Amalia S. Levi
@amaliasl.bsky.social
Archives, life writing, history. Research focus: Caribbean Jewish history; slavery; record-keeping & archival dependencies; digital history. https://hcommons.org/members/amaliasl/
Great write-up of the emotional context surrounding written documents that we usually encounter flattened out in folders in the research room.
Beautiful art that draws the gaze to the act of the creation of letters as a distillations of emotions.
Beautiful art that draws the gaze to the act of the creation of letters as a distillations of emotions.
JUST PUBLISHED! In our latest article we examine the 17th century craze for writing and reading letters, and how this became a major feature in Dutch art, featuring in masterful paintings by artists such as Gabriel Metsu and Jan Vermeer www.artinsociety.com/gabriel-mets...
November 10, 2025 at 10:07 AM
Great write-up of the emotional context surrounding written documents that we usually encounter flattened out in folders in the research room.
Beautiful art that draws the gaze to the act of the creation of letters as a distillations of emotions.
Beautiful art that draws the gaze to the act of the creation of letters as a distillations of emotions.
😂 😂😂
Hoping this helps our colleagues across the industry
November 5, 2025 at 3:53 PM
😂 😂😂
😍😍😍 OMG! *How* beautiful is this user interface. So many wonderful ways to search and navigate archival material! The ability to compile life stories clustering personal "life archives"--simply stunning.
Congrats @timhitchcock.bsky.social and all involved.
Congrats @timhitchcock.bsky.social and all involved.
Really pleased to announce the launch of the all-new, all-dancing, London Lives website - www.londonlives.org It has been thoroughly re-engineered to facilitate more types of search, and redesigned for phones and tablets. The team very much hopes peope like it. 1/
London Lives
www.londonlives.org
November 5, 2025 at 12:48 PM
😍😍😍 OMG! *How* beautiful is this user interface. So many wonderful ways to search and navigate archival material! The ability to compile life stories clustering personal "life archives"--simply stunning.
Congrats @timhitchcock.bsky.social and all involved.
Congrats @timhitchcock.bsky.social and all involved.
Reposted by Amalia S. Levi
What do pirates in Madagascar, a red knitted jumper, the sunken warship Vasa, captivity and colonialism, and the Prize Papers have in common? They're all part of our new online lecture series "Ships & Seafaring 1500–1800". Join us weekly on Mondays, 1pm CET, on Zoom #earlymodern #maritimehistory 🗃️
November 5, 2025 at 5:49 AM
What do pirates in Madagascar, a red knitted jumper, the sunken warship Vasa, captivity and colonialism, and the Prize Papers have in common? They're all part of our new online lecture series "Ships & Seafaring 1500–1800". Join us weekly on Mondays, 1pm CET, on Zoom #earlymodern #maritimehistory 🗃️
"...while recent models show competence in recursive knowledge tasks, they still rely on inconsistent reasoning strategies, suggesting superficial pattern matching rather than robust epistemic understanding."
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
Language models cannot reliably distinguish belief from knowledge and fact - Nature Machine Intelligence
Suzgun et al. find that current large language models cannot reliably distinguish between belief, knowledge and fact, raising concerns for their use in healthcare, law and journalism, where such disti...
www.nature.com
November 5, 2025 at 9:35 AM
"...while recent models show competence in recursive knowledge tasks, they still rely on inconsistent reasoning strategies, suggesting superficial pattern matching rather than robust epistemic understanding."
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
www.nature.com/articles/s42...
Reposted by Amalia S. Levi
Transkribus is the handwritten text recognition tool that we used to transcribe 25,000 wills from 1540-1790 for our Leverhulme project.
Beginners' guide here 👇
#DigitalHumanities 🗃️ #EarlyModern
Beginners' guide here 👇
#DigitalHumanities 🗃️ #EarlyModern
Did you miss our beginners' webinar last week? The complete recording of our step-by-step introduction to Transkribus is now available on YouTube 👇
Transkribus Webinar for Beginners (English)
Transkribus is the most popular tools for automatic text recognition of historical documents.
By watching this webinar recording, you will learn how to upload documents to Transkribus, perform…
youtu.be
November 4, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Transkribus is the handwritten text recognition tool that we used to transcribe 25,000 wills from 1540-1790 for our Leverhulme project.
Beginners' guide here 👇
#DigitalHumanities 🗃️ #EarlyModern
Beginners' guide here 👇
#DigitalHumanities 🗃️ #EarlyModern
Reposted by Amalia S. Levi
oooooooo! Foundling tokens are being nominated for Unesco's International Memory of the World Register! With archives in Portugal, Italy, Argentina, and Belgium nominating.
also VERY handy overview of collections with foundling tokens in that nomination form: ebesluit.antwerpen.be/zittingen/25...
also VERY handy overview of collections with foundling tokens in that nomination form: ebesluit.antwerpen.be/zittingen/25...
October 29, 2025 at 4:49 PM
oooooooo! Foundling tokens are being nominated for Unesco's International Memory of the World Register! With archives in Portugal, Italy, Argentina, and Belgium nominating.
also VERY handy overview of collections with foundling tokens in that nomination form: ebesluit.antwerpen.be/zittingen/25...
also VERY handy overview of collections with foundling tokens in that nomination form: ebesluit.antwerpen.be/zittingen/25...
"...the goal isn't to automate everything, but to amplify our capabilities while preserving the values and standards that make libraries essential cultural institutions."
Some thoughts from recent talks: 'AI and Machine Learning in Libraries: Promising, But Not Ready Yet' www.openobjects.org.uk/2025/10/ai-a...
AI and Machine Learning in Libraries: Promising, But Not Ready Yet – Open Objects
Open Objects
www.openobjects.org.uk
October 23, 2025 at 6:15 PM
"...the goal isn't to automate everything, but to amplify our capabilities while preserving the values and standards that make libraries essential cultural institutions."
Records manager, archivist, digital archivist
quantitative methods, qualitative methods, mixed methods
October 8, 2025 at 11:51 AM
Records manager, archivist, digital archivist
Reposted by Amalia S. Levi
The Introduction to Digital Publishing Handbook from the Digital Library of the Caribbean offers a guide to creating and sharing text-based digital publications.
Read the handbook at dloc.com/AA00114845/0...
#DigitalPublishing #OpenAccess #dLOC #CaribbeanArchives
Read the handbook at dloc.com/AA00114845/0...
#DigitalPublishing #OpenAccess #dLOC #CaribbeanArchives
October 7, 2025 at 7:52 PM
The Introduction to Digital Publishing Handbook from the Digital Library of the Caribbean offers a guide to creating and sharing text-based digital publications.
Read the handbook at dloc.com/AA00114845/0...
#DigitalPublishing #OpenAccess #dLOC #CaribbeanArchives
Read the handbook at dloc.com/AA00114845/0...
#DigitalPublishing #OpenAccess #dLOC #CaribbeanArchives
📣 Officially submitted--all 450 pages of it!
My PhD dissertation titled "Dependent Lives In and Beyond Archives: Enslaved People in Sephardic Jewish Households in Early Modern Bridgetown, Barbados (1654-1800)."
Defense is being scheduled for December!
My PhD dissertation titled "Dependent Lives In and Beyond Archives: Enslaved People in Sephardic Jewish Households in Early Modern Bridgetown, Barbados (1654-1800)."
Defense is being scheduled for December!
October 6, 2025 at 2:30 PM
📣 Officially submitted--all 450 pages of it!
My PhD dissertation titled "Dependent Lives In and Beyond Archives: Enslaved People in Sephardic Jewish Households in Early Modern Bridgetown, Barbados (1654-1800)."
Defense is being scheduled for December!
My PhD dissertation titled "Dependent Lives In and Beyond Archives: Enslaved People in Sephardic Jewish Households in Early Modern Bridgetown, Barbados (1654-1800)."
Defense is being scheduled for December!
Great to see the emphasis on public engagement as a way of giving back to the community, in crowdsourcing projects.
Important point: building the time for it into the workplan.
Important point: building the time for it into the workplan.
📢NEW POST📢
I had a chat with Catherine Hurcombe for the Public Engagement with Research at Exeter series.
Read on to learn more about the wills project engagement with volunteers and artists👇
#EarlyModern 🗃️ @uniofexeterhass.bsky.social @uoearchhist.bsky.social
sites.exeter.ac.uk/per/2025/09/...
I had a chat with Catherine Hurcombe for the Public Engagement with Research at Exeter series.
Read on to learn more about the wills project engagement with volunteers and artists👇
#EarlyModern 🗃️ @uniofexeterhass.bsky.social @uoearchhist.bsky.social
sites.exeter.ac.uk/per/2025/09/...
What's in a Will? Using Public Engagement to Add Depth to a Project
In this interview, Catherine Hurcombe speaks to Dr Laura Sangha from the Department of Archaeology and History about her role on the research project, The Material Culture of Wills, England 1540-1790,...
sites.exeter.ac.uk
October 6, 2025 at 8:05 AM
Great to see the emphasis on public engagement as a way of giving back to the community, in crowdsourcing projects.
Important point: building the time for it into the workplan.
Important point: building the time for it into the workplan.
Putting final touches to my dissertation and hope to submit it tomorrow, and I keep thinking that I can't thank enough all the amazing, awesome people behind @zotero.org not only for creating it, but also for sustaining! Such a huge service!
September 24, 2025 at 5:09 PM
Putting final touches to my dissertation and hope to submit it tomorrow, and I keep thinking that I can't thank enough all the amazing, awesome people behind @zotero.org not only for creating it, but also for sustaining! Such a huge service!
Beautiful archives and library infrastructure! 😍
(And lots of labor behind it!)
(And lots of labor behind it!)
Always a joy to be at the @bodleian.ox.ac.uk Collections Storage Facility - around 14 m collection items preserved there for students and scholars
September 5, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Beautiful archives and library infrastructure! 😍
(And lots of labor behind it!)
(And lots of labor behind it!)
Great discussion by @drjpw.bsky.social about ethical/methodological pitfalls of legacy descriptions of archival material, and the need to be sensitive to lived experience of marginalized people in the past.
Are you curious about the potential for archival practices to shape the study of emotion; why there are letters in the English State Papers labelled 'mad'; or how the culture & politics of Elizabethan England shaped people's experience of distress? Find out here! doi.org/10.1017/S008... #earlymodern
‘your poore distressed suppliant’: ‘Madness’, Emotion and the Archive in Early Modern England | Transactions of the Royal Historical Society | Cambridge Core
‘your poore distressed suppliant’: ‘Madness’, Emotion and the Archive in Early Modern England
doi.org
September 2, 2025 at 11:42 AM
Great discussion by @drjpw.bsky.social about ethical/methodological pitfalls of legacy descriptions of archival material, and the need to be sensitive to lived experience of marginalized people in the past.
Never a boring day in the archives! 🙃
Just removed the date label from an old book and discovered that someone has drawn a design for a teapot that can serve either tea or poison how's your day going?
August 29, 2025 at 10:15 AM
Never a boring day in the archives! 🙃
Reposted by Amalia S. Levi
How do we decolonise archives?
In this collaborative piece, researchers Christina Williamson, Beth Greenhorn, and Carol Payne and Inuit Elder Ann Meekitjuk Hanson reflect on the role of names in the colonial archive.
In this collaborative piece, researchers Christina Williamson, Beth Greenhorn, and Carol Payne and Inuit Elder Ann Meekitjuk Hanson reflect on the role of names in the colonial archive.
Project Naming
Explore the significance of Project Naming to decolonize archives and connect Inuit communities with their ancestral photographs.
www.historyworkshop.org.uk
August 28, 2025 at 6:19 AM
How do we decolonise archives?
In this collaborative piece, researchers Christina Williamson, Beth Greenhorn, and Carol Payne and Inuit Elder Ann Meekitjuk Hanson reflect on the role of names in the colonial archive.
In this collaborative piece, researchers Christina Williamson, Beth Greenhorn, and Carol Payne and Inuit Elder Ann Meekitjuk Hanson reflect on the role of names in the colonial archive.
Reposted by Amalia S. Levi
Editing revised chapters for the forthcoming 2nd edition of our guide to #EarlyModern 🗃️ sources today👌
The revised volume will also include 3 new chapters:
Part 1 'Sources':
- Digitised Sources
Part 2 'Histories':
- Race
- The Body, Mind & Emotions.
The revised volume will also include 3 new chapters:
Part 1 'Sources':
- Digitised Sources
Part 2 'Histories':
- Race
- The Body, Mind & Emotions.
August 22, 2025 at 1:18 PM
Editing revised chapters for the forthcoming 2nd edition of our guide to #EarlyModern 🗃️ sources today👌
The revised volume will also include 3 new chapters:
Part 1 'Sources':
- Digitised Sources
Part 2 'Histories':
- Race
- The Body, Mind & Emotions.
The revised volume will also include 3 new chapters:
Part 1 'Sources':
- Digitised Sources
Part 2 'Histories':
- Race
- The Body, Mind & Emotions.
Reposted by Amalia S. Levi
📢GREAT RESOURCE📢
Stumbled on Carissa Chew's Inclusive Terminology Glossary, which collates information about historic & current usage of words related to race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, disability.
itg.nls.uk/wiki/Introdu...
Stumbled on Carissa Chew's Inclusive Terminology Glossary, which collates information about historic & current usage of words related to race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, disability.
itg.nls.uk/wiki/Introdu...
Chew Inclusive Terminology Glossary
itg.nls.uk
August 21, 2025 at 11:44 AM
📢GREAT RESOURCE📢
Stumbled on Carissa Chew's Inclusive Terminology Glossary, which collates information about historic & current usage of words related to race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, disability.
itg.nls.uk/wiki/Introdu...
Stumbled on Carissa Chew's Inclusive Terminology Glossary, which collates information about historic & current usage of words related to race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, disability.
itg.nls.uk/wiki/Introdu...
Reposted by Amalia S. Levi
OOOO! The latest special issue for the Journal of #EarlyModern History is on Archives & Objects, a dialogue between the archival and material turn 🤩
Would you look at that ace table of contents 🤩
brill.com/view/journal...
#YayArchives! #HistArchives!
Would you look at that ace table of contents 🤩
brill.com/view/journal...
#YayArchives! #HistArchives!
August 17, 2025 at 2:59 PM
OOOO! The latest special issue for the Journal of #EarlyModern History is on Archives & Objects, a dialogue between the archival and material turn 🤩
Would you look at that ace table of contents 🤩
brill.com/view/journal...
#YayArchives! #HistArchives!
Would you look at that ace table of contents 🤩
brill.com/view/journal...
#YayArchives! #HistArchives!
Reposted by Amalia S. Levi
I really dislike how science has started calling almost any fancy computational technique AI. 🧪
The framing of this entire article makes it sound like a benevolent AI independently made these drugs.
That is *pure fantasy*.
Instead: a team of scientists made a machine learning model for a study.
The framing of this entire article makes it sound like a benevolent AI independently made these drugs.
That is *pure fantasy*.
Instead: a team of scientists made a machine learning model for a study.
August 15, 2025 at 6:14 AM
I really dislike how science has started calling almost any fancy computational technique AI. 🧪
The framing of this entire article makes it sound like a benevolent AI independently made these drugs.
That is *pure fantasy*.
Instead: a team of scientists made a machine learning model for a study.
The framing of this entire article makes it sound like a benevolent AI independently made these drugs.
That is *pure fantasy*.
Instead: a team of scientists made a machine learning model for a study.
I've contributed an essay to this DEPENDENT issue:
"Archival Trajectories: Information Beyond Content"
It gives an overview of my PhD research that focuses on why we find what we find, i.e., the many recordkeeping and archival dependencies that underpin what is visible and accessible today.
"Archival Trajectories: Information Beyond Content"
It gives an overview of my PhD research that focuses on why we find what we find, i.e., the many recordkeeping and archival dependencies that underpin what is visible and accessible today.
📣The new DEPENDENT on "Archives" is out now! This edition explores archives not as neutral repositories, but as active, contested spaces where power, resistance, and memory intersect.
👉More info: ow.ly/I4W450WzRGz
@unibonn.bsky.social @dfg.de
👉More info: ow.ly/I4W450WzRGz
@unibonn.bsky.social @dfg.de
August 6, 2025 at 10:39 AM
I've contributed an essay to this DEPENDENT issue:
"Archival Trajectories: Information Beyond Content"
It gives an overview of my PhD research that focuses on why we find what we find, i.e., the many recordkeeping and archival dependencies that underpin what is visible and accessible today.
"Archival Trajectories: Information Beyond Content"
It gives an overview of my PhD research that focuses on why we find what we find, i.e., the many recordkeeping and archival dependencies that underpin what is visible and accessible today.
Reposted by Amalia S. Levi
Now also in English! Including eight stories by yours truly, about Rembrandt’s Black neighbours, Armenian merchants fighting at the stock market, indigenous Surinamese leaders in 17th century Amsterdam and more.
AVAILABLE NOW: The English edition of our jubilee #book, #Amsterdam #750 Years!
Last year, #OnsAmsterdam #750jaar was published. With over 10,000 copies sold, it has been a great success! We are delighted to announce that the English edition will be released this month. 1/2
Last year, #OnsAmsterdam #750jaar was published. With over 10,000 copies sold, it has been a great success! We are delighted to announce that the English edition will be released this month. 1/2
July 26, 2025 at 11:46 AM
Now also in English! Including eight stories by yours truly, about Rembrandt’s Black neighbours, Armenian merchants fighting at the stock market, indigenous Surinamese leaders in 17th century Amsterdam and more.
Probably a study written by people who have never set foot in an achives, thus are totally oblivious that the *vast* majority of...history isn't digitized, has minimal descriptions, often is 'hidden' etc. etc. etc.
O--and no "history" is complete if it doesn't account for what's missing and why...
O--and no "history" is complete if it doesn't account for what's missing and why...
This incredibly worrying study suggests Historians are the 2nd most likely occupation to be supplanted by AI.
That’s despite the fact that current AI history output is wildly unreliable, unsourced, hallucinates fale events, sources, and previous historians!!
Yay 😬😩🤪
arxiv.org/pdf/2507.07935
That’s despite the fact that current AI history output is wildly unreliable, unsourced, hallucinates fale events, sources, and previous historians!!
Yay 😬😩🤪
arxiv.org/pdf/2507.07935
arxiv.org
July 24, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Probably a study written by people who have never set foot in an achives, thus are totally oblivious that the *vast* majority of...history isn't digitized, has minimal descriptions, often is 'hidden' etc. etc. etc.
O--and no "history" is complete if it doesn't account for what's missing and why...
O--and no "history" is complete if it doesn't account for what's missing and why...
Reposted by Amalia S. Levi
Knowledge infrastructures we rely upon today reflect and perpetuate dependencies and technologies of imperial power and colonial control.
🧵
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July 13, 2025 at 9:01 PM
Knowledge infrastructures we rely upon today reflect and perpetuate dependencies and technologies of imperial power and colonial control.
🧵
🧵