Twitter jonni21 was also literally true when I made it in 2007?

Matthew Noe @noethematt.bsky.social · 1d

Explain your username:

My last name is Noe. My first name is Matthew.

People have made weird jokes about "Noe" (some haha cringe, some rude and bullying) my entire life.

I thought it was an amusing way to reclaim some of that back in 2008. And despite me not loving "Matt" it is pithier 🤷‍♂️

Alex Brown 🇵🇸 (they/them) @bookjockeyalex.bsky.social · 1d

Explain your username:

It's a line from Parks & Rec one of my fave shows. In that show, Leslie has an ongoing cold war with librarians. She calls them punk-ass book jockeys as she overturned a book cart and flees. I'm a librarian who is punk in spirit if not attire, so, yeah.

jkshields (she/they) @jkshields.bsky.social · 1d

The verb that does not die is ‘to be.’ -- Yiyun Li

jkshields (she/they) @jkshields.bsky.social · 1d

I haven't read The Leaving Room (National Book Award finalist) but it's blurb reminds me of a YA approach to themes in TJ Klune's Under the Whispering Door...

and of course, its a novel in verse

book cover for Amber McBride's The Leaving Room

jkshields (she/they) @jkshields.bsky.social · 1d

I want this book in libraries, professionally sure, but also personally. (I read a library copy of this book a couple of years ago.)

Malinda Lo @malindalo.bsky.social · 1d

Last week, PEN America released its fourth annual report on the state of book banning and censorship in America, and I learned that Last Night at the Telegraph Club was the fourth most banned book in schools during the 2024-25 school year. How do I feel about it? www.malindalo.com/blog/2025/10...

Telegraph Club is the 4th most banned book in America — Malinda Lo

Last week, PEN America released its fourth annual report on the state of book banning and censorship in America, and I learned that Last Night at the Telegraph Club was the fourth most banned book...

www.malindalo.com

jkshields (she/they) @jkshields.bsky.social · 1d

A well written scholarly manuscript shows its warp... its dependence on threads emerging from other thoughts and projects... and combs out some of the threads that might lend themselves to interconnection or extension...

but even then, its a little messy, escaping control