Joshua Ortiz Baco
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jgob.bsky.social
Joshua Ortiz Baco
@jgob.bsky.social
Digital Scholarship Librarian and Recovering Spanish and Portuguese PhD

Relearning how to live and work inside and out of academia. Constantly away from home 🏴󠁵󠁳󠁰󠁲󠁿 🇵🇷 🏴󠁵󠁳󠁰󠁲󠁿

Editor for @proghist.bsky.social #DH #MultilingualDH #Libraries #Caribbean #LatinAmerica
Reposted by Joshua Ortiz Baco
When I think about how exquisitely careful NEH staff were to be fair, impartial, and rigorous, and how much work people put into grants so small they’re pocket change…I just want to scream.
Fired Scholars and Big Grants to Favored Projects: Inside Trump’s N.E.H.
www.nytimes.com
November 15, 2025 at 4:12 PM
Reposted by Joshua Ortiz Baco
I am beyond thrilled to share that DATA BY DESIGN: AN INTERACTIVE HISTORY OF DATA VISUALIZATION, 1789-1900 is now open for community review at 💚 📊 dataxdesign.io 📊 💙. It's the work of 15+ people across 5 institutions, 2 continents, 2 babies, and a global pandemic. A 🧵 but first:
May 21, 2024 at 2:32 PM
Reposted by Joshua Ortiz Baco
Our latest book - "Text and Data Mining Literacy for Librarians," edited by Whitney Kramer, Iliana Burgos, and Evan Muzzall - demonstrates how academic libraries are supporting TDM literacy through services, workflows, and professional development. https://bit.ly/428QlNC
September 24, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Reposted by Joshua Ortiz Baco
In Latin America, LGBTQ+ history collections are a form of resistance. Grassroots projects are using the memories of community members to fight against systematic violence and demand justice. www.wired.com/story/lgbtq-...
These LGBTQ+ Archives Defy Erasure, One Memory at a Time
In Latin America, LGBTQ+ history collections are a form of resistance. Grassroots projects are using the memories of community members to fight against systematic violence and demand justice.
www.wired.com
July 13, 2025 at 9:33 AM
Reposted by Joshua Ortiz Baco
Dr. Hayden has been such a transformative and inspiring Librarian for the past decade. If you haven't had the privilege to spend time with LC staff, you may not realize what a sea change she brought to our national library. One of the all-time greats. A huge loss for millions and millions.
BREAKING: President Donald Trump abruptly fires Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden.

The dismissal was disclosed in statements from three top House Democrats and confirmed by a separate person familiar with the matter.
President Donald Trump fires Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden
President Donald Trump has abruptly fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden as the White House continues to purge the federal government of those perceived to oppose the president and his agenda.
bit.ly
May 9, 2025 at 1:42 AM
Reposted by Joshua Ortiz Baco
If you'd like to see all the canceled NEH grants at variance with agency priorities that allegedly will fail to inspire your confidence in use of taxpayer funds, go explore impact.ach.org. Then contact your representatives about this outrageous cull.
NEH Grants 2025
NEH Grants 2025
impact.ach.org
April 24, 2025 at 5:54 PM
Reposted by Joshua Ortiz Baco
🔥 📝 FOLKS — I'm working on a piece for Slate about the NEH cuts. If you've been affected in ANY way and would be willing to talk with me, please message me! I would love to learn more and include your story. katina [at] katinarogers [dot] com

#humanities #neh #education #highered
April 7, 2025 at 11:05 PM
Reposted by Joshua Ortiz Baco
New year, same (or new!) reading habits:

💓Supporting indie bookshops & libraries
📚Getting so absorbed in a book, we lose all sense of time/place
🔎Discovering new authors
✅Making sure we’re reading a diverse range of authors/stories
❓Asking a bookseller for their recs
January 27, 2025 at 6:11 PM
Back to the real world after spending a week at #DH2024 Still feeling grateful and inspired by the amazing people I got to see. So many Zoom friends and colleagues irl!
August 12, 2024 at 11:13 AM
Reposted by Joshua Ortiz Baco
Officially launching CariDiScho 2024. Many new things this round: dozens of new entries, whole new design, obituary section, new filters, keyboard and swipe support, and new feedback forms. Enjoy!

thecaribbeandigital.org/caridischo/
CariDiScho
A Directory of Caribbean Digital Scholarship
thecaribbeandigital.org
July 1, 2024 at 2:36 PM
Reposted by Joshua Ortiz Baco
A thing I wrote is now out in the world: doi.org/10.1093/jahi...

It is a short review essay of how historians and archivists have been using the web since the '90s (US perspective), to collect personal histories & eye witness accounts following current events & reflecting on the past
“Share Your Story”: Legacies of Online Collecting
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, we as historians knew that we had witnessed a major set of events and that we would not be able to fully ass
doi.org
July 2, 2024 at 12:51 PM
Reposted by Joshua Ortiz Baco
Keystone DH 2024 is almost here! Stay tuned for updates by following our socials.
May 19, 2024 at 11:05 PM
Need an out of office reply that respectfully informs everyone that, “I already interacted with too many people at work for this week and will not be responding to your email until I reset next week. I like all of you, I just don’t have any thoughts left.”
January 30, 2024 at 7:54 PM
My daily reminder of how AI, or really ML, still sucks at basic things: the automatic spam detection in gmail and outlook both cost me a sub-$200 Mac Pro I bid on even though the seller’s email is in my “safe senders” 🙄😤
January 22, 2024 at 10:30 PM
Given all the “data driven cost efficient” language in higher ed lately, I was wondering how big a bureaucracy would be needed to enforce 🎶everything old is new again 🎹censoring and intimidation tactics. This gives a pretty accurate figure: a lot.
Would also be a shame if online scripts existed with instructions to let you repeatedly spam each web-form quickly.

Would really be a shame.
github.com/uhohspaghett...
GitHub - uhohspaghettioo/no-snitching
Contribute to uhohspaghettioo/no-snitching development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
January 20, 2024 at 6:10 AM
There was no better way to debut at #MLA24 than a panel with @jenniferisasi.bsky.social, Tyeschia Thompson, and @walshbr.bsky.social
Great talks by too many people to tag here so I’ll just say thank you to the #DH folks!
January 7, 2024 at 12:26 AM
Hey there little friend.
October 20, 2023 at 11:23 PM
Pine-o-lantern! This I can get behind.
September 30, 2023 at 4:38 AM
🏴󠁵󠁳󠁰󠁲󠁿 🇵🇷 09/23/23 is the 155th Anniversary of the Declaration of the Puerto Rican Republic and Independence:
“The Revolution to establish the independence of the homeland has never failed…the time it takes to claim its sovereignty from foreign interventions does not matter.” Albizu Campos
September 23, 2023 at 5:39 PM
50% (ideally) of being a librarian is to bring people to those doors.
I like to compare big state R1s to the Kafka story “Before the Law“: there’s a door somewhere on our campus, meant specifically for you, with fabulous resources behind it. Whether you ever discover this door, however, or manage to open it, is a matter of pure chance. 
September 23, 2023 at 3:12 PM
The irony of getting to the end of the work week, realizing I have to work over the weekend, and having this as the last task on my list:
“Reach out to people that can help me work smarter, not harder”
September 22, 2023 at 8:38 PM