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Amanda Whitmire

@thalassalib.bsky.social

2.2K followers 1.2K following 530 posts

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Amanda Whitmire @thalassalib.bsky.social · Nov 15

A short piece about my passion project at work: surfacing & making historical biodiversity & oceanographic datasets actionable. Librarians call this "collections-as-data" and it's my jam! 🦑🌊

Digitization efforts reveal the Pacific’s past

A Stanford librarian brings decades of ocean observations to today’s scientists with advanced tools and a dedication to information accessibility.

news.stanford.edu

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Amanda Whitmire @thalassalib.bsky.social · 3d

Absolute legend!

A young Asian woman in a lab coat is sitting at a large piece of scientific equipment and is turned back to face the camera with a big smile. It’s Isabella Abbott!

Amanda Whitmire @thalassalib.bsky.social · 6d

Yesssss. This is the way. 🧣

Amanda Whitmire @thalassalib.bsky.social · 6d

Hell, I live in Monterey and even I'm considering purchasing a Lenny Kravitz scarf. Let's all prioritize comfort this year.

Tim Onion @bencollins.bsky.social · 7d

Winter is approaching and I'm considering purchasing a Lenny Kravitz scarf. The Chicago winter has broken the spirits of many. I want to lug around a big ol blanket and call it clothes. I am prioritizing comfort this year and that means wearing a comforter to work.

a scarf that looks like the pelt of a woolly mammoth draped upon the shoulders of the Are You Gonna Go My Way guy

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Amanda Whitmire @thalassalib.bsky.social · 13d

That was my first immediate thought, too! Will be following along with great interest ... 😍

Reposted by Amanda Whitmire

Rebecca R Helm @rebeccarhelm.bsky.social · 13d

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA

10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

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Amanda Whitmire @thalassalib.bsky.social · 18d

Hell yeah, @montereybayaquarium.org, send me that otter content! 🦦🌊🦑

Screenshot of an automated text exchange between me and the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The aquarium sent a photo of an otter floating in a kelp forest along with the text: “Did you miss us? The Aquarium is shellebrating Sea Otter Awareness Week starting Sunday.

Text SOAW to dive into daily quizzes, furry facts, and more all week!”

I responded quickly with “SOAW”.

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Reposted by Amanda Whitmire

Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · 26d

Biology Department

xkcd.com/3140/

Comic. [Building with large sign in front of it[ SIGN: Welcome to the *Biology Department* It has been [changeable sign: 3] days since we discovered something existentially horrifying about bugs that makes you question your whole reality

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Amanda Whitmire @thalassalib.bsky.social · 26d

Overhead projectors? Oh sure! You don't see them much, but we have one somewhere at the marine station.

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Amanda Whitmire @thalassalib.bsky.social · 26d

I am “I better print transparencies of this talk for the overhead projector in case the technology fails” years old.

A set of color transparency sheets of slides for a presentation on thin layers sit on a desk in my office.

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Amanda Whitmire @thalassalib.bsky.social · Aug 18

Photos and data from nearly 20 years ago, back when we put CTD casts on floppies! 😂 Found the disks in my garage - an apparently safe storage method …

A woman in Carhartt work pants, Xtratuf boots and a PFD stands on the deck of a research vessel with a small set of oceanographic instruments. She is smiling, presumably happy about the sunny weather and lack of swell.

On the starboard deck of a research vessel, a CTD rosette sits next to an open rail. A woman wearing a PFF is walking up to the rosette. The coast is in the background.

Someone holds two 3.5-inch floppy disks with “Dickey Mooring CTD data” written on them. They are from February 01, 2006 and May 5, 2006.

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Amanda Whitmire @thalassalib.bsky.social · Aug 2

Came here for the comments and have not been disappointed.

Amanda Whitmire @thalassalib.bsky.social · Jul 30

I'm really proud that as I mentally ran through candidates of things to take home, most of what came to mind are things we've already scanned & uploaded to Stanford Digital Repository - no action needed. Humbled that I didn't have a grab-list already composed, so I'm working on that now. 🤔 /end

Amanda Whitmire @thalassalib.bsky.social · Jul 30

Last but not least, I grabbed the scrapbooks that document the history of @stanfordhopkins.bsky.social. Only the first album has been scanned & this is now at the top of my digitization list. Totally irreplaceable. 4/

A series of large scrapbook volumes sit on a table in a library. The closest album is the oldest and the fattest.

A look inside the oldest album. There is a photo of Timothy Hopkins, who donated money to build the marine station, and a letter from Hopkins to the director of the marine station at that time (1934), Walter K. Fisher.

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Amanda Whitmire @thalassalib.bsky.social · Jul 30

This beauty is one of a kind, and even though it's been scanned, I'd be heartbroken if it was reclaimed by the sea. It's an album, "Marine algae of New England coast," created by collector Grace A, Hall in 1895. Please go admire the photos. searchworks.stanford.edu/view/13786250 3/

A photo of a very old looking album that has a waetherd black leather binding and a blue cover with the word "photographs" on it.

A page in the algae album with 4 small specimens arranged on it. They were all very carefully laid out before being pressed so you can see all the parts. The colors are well preserved for being over 100 years old.

A very close-up shot of one of the algae specimens so you can see the texture of the paper, the thickness of the algae, and the rust color of the pigments.

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Amanda Whitmire @thalassalib.bsky.social · Jul 30

What I just call "Postels" is an 1840 folio in Russian & Latin that has etchings of marine algae from Russian surveys of the North American west coast in the late 1820s. Not SUPER rare, but rare enough. I love it, so I took it. cc. @gworthey.bsky.social See: searchworks.stanford.edu/view/2225739 2/

A side-view photo of a very large book opened on a table in a library. There is an etching of a species of marine algae that fills one page.

A top-view photo of a different page in the album showing the marine alga Macrocystis pyrifera, which is very common here in Monterey.

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Amanda Whitmire @thalassalib.bsky.social · Jul 30

The tsunami warning yesterday was a good reminder to have an emergency plan, whether it's your house or it's your library or lab. What would you take with you to safer ground? Here's what I took home from Miller Library ... 1/ 🌊🦑📚

The trunk of a small SUV has several large books and albums stacked in the back.

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Reposted by Amanda Whitmire

EarthScope Consortium @earthscope.org · Jul 30

Watch how seismometers recorded the passing earthquake waves from the magnitude 8.8 earthquake off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.

Each dot in this animation is a seismic station—red 🔴 means the ground moved up, blue 🔵 means it moved down.

More ➡️ https://loom.ly/6Eo_fYc

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Amanda Whitmire @thalassalib.bsky.social · Jul 30

After one of the biggest earthquakes ever recorded (M8.8), we have been extremely lucky on the California coast to experience only a small tsunami. Looking at the tide gauge data in Monterey, the first wave peaked around 12:50 AM (<1 ft) and we saw the highest wave at 4:30 AM (1.1 ft). 🌊

A data plot of the predicted tide in Monterey (smooth blue line going up and down a few times over 18 hours) and the observed water level (red line that starts with following the blue line very closely, but then becomes erratic and spiky after midnight on July 30th).

A closeup view of the previous plot showing the peak of the first wave at 7/30, 00:54 hrs, 4.16 ft when predicted height was 3.48 ft.

Another closeup view of the tide data, showing the highest deviation from predicted tide at 4.44 ft when the tide was supposed to be 3.33 ft.

Amanda Whitmire @thalassalib.bsky.social · Jul 24

Dispatch from @stanfordhopkins.bsky.social - it’s a gorgeous day & the kelp beds are bigger than I’ve ever seen them. They wrap all the way around the station toward Lovers Point. 🌊🦑

A view out to Monterey Bay on a sunny, clear day. Bird Rock is in the foreground, and the calm shoreline shows clear water.

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Amanda Whitmire @thalassalib.bsky.social · Jul 21

My husband had emergency laparoscopic surgery to remove his appendix while we were in France. We paid €21 because he used the TV in his room for 3 days. I tried to pay our "international copay" and they looked at me with confusion and sadness.

Amanda Whitmire @thalassalib.bsky.social · Jul 21

Saw a sign in England last week that said, "You aren't stuck in traffic. You ARE traffic." 🤯

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Amanda Whitmire @thalassalib.bsky.social · Jul 18

Mordecai is business in the front, party in the back.

A tan colored guinea pig with short hair faces the camera. He has the usual cowlick pattern so his short hair sticks up at jaunty angles.

The same guinea pig is viewed from the back, and you can now see he has long hair that sticks up and out, flowing back. He is the mullet of guinea pigs.

Amanda Whitmire @thalassalib.bsky.social · Jul 14

GBIF and OBIS are amazing and pull way above their weight relative to their funding (esp. OBIS). Huge fan! 🤩

Amanda Whitmire @thalassalib.bsky.social · Jul 13

We thought learning Icelandic was a fun challenge, but Welsh takes it to a whole other level. Hats off to y’all. 🫡

Amanda Whitmire @thalassalib.bsky.social · Jul 13

UK camper van 🚐 trip update. I’ve been to yarn shops in Glastonbury, Bath, & Conwy (Wales). I’ve missed a couple on my list b/c we passed through when they were closed. 😔 Off to the Lakes District & then York. England & Wales are *so* lovely so far.

Yarn haul so far. Was happy to find that Wool in Bath carried a coned yarn that will work in my machine (Yarn2Cone 2 ply)! All of the skeins of yarn were made locally to the area where I purchased them, and the handspun was by a local gal in Glastonbury. 💕

A closeup view of three skeins of yarn. They are hand dyed green, blues, and an undyed single ply handspun.

Three skeins of hand dyed yarn in purple, cream with rainbow spots, and deep blue/green. Behind them is a cone of 2ply wool yarn in natural colors.