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.
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melissaterras.bsky.social
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
melissaterras.bsky.social
I just walked around the perimeter 😂
melissaterras.bsky.social
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
melissaterras.bsky.social
Rogue urban sunflowers. Love it. #edinburgh
Random sunflowers on gritty path
melissaterras.bsky.social
Oh I’m not defending Ancestry here! Very much on the side of NRS
melissaterras.bsky.social
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.
vivdunstan.bsky.social
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
melissaterras.bsky.social
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.
benpatrickwill.bsky.social
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
melissaterras.bsky.social
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.
melissaterras.bsky.social
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...
melissaterras.bsky.social
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.
Reposted by Melissa Terras
elenatrowsdale.bsky.social
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
Reposted by Melissa Terras
literarti.bsky.social
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
melissaterras.bsky.social
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 👇
flickrfdn.bsky.social
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!
melissaterras.bsky.social
A minute to admire the tropical palms of… #oxford
Behind Christ church cathedral Oxford
melissaterras.bsky.social
View from a college room, #Oxford. Love it. #academicglamour
View out of a window to a wall
melissaterras.bsky.social
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!)
melissaterras.bsky.social
Oooh! Can you get down to the cottage….? A day trip may be in order…! Thanks!
melissaterras.bsky.social
Am becoming quite obsessed with this little ruined house right on the cliffs just outside Berwick, which you can briefly glimpse from the East Coast Mainline. 😍
Cliffs near Berwick with ruined house Cute little ruined house