Jessamyn

Rural tech geek. Researcher. Librarian resistance. Moss collector. Postcard enjoyer. I own MetaFilter. ✉️ box 345 05060 ✉️ (she/her)

library blog: https://librarian.net
personal blog: https://jessamyn.com/journal
reading list: http://jessamyn.info/booklist
ABOLISH: ICE

Public Key

npub1prsjp48zup4rrp4xldg66x7zff2ykvusk47awlhsmaqhm3apl95s53eh8y

NIP-05 Address

jessamyn_at_glammr.us@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsq3cfq6n3wq633s6n0k5ddr0py54ztxwgt2lwh0mcd7stac7slj6gprpmhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuur0wd6x2u3wwpkxzcm9j3p5yz

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relay.poster.place

Author Public Key

npub1prsjp48zup4rrp4xldg66x7zff2ykvusk47awlhsmaqhm3apl95s53eh8y

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Last Notes

2024-09-19 23:17:17

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I have only one and I keep thinking "I should really get more of those"

2024-08-28 15:55:23

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alt text: Rear bumper of a red Tesla car with a bumper sticker that says "bought it before we knew how awful he is"

2024-08-17 00:12:49

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Team All Moons Are Good Moons!

2024-08-15 20:33:42

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And just in case anyone cares, it's pronounces more or less like SHWAR-eh-chay BEEB-lee-oh-teh-kuh
Looks like mice and worms are the most likely animals to be represented in this turn of phrase.
https://cdn.masto.host/glammrus/media_attachments/files/112/967/873/585/339/202/original/1b7070680eee860a.png

2024-08-15 20:09:11

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Hey that is neat. In a lot of ways Romanian is a very close-to-Latin romance language (so they tell me) and to my friends who know Italian, they say they are very similar.

2024-08-15 17:34:12

The Romanian word for "bookworm" translates literally to "mouse of the library"
https://cdn.masto.host/glammrus/media_attachments/files/112/967/232/779/363/650/original/141c2a3bfc5ce04d.png

2024-08-15 17:23:15

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Book 85: The Comfort of Ghosts. This book is the LAST in an eighteen book series so it has the sort of "wrap up" quality you might expect in a book like this: a lot of nostalgia; a lot of retreading old story lines and some new facts about them; a decently happy ending even given the setting which is in and around London just after WWII when stuff was still a mess. I was happy this series wrapped up right around when I was getting tired of it as being maybe a bit too precious and fairy tale.
https://cdn.masto.host/glammrus/media_attachments/files/112/967/187/034/906/292/original/631646fabf67f71a.jpeg

2024-08-13 15:05:32

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Book 84: Bellewether. Don't know how this book wound up with me, it's definitely more normie than what I usually read. It's a tale about a house on Long Island in the 1700s and the family that lives there, juxtaposed against the same house which is now a historical museum in modern times. Some nice historical research, a tale of French and British soldiers, and possibly a ghost. You get glimpses of Manhattan. Schmaltzy but not in an entirely bad way, a happier ending than I'm used to.
https://cdn.masto.host/glammrus/media_attachments/files/112/955/315/633/087/172/original/39d7a91c7622a26a.jpeg

2024-06-20 18:25:51

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We had a bunch of tiny borbs which were clearly babies and Merlin had no idea what they were (I could see their sounds getting recorded, but their register was so high my partner couldn't hear them at all). They were rounder than anything I'd seen in the area and I kept going back trying to see the adults and finally got near enough to one that it registered and I could spot it.

2024-06-20 18:20:56

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How neat. I IDed my first Northern Parrula this week and it was a treat.

2024-06-14 15:20:36

"The Queer Liberation Library (QLL) is, specifically, books by and about queer people. Anyone in the US can apply online to get a free library card. Their collection is available through Libby."
https://www.queerliberationlibrary.org/
via this always great newsletter https://www.theinfophile.com/
:better_pride:

2024-06-13 22:57:37

"Texas Christian University police later determined that [former TCU employee] stole 105 antiquities valued at $266,200 [FROM THE LIBRARY BASEMENT]."
"...over 400 individuals had access to the [LIBRARY BASEMENT] room that housed the objects"
(emphasis mine)
And of course as with a lot of foreign antiquities, these were donated to TCU for shady-ish purposes by a guy who probably shouldn't have "owned" them in the first place. An interesting heist recap story.
https://www.texasobserver.org/the-heist/

2024-06-13 20:30:01

The tiny all-volunteer website I help run [@best_of_mltshp](https://mefi.social/@best_of_mltshp ) uses Fastly as our CDN through their Fast Forward program. Today they're adding a free tier for their services
https://www.fastly.com/pricing/
I admit, I don't even totally understand all the things they do for us, but https://fosstodon.org/@haubles worked with our team to get it all set up. They're on Mastodon at https://fastly.social/@devs Really happy to work with them and pleased at this good news so that more people can share this excellent service

2024-06-05 17:39:12

"This more recent sense of the digital divide—a systems thinking divide, in which users’ lack of understanding of the interrelatedness of things is being weaponized against them—is what I work on the most."
Me talking about what I perceive to be the latest digital divide in this month's Computers in Libraries.
https://www.infotoday.com/cilmag/jun24/West--The-Latest-Digital-Divide-Systems-Thinking-vs-Misinformation-and-Malfeasance.shtml

2024-06-04 23:03:52

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This guy's name is Bum Farto and the categories on his Wikipedia article are: 1919 births, Missing people, People declared dead in absentia, 20th-century American criminals, and Firefighters. I don't think I have anything more to add except amazement no one had written this article before.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bum_Farto
https://cdn.masto.host/glammrus/media_attachments/files/112/560/844/846/920/002/original/abf6ef9e48bc15c2.jpg

2024-06-03 20:27:07

I am getting somewhat emotional reading about all the parts of S.220, An act relating to Vermont’s public libraries, which was signed by Vermont's governor today.
- empowers the Department of Libraries to develop model selection and retention policies for public libraries (PL)
- requires the DOL to provide Continuing Ed for public library staff (they do this already)
- extends enhanced penalties for criminal threatening in all PL
- lowers the age of patron confidentiality in PL from 16 to 12

2024-06-03 19:00:42

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My usual rule of thumb is only articles about under-represented folks on Wikipedia but I made an exception for Bill Harris without actually knowing he was a gay journalist so Happy Pride Month and please enjoy the wide array of things this man did in his journalism career.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Harris_(journalist)
https://cdn.masto.host/glammrus/media_attachments/files/112/554/221/941/591/889/original/06aa21993a2a0b5a.png
https://cdn.masto.host/glammrus/media_attachments/files/112/554/222/096/470/158/original/ee38a887ef3aee06.png

2024-05-26 18:39:55

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Was reading a talk about the 200th anniversary of Braille (thanks @npub17ge…4etg) and he noted the passing of David Holladay who wrote early Braille translator software to help support his wife, Caryn Navy, a blind math professor when they were students at MIT.
He had a newsletter (about accessible computing) which was also published on cassette.
He continued to write and work on Braille software for his entire life, now with Wikipedia page!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Holladay
https://cdn.masto.host/glammrus/media_attachments/files/112/508/857/953/709/779/original/dc49b4c2e07a2dd5.jpg

2024-05-20 19:21:34

I wrote an opinion piece about Vermont's Data Privacy Act which is sitting on the Governor's desk while the big tech lobby pressures him not to sign it. Threaded here so people can read it and I don't just give you an image with a huge alt text wall.
---
I support Vermont Data Privacy Act a bill which has passed the House and Senate and is on its way to the Governor's desk. Vermonters deserve to be able to understand and control how their personal information is collected and used online [1/7]

2024-05-18 23:06:45

If you participated in the discussion about Libby and maybe-targeted ads and privacy policies, you might like to read The Register's deep dive on what they could determine about what actually happened from @npub160w…p722
https://www.theregister.com/2024/05/18/mystery_of_the_targeted_mobile_ads/

2024-04-28 01:54:48

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Was watching one of my goofy British cop shows last night and noticed one of the actors seemed to have his shit totally together. Looked him up, did not find much info in the usual places despite him having been a Shakespearean actor since the 1970s.
Threw together a Wikipedia article (simple to get started, someone with a better theater background please make it better) and then found 14 other pages that mentioned him. Meet Leo Wringer. Played Marvin Gaye on stage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Wringer
https://cdn.masto.host/glammrus/media_attachments/files/112/346/343/933/866/003/original/9ada353168234233.png

2024-04-21 01:52:08

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A pal noted that it was weird that 41st VT governor Nelson Fisk had a Wikipedia page while his wife Elizabeth Hubbell Fisk, who had revitalized a kind of woven textile art, did not.
I wrote one. I will note that some of this is "Bored rich white lady finds something to do and Vermont likes to write about their own" but some was definitely not and I enjoyed learning about her and scaring up old sources from the Wayback Machine and Newspapers.com #weaving #textiles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Hubbell_Fisk
https://cdn.masto.host/glammrus/media_attachments/files/112/306/679/719/473/396/original/d3230f1732087bbc.png
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2024-04-19 18:51:44

My "day job" is working at the Flickr Foundation helping nurture and grow Flickr Commons. We're approaching an important milestone, re-opening the doors to Flickr Commons, a collection of photography collections all of which have no known copyright restrictions.
It's been around since 2008 and is comprised of nearly two million photos. Do you work for a GLAM institution that might want to be part of it? If so, please read our main post and send us your details. 🤩
https://glammr.us/@flickrfdn/112299229081607353
https://cdn.masto.host/glammrus/media_attachments/files/112/299/385/099/490/088/original/b3d39d787d662ac6.jpg

2024-03-24 20:56:58

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Found this smiley photo of Rose Koller on Flickr Commons and left it in a tab for later. Today I dug in to try to figure out more about her. Not that much info for someone who doesn't read German. I also have a nagging suspicion she may have gotten married and changed her name and perhaps did a lot of work under that name. I did notice that she seems to have been a VERY early forensic facial reconstructer, so I added her name to that page too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rose_Koller
https://cdn.masto.host/glammrus/media_attachments/files/112/152/667/633/741/437/original/52e29f0ace3bd312.jpg

2024-03-21 20:35:18

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Saw a close-up magic performance (on YouTube) by Markobi who took home an award from the World Championship of Magic (held only every three years) and was surprised that he had no Wikipedia page. I made a small one. Very little info on this young magician.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Bittar

2024-02-29 18:23:01

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Ran into a pic of Perriton Maxwell and thought "He looks smug" and indeed I think he probably was. Editor of a ton of things and he told Who's Who he wrote more books than he actually did. I tried to make his Wikipedia page fact-based.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perriton_Maxwell

2024-02-14 00:20:53

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Carolyn Kellogg was cited in a lot of articles as the former LA Times' book editor but did not have her own Wikipedia page. Now she does. #WomenInRed #Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolyn_Kellogg

2024-02-04 21:51:37

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Saw a post on scots mastodon about "the Black Gaels" and thought it was interesting. I then went down a rabbit hole of learning about these Gaelic speaking twins from Cape Breton who probably inspired a Kipling character. At one point I was watching a YouTube video of a 1997 historical society presentation where they were playing a cassette tape that was much older. The image I saw w/ the post was, sadly AI-generated and will probably be the one everyone thinks is real
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_and_George_Maxwell

2024-02-02 02:42:35

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Saw a WP page I'd edited, not created, had been moved back to draft space saying "needs more citations". This is the equivalent, in my opinion, of someone saying "Try harder" and always feels unwelcoming. So, because I have a certain level of privs, I moved it BACK into main space, added three more airtight citations AND a fair use book cover image. Such a spite edit. 😂
The book, The Toothpaste Millionaire, was written in 1972. I knew the author. You might like it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Toothpaste_Millionaire
https://cdn.masto.host/glammrus/media_attachments/files/111/859/574/480/938/782/original/037c8b9db9029763.png

2024-01-21 19:06:44

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Read an article about a spectacular map collection. The man who had collected all the maps (along w/ his wife) had no Wikipedia page. Seemed like an oversight, now corrected.
I think about these things often: it's easy to find citations (and thus write articles) for rich white men who accumulated and distributed their wealth. This is part of why English Wikipedia skews this way. Endeavoring to get more into Women in Red for my next articles. Anyway, here's Harold Osher.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Osher
https://cdn.masto.host/glammrus/media_attachments/files/111/795/499/668/247/308/original/70d088f59f558d98.png

2024-01-07 17:04:31

New Year new #Wikipedia list. Reebee Garofalo was one of the original people who put together Rock Against Racism Massachusetts but you may know him as the snare player for the Good Trouble Brass Band playing in the HONK! Festival of Activist Street Bands. He was cited in a ton of other Wikipedia articles and made that Genealogy of Pop/Rock Music chart you may have seen in an Edward Tufte book. A good guy to get to know, deserves a longer article but this is good for now
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reebee_Garofalo
https://cdn.masto.host/glammrus/media_attachments/files/111/715/738/921/531/048/original/ed505ac993b8e0a4.png
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