In 2025, I helped write BCIT's first Algorithmic Impact Assessment. Here's a link: drive.google.com/file/d/1S1i_...
With AIAs now required for ed tech tools that make automated decisions, I am working to stop the use of AI surveillance software here. It's always about protecting students from harm.
Ventilation, it's the new (old) hand washing www.ala.org/news/2025/12...
lol, love when reporters get snarky
Thinking about that time I got "not simping for vendors/publishers" into an official Library report.
I have an edited primary source collection coming out on disability and deformity in c19th Britain. My hope is that you find it useful for teaching (apologies for the abstract, I did not write it! and the cost) #histmed #dishist www.routledge.com/Physical-Dis...
At B.C.’s universities, a violent RCMP unit showed up to spy on student Palestine protests.
A Breach investigation reveals how the CRU was shaping the encampment response, as the militarized unit grows itself into Canada’s go-to force to repress dissent. breachmedia.ca/a-notorious-...
I am a sucker for a cool lichen.
Senior author of classic theory of mind & autism paper (Frith) minimizes autistic ppl's sensory issues. www.tes.com/magazine/tea...
Yet hypersensitivity is in original (Sukhareva, Asperger, Kanner), autistics' accounts. Interaction happens *btwn* ppl. More in sensory-1st paper:
tinyurl.com/3dvbahy8
I try not to give career advice. I prefer to give career omens.
Every episode has been transcribed and searchable, idk for how long it'll be up for free but I submitted our feed to this site. podscripts.co/podcasts/lib...
Anyway, stop reading The New York Times. They’ve been supporting facists for decades.
"Mr. Houston listens only to industries, facilitating their wish to make money by degrading the land and its freshwaters. Those who speak for nature and environmental consequences are labelled “the enemy.”"
"When the field of history is left uncrowded by historians with full-time employment, historical actors—with self-serving intentions—who wish to exculpate and justify their actions will fill the vacuum."
You can always tell an institution’s values based off of how it *spends* money.
Even in capitalism, the goal isn’t straightforwardly to make money. It’s about power.
And some things are considered worthless no matter the monetary gains while others are considered valuable no matter the cost.
The Liberal government of NB is proposing to sabotage our thriving higher ed sector.
It's hard to tell if this is incompetence, malice, or neoliberal disaster capitalism.
Regardless, it's not too late to turn back.
@kristiallain.bsky.social and I explain for @canadiandimension.bsky.social.
newspaper photograph of a Black woman with short grey hair standing on front of a bookshelf. She is wearing glasses and a patterned sweater.
Monteria Hightower was State Librarian of Missouri and left when she felt she was being asked to give special privileges to state employees incl. Governor Ashcroft. She fought the politicization of the library & later became State Librarian of Nevada #BlackHistoryMonth
www.jstor.org/stable/25633...
The good news is that the Canadian Privacy Library has been updated with Coast Mountain College and NVIT's Privacy Impact Assessments from 2024-2026.
The bad news is that these institutions have completed zero Privacy Impact Assessments in the past two years.
This was delightful! (and also an accurate in predicting from 1897 that automation/'AI' will bonk humanity on the head and will need to be hammered back down to size)
This is what I think about when people say we need to give people "AI literacy". How do you AI literacy out of this exactly? This shows how absurd the concept is, this is what the goal of AI is for every worker.
The left is not "missing out" on AI. It's winning the argument. Americans worry about AI and dislike tech CEOs. They're mobilizing against data centers. They support regulation, even refusal.
Calls for the left to embrace AI are an effort to change the terms of the debate in Silicon Valley's favor.
I appreciate this video because it highlights that the broken promises about NYC libraries are about money AND also about ending the budget dance. BOTH are important here and I think that a lot of people miss this.
www.instagram.com/reels/DU_ptU...
159 - Why We Fear AI feat. Hagen Blix
This week we’re joined by @hagenblix.bsky.social to talk about their new book on AI and labor/power/knowledge/eugenics. We also discuss some library Reddit developments.
Distressing news for our @munfaculty.bsky.social colleagues and others impacted by these decisions.
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
Map of Canada with the province of Ontario highlighted. Text that reads "Recent data shows 59% of Ontario students and their families have difficulty paying tuition fees. Canadian average: 48%"
Ontario is lowering OSAP so students only receive 25% of funding through grants.
48% of Canadian students report struggling with the cost of tuition. In Ontario, that number jumps to 59%.
Federal grants are also on the chopping block.
Student support should be increasing, not decreasing.
This sucks. Worldcat used to be amazing.
Though seriously, travelling while disabled hasn't felt like its gotten any better.
