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Pro tip: If you are an author (or other copyright holder) and want to make your books widely available to the public, you can fill out this form and HathiTrust will open access to their digital copies with a Creative Commons license you select.
We have been at home so long that our dog is offering free hugs
New issue of my newsletter is out: “Humane Ingenuity 19: Credit Where Credit Is Due”—more on the Smithsonian’s new open access collection; a time machine from the early 1980s; two ethical apps (with a shout-out to @manton); 16th-century steampunk. (Subscribe to Humane Ingenuity.)
My guest on this week’s What’s New podcast from the Northeastern University Library is Bonzai Caruso, a five-time Grammy-winning music producer who has worked w/ Grandmaster Flash, Madonna, Alicia Keys, and many others. 30 minutes of fun non-virus content.
If the rest of the school year is canceled, my kids will have only made it through three-quarters of chemistry. They will only know the elements through cesium. Their entire generation will know not of tungsten, much less flerovium.
I needed to talk about and listen to something that was not virus-related, so I called a Grammy-winning hip hop, reggae, and pop producer to discuss what it’s like to make music w/ Grandmaster Flash, Madonna, and Alicia Keys—new What’s New drops tomorrow.
Along with my colleague in the history dept @Northeastern, Victoria Cain, I was interviewed by the Boston Globe about putting the coronavirus outbreak into historical context, and how we might remember and preserve this era through personal journaling.
Today’s print edition of the New York Times had no sports scores or league standings, I assume for the first time in over a century.
Regarding our refrigerator, we have reached the “use all parts of the buffalo” stage.
Since “going out” now means “walking around my neighborhood,” I’m trying to notice something new each day. Here’s a proud little sign embedded in a rare stretch of sidewalk that has lasted for 100 years.
“Ignaz Semmelweis, who in the 1840s invited the ridicule of his colleagues by suggesting that surgeons wash their hands between conducting an autopsy and delivering a baby…”—Anton Howes on the medical history of hand washing.
My colleague’s bunny is the world champion of sheltering in place
Disease outbreak map by Dr. Seuss, 1943. (via the David Rumsey Map Center)
Next-level social distancing in Boston
New issue of my newsletter is out: “Humane Ingenuity 18: Closing Time”—what it’s like to have to close a library in dark times, and what we can learn from the process. (Subscribe to get every issue of Humane Ingenuity.)
The only thing more excited about my working from home than my dog is the fan on my computer.
Of course it’s snowing on St. Patrick’s Day, because this is the worst movie script ever.
For those wondering if the internet can handle all of this, Kanopy, a provider of streaming media to many libraries, got so slammed today with traffic that many people couldn’t access it.
oh i see u are trying to work from home
Kudos to the 50 university presses, nonprofit and commercial publishers who are providing unlimited access to their ebooks for the next three months (for university subscribers). Hard to teach a course online with an ebook that can only be checked out by one student at a time.
First day of our library’s staff all working from home after we tapered off staffing last week. We’re posting photos of pets looking over shoulders into our library-wide chat channel.
Yes, Isaac Newton made breakthroughs in math and physics during dark times, and he also studied…alchemy. Feel free to let your mind and interests wander while you’re stuck at home.
In these times, I recommend reading Frank Snowden’s The Conquest of Malaria: Italy, 1900-1962, which shows how the response to a pandemic can lead to an expansion of civil rights, worker protections, and education…or the complete opposite of all of that, sometimes in succession
While we panic about the coronavirus, the long-term existential threat remains: climate change. On What’s New, I talk to Ron Sandler about ethical approaches to this threat. Is it ok to save some species and not others? Are genetically modified crops ok?
If I can stop touching my face, my dog should be able to stop eating sponges.