Brit-Canadian archivist-librarian, trad-classical musician, post-academic philosophy PhD, and other hyphenated things. Can't help it: so much to learn.

Joined January 2015
814 Photos and videos
Samantha Thompson retweeted
Got my printing presses set up at last. Did a quick test—my first real print ever—with a simple business card. Elegant. Refined. Misspelled.
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Always
Sometimes it is very exciting to know you are going to get a previous reader’s notes and thoughts
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Samantha Thompson retweeted
We have always been heart-damaged but now we are quite clearly a brain-damaged people.
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The bulk of the human work involved here was gathering the sources so AI could "read" them. Presumably this could have included fetching and transcribing original primary sources from archives. So this chap was essentially a good old-fashioned research assistant for a machine.
🚨Claude Code just gave me a complete research paper with a single prompt. The paper has a strong argument and even beats AI-detection app, Pangram. With a little editing, it can pass for 100% human, and can be easily submitted for peer review. Here's the workflow I used:
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Archivists say yes please.
After my father passed away, I went through his library to keep some of his books. Many of his books are marked up and have notes in the margins. These marginalia of his he left behind have given me a glimpse into the reading that shaped his mind, soul, and spirituality. Mark up those books and give future generations marginalia to see what writings and authors influenced you.
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Samantha Thompson retweeted
This is functionally historians' hobo code. Do *not* expect a hot meal at this library.
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Samantha Thompson retweeted
Curious: fed one of my articles from 2020 into an AI detector. Heartbreaking: 10% AI written. Unsettling: it highlighted all of the quotes from the the epistles of Paul
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Samantha Thompson retweeted
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Samantha Thompson retweeted
May 24
there was something beautiful about library checkout cards because you could literally see the history of human curiosity attached to a book. like a tiny ghost trail of strangers connected by the same story.
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Samantha Thompson retweeted
🗞️ A new song by Ralph Vaughan Williams has been discovered! ‘Before the Mirror’ is a setting of part of a poem by Swinburne. It was recently unearthed in a box of odd manuscripts in the archive of Morley College by Learning Resources Centre Manager, Elaine Andrews. 🧵1/3
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Astonishingly, this is a model. Why do we so love miniatures and dioramas, little worlds? There must be a spiritual dimension to it I think.
Random model photo from the archives…
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Samantha Thompson retweeted
“Practically all of our made world represents a huge waste of effort: it includes the world of war, of cutthroat competition, of stagnating bureaucracies, of the lying and hypocrisy of what is called public relations. Above all, it has not achieved any genuine rapprochement with nature itself, but simply regards nature as an area of exploitation.” —Northrop Frye, The Double Vision
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Samantha Thompson retweeted
A man has returned medieval tiles he took as a child nearly 60 years ago, after rediscovering them in a toffee tin during a house move. The fragments, dating back to the 13th–14th century, were taken from Wenlock Priory and have now been handed back to English Heritage. Experts say one piece even revealed a previously unknown dragon design, turning a childhood souvenir into a small but meaningful archaeological find. 🔗 theguardian.com/culture/2026…
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Samantha Thompson retweeted
Lord Devon’s lineage “goes back to the Crusades”. But so does mine. And yours. And literally everybody’s. Less well off people weren’t beamed onto earth during the Industrial Revolution.
We sit down with hereditary peer Charles Courtenay, the 19th Earl of Devon, as he prepares to be removed from the House of Lords. He argues that his long lineage and the fact that his ancestors fought in the Crusades provide Parliament with a valuable connection to our past.
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Samantha Thompson retweeted
Apr 25
Corporate life is mostly just figuring out how to say “this makes no sense” in a way that sounds collaborative
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Couldn't agree more.
Microsoft Teams has done more collective damage to the mental health of Americans than all social media platforms combined Let that sink in
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Samantha Thompson retweeted
A lovely gift from a parishioner - an Action Vicar! Her grandfather used it in schools to explain vestments, hence the stoles in the box.
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Big loss to the folk scene.
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Samantha Thompson retweeted
Recycled Roman tiles. Wormingford Church,Essex.
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