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📢 Once more for the people in the back: - Most [more than 95%] of archives have not been digitized. - Most of humanity's knowledge and memory is *not* reachable by LLMs. - Believing that AI can provid you with comprehensive, definitive, "intelligent" results is folly.

The worst depiction of an archivist in media is the archivist in Minas Tirith who brings FIRE into the record store. The best depiction of an archivist in media is Brother Armbruster in A Canticle for Leibowitz, who absolutely Gets It™

Thank you.

The competition asks young people (16-25 y.o.) to reinterpret historical advertisements for “runaway slaves” through a lens of agency, resistance, and possibility, thus disrupting the narrative within these notices that reduced enslaved people to property and framed their actions as criminal. 3/3

The booklet is part of the "Drawing Self-Emancipation," a art competition and exhibition for young people residing in Barbados. You can learn more about the competition here: heritedge.org/events/drawi... Please share widely with your networks. 2/

We have created a booklet with advertisements of self-emancipating enslaved people in Barbados in the 18th and 19th centuries. It aims to make these ads more accessible and contains images of c. 20 ads, their transcriptions, and a short introduction contextualizing them. tinyurl.com/26zkuxf7 1/

@mmargolis.bsky.social some possible footprints?

This is a companion essay to our forthcoming article “The Past(s) We Access Online: Ethical Challenges of Digital Archives” in Libraries, Archives and Collective Grief, edited by @librarianchef.bsky.social l and @kpalex91.bsky.social bsky.social bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/libraries-ar...

I've written a new piece, together with my colleague Virginia Dressler. Thank you to @cliocontemporary.bsky.social for providing the platform. Special thanks to the many archivists, librarians, and information professionals who work on making these stories accessible.

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🤬 You do not "fill the gap" in archives. You ask *why* the gap is there in the first place. That is where the real information resides. Also: LLMs train on digitized materials. Do you have any idea how little has been digitized? LLMs train on a *sliver* of the human past and human knowledge.

Here is a bug among the pages of the #BarbadosMercury newspaper, May 17, 1814. (The bound volumes are at the Barbados Archives, the newspaper has been digitized and is available online).

On this #InternationalArchivesWeek I'd like to repost this absolute gem by the @bucksarchives.bsky.social!

For #InternationalArchivesWeek, consider how digitized copies of manuscripts can preserve access to a manuscript's contents, provide a record of ownership if the object is removed, and provide access to cultural heritage if a community is displaced. Learn more: hmml.org/stories/reversal-of-fates

The Foundling Hospital Archive: coramstory.org.uk/the-foundlin...

The more things change, the more they stay the same... Nice study that essentially corroborates Michel Rolph Trouillot's silencing framework. The diagram embodies all silencing processes (fact creation/assembly/retrieval/retrospective significance), a bleak reminder on how power operates today.

Nicholas Mayers Genealogist; Clerical Officer – Library and Information Services Unit – Central Bank of Barbados "Runaway Slave Ads as Genealogical Sources: Reconstructing Enslaved Lives"

Michelle Hinkson-Cox Playwright; applied theatre specialist & artistic director; PhD Candidate (University of Glasgow); Theatre Arts Associate Degree Coordinator (Barbados Community College) "Excavating the Silences: “Runaway” advertisements as source material for theatrical performances"

Amalia S. Levi Archivist; historian; Director of Programs, HeritEdge "From records of persecution to records for life writing: “Runaway” advertisements as archival records"

Andreana S. Cunningham Anthropologist; Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Archaeology, and African American and Black Diaspora studies, Boston University "Using fugitive slave advertisements in the study of the biosocial effects of enslavement"