Desmond
@dsmdwng.bsky.social
ur favourite librarian’s favourite librarian
🤦
"Louis Riel would have been a big supporter of our pipelines and development in the Ring of Fire. He would have seen Canada undermining Indigenous sovereignty to prioritize Canadian 'nation building' projects as an example of reconciliation, of what the Métis fought for in 1869 and 1885."
Carney says Louis Riel's legacy 'helps to unite' Canada at event marking Métis leader's execution | CBC News
Prime Minister Mark Carney laid a wreath at the grave of Louis Riel to mark the 140th anniversary of the Red River Métis leader's execution at a ceremony in Winnipeg on Sunday morning.
www.cbc.ca
November 17, 2025 at 7:50 PM
🤦
Reposted by Desmond
every librarian I know would crawl over broken glass for the chance to fistfight an ebook company executive. the ebook policies are genuinely diabolical
November 16, 2025 at 1:28 AM
every librarian I know would crawl over broken glass for the chance to fistfight an ebook company executive. the ebook policies are genuinely diabolical
We have entered the part of the year where I won’t have volume in my hair for like 6 months because I’m always wearing a hood or hat 😭
November 10, 2025 at 2:09 PM
We have entered the part of the year where I won’t have volume in my hair for like 6 months because I’m always wearing a hood or hat 😭
Reposted by Desmond
Provinces are responsible for health and education - let's start talking to voters who keep voting to defund these essential services. www.policyalternatives.ca/news-researc...
Ontario has underfunded schools by $6.3 billion since 2018 - CCPA
The 2025 Ontario budget has lots of big numbers, but fails to address funding shortfalls in core program areas. CCPA’s same-day budget analysis examined the broad trend, and in an article for The Toro...
www.policyalternatives.ca
November 1, 2025 at 8:30 PM
Provinces are responsible for health and education - let's start talking to voters who keep voting to defund these essential services. www.policyalternatives.ca/news-researc...
Reposted by Desmond
After losing in state court, the company behind Line 5 tried to move the case to federal court. The problem with that move is that it was illegal. An appeals court rejected the bid, but now the pipeline company is appealing to the Supreme Court.
Michigan Tribes Tell Supreme Court: Don’t Bail Out Enbridge
Ten Michigan Tribal Nations have filed an amicus brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reject Enbridge’s “underhanded procedural tactics” in the ongoing legal fight over the Line 5 oil pipelines.
nativenewsonline.net
October 31, 2025 at 12:36 AM
After losing in state court, the company behind Line 5 tried to move the case to federal court. The problem with that move is that it was illegal. An appeals court rejected the bid, but now the pipeline company is appealing to the Supreme Court.
Reposted by Desmond
Tlingit artist Nicholas Galanin, “Architecture of return, escape (The British Museum)”, a deerskin map a floor plan of the British Museum and possible escape routes for various Indigenous cultural belongings held there.
September 6, 2025 at 5:46 PM
Tlingit artist Nicholas Galanin, “Architecture of return, escape (The British Museum)”, a deerskin map a floor plan of the British Museum and possible escape routes for various Indigenous cultural belongings held there.
Reposted by Desmond
Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.
Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry
Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry
Paul McCartne, Elton John and others signed an open letter.
buff.ly
October 8, 2025 at 10:29 AM
Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.
Reposted by Desmond
USEFUL: Generative Al License Tracker from Ithaca S+R sr.ithaka.org/our-work/gen... Tracking deals publishers have with companies licensing their scholarly content for use as training data for LLM
(Noting the 'their content' aspect of this - read your publishing agreements folks before signing)
(Noting the 'their content' aspect of this - read your publishing agreements folks before signing)
Generative AI Licensing Agreement Tracker - Ithaka S+R
In recent months, several publishers have announced that they are licensing their scholarly content for use as training data for LLMs. These deals
sr.ithaka.org
September 30, 2025 at 12:16 AM
USEFUL: Generative Al License Tracker from Ithaca S+R sr.ithaka.org/our-work/gen... Tracking deals publishers have with companies licensing their scholarly content for use as training data for LLM
(Noting the 'their content' aspect of this - read your publishing agreements folks before signing)
(Noting the 'their content' aspect of this - read your publishing agreements folks before signing)
Reposted by Desmond
the post office is a public service. it doesn’t need to make money. public transit doesn’t need to make money. the library doesn’t need to make money. some things exist for the public good and we desperately need lawmakers to stop thinking about them in terms of capitalism. these are not businesses.
September 25, 2025 at 11:09 PM
the post office is a public service. it doesn’t need to make money. public transit doesn’t need to make money. the library doesn’t need to make money. some things exist for the public good and we desperately need lawmakers to stop thinking about them in terms of capitalism. these are not businesses.
The notwithstanding clause has got to go.
Doug Ford announces he will use the notwithstanding clause to ban speed cameras, as folks are sick of getting tickets for driving 4, 5 or 60km over the speed limit.
September 25, 2025 at 8:20 PM
The notwithstanding clause has got to go.
Concept rendered meaningless through collision with the internet: third space
September 24, 2025 at 3:38 AM
Concept rendered meaningless through collision with the internet: third space
Reposted by Desmond
A key reminder right now, from @prisonculture.bsky.social:
"We are actually in a consistent battle to unleash and free our imaginations in the face of unrelenting oppression... Imagination is an important terrain of struggle."
prisonculture.substack.com/p/abolition-...
"We are actually in a consistent battle to unleash and free our imaginations in the face of unrelenting oppression... Imagination is an important terrain of struggle."
prisonculture.substack.com/p/abolition-...
September 22, 2025 at 2:34 PM
A key reminder right now, from @prisonculture.bsky.social:
"We are actually in a consistent battle to unleash and free our imaginations in the face of unrelenting oppression... Imagination is an important terrain of struggle."
prisonculture.substack.com/p/abolition-...
"We are actually in a consistent battle to unleash and free our imaginations in the face of unrelenting oppression... Imagination is an important terrain of struggle."
prisonculture.substack.com/p/abolition-...
Reposted by Desmond
normalizing mask wearing makes criminalization, from this kind of surveillance to mask bans, way harder. you wearing a respirator to the grocery store, on transit, in healthcare is a practice of solidarity with the most marginalized in your community on more than one level.
A problem with most people thinking COVID-19 is no longer a threat is that I just had a weird loss prevention dude follow me around a grocery store (occasionally coughing) because he could not fathom that anyone wearing a face mask (despite me also using a cane)- wasn't nefarious. We're in a surge.
September 15, 2025 at 8:20 PM
normalizing mask wearing makes criminalization, from this kind of surveillance to mask bans, way harder. you wearing a respirator to the grocery store, on transit, in healthcare is a practice of solidarity with the most marginalized in your community on more than one level.
Reposted by Desmond
".. capitalism has always required the social differentiation and hierarchization of race. [..] the social differentiation of race is not a secondary outcome of capitalism but, rather, the racial expropriation of land, labor, and life is innately constitutive of capitalism."
@harshawalia.bsky.social
@harshawalia.bsky.social
September 7, 2025 at 12:38 AM
".. capitalism has always required the social differentiation and hierarchization of race. [..] the social differentiation of race is not a secondary outcome of capitalism but, rather, the racial expropriation of land, labor, and life is innately constitutive of capitalism."
@harshawalia.bsky.social
@harshawalia.bsky.social
Reposted by Desmond
Vaid continues, quoting Frederick Douglass: “What I do believe is that power yields nothing without a demand & without some kind of countervailing power to win that demand. I believe that organizing to redistribute power & access more democratically is how we will bring about change.”
September 3, 2025 at 1:29 AM
Vaid continues, quoting Frederick Douglass: “What I do believe is that power yields nothing without a demand & without some kind of countervailing power to win that demand. I believe that organizing to redistribute power & access more democratically is how we will bring about change.”
Reposted by Desmond
It worries me how often I am seeing "teach AI literacy" basically meaning "teach patrons how to use AI" as if those are the same thing.
August 18, 2025 at 12:54 PM
It worries me how often I am seeing "teach AI literacy" basically meaning "teach patrons how to use AI" as if those are the same thing.
Reposted by Desmond
For almost two decades, Nunavut has been working on the largest land use plan in the world — but the process appears stalled, while a renewed interest in northern development has led mining claims in proposed protected areas to spike. New from @chloewilliams.bsky.social thenarwhal.ca/nunavut-land...
Mining rush won’t wait for Nunavut Land Use Plan | The Narwhal
In Nunavut, the largest land use plan in the world has been in progress for 19 years. The mining industry is moving faster
thenarwhal.ca
August 14, 2025 at 3:18 PM
For almost two decades, Nunavut has been working on the largest land use plan in the world — but the process appears stalled, while a renewed interest in northern development has led mining claims in proposed protected areas to spike. New from @chloewilliams.bsky.social thenarwhal.ca/nunavut-land...
Reposted by Desmond
I've been thinking a lot about how I really hate the implication that AI skeptics are luddites because most of the AI skeptics I know are relatively tech savvy while the biggest AI champions I know can barely use email
Funny how when it comes to AI people are all "adapt or be left behind" but when it comes to remote work the same people insist that things must go back to how they were at all cost.
August 14, 2025 at 11:56 AM
I've been thinking a lot about how I really hate the implication that AI skeptics are luddites because most of the AI skeptics I know are relatively tech savvy while the biggest AI champions I know can barely use email
FWIW, your local library has probably been fighting EBook Central about these changes. I know we have been.
Okay this is worse than I thought. A large # of academic press books (incld. a textbook I use in class) have been moved to a platform called Ebook Central. It's like Kindle paired w/ AI. No footnotes. No page #s No facsimile PDFs are available. I just wrote a lengthy complaint to my library. Sigh.
AI rant of the day. My library is using a new ebook platform for Leon Litwack's book "Trouble in Mind." You can no longer see page numbers or footnotes. And there is a running AI summary of the book next to the text. It's USELESS now.
August 5, 2025 at 5:35 PM
FWIW, your local library has probably been fighting EBook Central about these changes. I know we have been.
Reposted by Desmond
Library and Archives #Canada Announces Its First Creator In Residence www.canada.ca/en/library-a... #libraries
July 31, 2025 at 1:55 PM
Library and Archives #Canada Announces Its First Creator In Residence www.canada.ca/en/library-a... #libraries
Reposted by Desmond
Prime Minister Mark Carney announces that Canada will recognize the state of Palestine at the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in September.
Carney says this move comes amid Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and its relentless war on Gaza.
Carney says this move comes amid Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and its relentless war on Gaza.
July 30, 2025 at 9:20 PM
Prime Minister Mark Carney announces that Canada will recognize the state of Palestine at the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in September.
Carney says this move comes amid Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and its relentless war on Gaza.
Carney says this move comes amid Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and its relentless war on Gaza.
Reposted by Desmond
Yeah, definitely nothing suspicious about Ex Libris of all companies selling us a tool that won't answer questions about Gaza
July 30, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Yeah, definitely nothing suspicious about Ex Libris of all companies selling us a tool that won't answer questions about Gaza
Reposted by Desmond
All those AI-powered tools library vendors are turning on by default (or your library is choosing to active)?
Yeah, they aren't neutral, they aren't accurate, and the companies have no interest in providing clarity. 📚
acrlog.org/2025/07/21/w...
Yeah, they aren't neutral, they aren't accurate, and the companies have no interest in providing clarity. 📚
acrlog.org/2025/07/21/w...
“We Couldn’t Generate an Answer for your Question” - ACRLog
Editor’s note: We welcome a guest blog post from Jay Singley, Document Delivery and Circulation Desk Manager at North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics. In March 2025, Ex Libris unveiled thei...
acrlog.org
July 30, 2025 at 1:15 PM
All those AI-powered tools library vendors are turning on by default (or your library is choosing to active)?
Yeah, they aren't neutral, they aren't accurate, and the companies have no interest in providing clarity. 📚
acrlog.org/2025/07/21/w...
Yeah, they aren't neutral, they aren't accurate, and the companies have no interest in providing clarity. 📚
acrlog.org/2025/07/21/w...
Reposted by Desmond
My @thestar.com column this week: More than a decade ago, Doug Ford helped usher in an era of outsourcing public services at city hall. The private sector contracts for services like garbage pickup were supposed to save a lot of money.
The numbers say they haven’t.
www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...
The numbers say they haven’t.
www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...
Matt Elliott: Doug Ford helped usher in an era of outsourcing at Toronto city hall. Olivia Chow may be finally pushing back
New reports suggest there are good reasons to question whether letting private companies carry out public services is the best for the city.
www.thestar.com
July 22, 2025 at 3:04 PM
My @thestar.com column this week: More than a decade ago, Doug Ford helped usher in an era of outsourcing public services at city hall. The private sector contracts for services like garbage pickup were supposed to save a lot of money.
The numbers say they haven’t.
www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...
The numbers say they haven’t.
www.thestar.com/opinion/cont...