Thomas Schmid
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thschmid.bsky.social
Thomas Schmid
@thschmid.bsky.social
archivar/archivist, historiker/historian, latinist #archivCH #fridaynightatthearchives #viedarchiviste #AarbergBisZweisimmen
Mastodon @[email protected]
Instagram @th_schmid
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"Cäsar schlug die Gallier.
Hatte er nicht wenigstens einen Koch bei sich?"

Bertolt Brecht: Fragen eines lesenden Arbeiters (www.e-periodica.ch/digbib/view?...)

commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fu...
Reposted by Thomas Schmid
Heute vor 280 Jahren: Letzer Luchs im Rothaargebirge erlegt | siwiarchiv.de www.siwiarchiv.de/heute-vor-28... @thschmid.bsky.social : Danke!
siwiarchiv.de | Blog der Archive im Kreis Siegen-Wittgenstein
siwiarchiv.de
November 29, 2025 at 8:51 AM
Reposted by Thomas Schmid
Frauen im Spätmittelalter heißen ja meistens Katharina, Elisabeth oder Margarethe. Ausgefallene Namen sind eher selten. So zumindest der Urkundenbefund. Deshalb heute #NameOfTheDay: Adyatica. Zu finden auf #HHStA AUR 19735 aus dem Jahr 1413.
November 26, 2025 at 12:31 PM
Reposted by Thomas Schmid
I do take all of Dr Jackson's points but, as an archivist, handwritten text recognition is still an extremely exciting development.

It will allow us to improve our knowledge of our collections and to make them available in ways that can make them more accessible, more useful to more researchers.
You know what we won't need once handwriting recognition software has done its thing? Archivists, curators, conservators, catalogers, codicologists, or paleographers. We won't need archives either. We won't need diplomatics, editorial theory, book or media history, or material culture studies 🗃️🧵
November 27, 2025 at 11:44 AM
Reposted by Thomas Schmid
#Archives are far more than “content.” Their diplomatic and contextual frameworks reveal how a document was created, transmitted: insight essential for understanding its intent, authority, and true meaning.
Opting for shortcuts depletes the richness of records and will drain them of their meaning.
You know what we won't need once handwriting recognition software has done its thing? Archivists, curators, conservators, catalogers, codicologists, or paleographers. We won't need archives either. We won't need diplomatics, editorial theory, book or media history, or material culture studies 🗃️🧵
November 27, 2025 at 11:51 AM
Reposted by Thomas Schmid
So, the week after next, I'll be getting on a plane and flying to visit an archive where I'll <checks notes> waste my valuable time trying to read some handwritten documents, and you know what? That's totally fine by me.
November 26, 2025 at 10:12 PM
Reposted by Thomas Schmid
You know what we won't need once handwriting recognition software has done its thing? Archivists, curators, conservators, catalogers, codicologists, or paleographers. We won't need archives either. We won't need diplomatics, editorial theory, book or media history, or material culture studies 🗃️🧵
November 26, 2025 at 10:12 PM
Reposted by Thomas Schmid
After “Archive Fever”, a lot of people at the theoretical end of archival science got very excited that Derrida had written about their field.

I’ve been told that Derrida eventually said words to the effect of “I wasn’t talking about *actual* archives, you yokels.”
One of my colleagues went to a seminar at Berkeley and when someone asked a question Derrida brushed it off saying ‘what you ask may be important but it is not interesting’.
This path leads to chaos.
November 27, 2025 at 7:35 PM
Reposted by Thomas Schmid
A good day to be over at Snape Maltings for a meeting: arrival nearly delayed by my being diverted off the route between car park and office, going slithering off across the mud in search of the right angle.
November 28, 2025 at 5:30 PM
November 25, 2025 at 8:54 AM
November 24, 2025 at 12:53 AM
How Morocco's Western Sahara gamble paid off
How Morocco's Western Sahara gamble paid off | Mapped Out
YouTube video by DW News
youtu.be
November 23, 2025 at 7:07 PM
der #archivhimmel lässt heute etwas zu wünschen übrig...
#sundayarchivist
November 23, 2025 at 11:29 AM
November 23, 2025 at 6:55 AM
Reposted by Thomas Schmid
As a historian, I have been torturing myself by watching some of the series that the White House in cooperation with Hillsdale College produced about American Independence (tellingly, they avoid the word "revolution").

There are so many errors that it is hard to know where to begin. But I'll try
November 22, 2025 at 11:33 PM
November 23, 2025 at 6:02 AM
Reposted by Thomas Schmid
The Mystery of the Charlotte County Deteriorated Court Records 📜
uncommonwealth.lva.virginia.gov/blog/2025/11...
The Mystery of the Charlotte County Deteriorated Court Records
What’s the story behind the court records housed in a miniature Plexiglas display case?
uncommonwealth.lva.virginia.gov
November 21, 2025 at 10:04 PM
November 22, 2025 at 5:48 AM
#AarbergBisZweisimmen

#Lotzwil

Wikimedia Commons, Schweizerische Nationalbibliothek, Johann Emanuel Locher, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CH...

@wikimediach.bsky.social
November 21, 2025 at 6:11 AM
Reposted by Thomas Schmid
But mostly THIS. Which fairly conceivably is the actual chemise of St Louis, but *definitely* has a curatorial label from the 15th cent stitched on. (It says whose shirt it is, and that it was already missing just the one sleeve when this person catalogued it.)
November 20, 2025 at 6:19 PM
Reposted by Thomas Schmid
October 15, 2025 at 7:47 AM
Reposted by Thomas Schmid
This fencing manual - written between 1482–1487 and dedicated to Guidobaldo da Montefeltro - once sat in the Ducal Library of Urbino. Influenced by Fiore dei Liberi, cited in the ducal index, lost after Cesare Borgia’s 1502 conquest, resurfaced centuries later at the National Central Library of Rome
November 20, 2025 at 5:56 AM
Reposted by Thomas Schmid
Sichtbare Fortschritte in der #Bestandserhaltung: Der Theaterbestand im #GSAWeimar wird sukzessive einer Trockenreinigung und archivgerechten Verpackung unterzogen. Bald ist es geschafft! Großen Dank für die Förderung durch @bundeskultur.bsky.social   
Im Bild: Vorher- und Nachherzustand.
November 20, 2025 at 7:30 AM
A golden Weston Library (@bodleian.ox.ac.uk) this morning
November 20, 2025 at 7:18 PM