Katie McDonough
@kmcdono.bsky.social
History + DH @ Lancaster University. MapReader, computational history, history of infrastructure and information. Writing a book about people & highways in 18th c. France.
Pinned
!Stop Press! Article on bias in digitised newspaper collections: ’Whose News’, in the new journal of @comphumresearch.bsky.social by Kaspar Beelen, @jonhistorian61.bsky.social, @kmcdono.bsky.social and me. See blog for summary & 🧵 1/7
Article doi.org/10.1017/chr....
Blog is.gd/2IFc30
#dh #c19 🗃️
Article doi.org/10.1017/chr....
Blog is.gd/2IFc30
#dh #c19 🗃️
Whose news? Critical methods for assessing bias in large historical datasets | Computational Humanities Research | Cambridge Core
Whose news? Critical methods for assessing bias in large historical datasets - Volume 1
doi.org
We are so proud of this work. Not only is it the first effort to publish & analyze **open-access data** derived from the entire text contents of digitized @britishlibrary.bsky.social newspapers, it presents a metadata-driven approach to understanding bias in big historical data. #dh #skystorians
Reposted by Katie McDonough
Come research with us at the Max Planck Research Group for Machine Visual Culture — “Artificial Intelligence and the History of Seeing” positions open under Dr Leonardo Impett. We’ll get to hang out sometimes. www.biblhertz.it/3757971/0412...
Call for Digital Humanities Research Scientist (M/F/D)Max Planck Research Group "Machine Visual Culture: Artificial Intelligence and the History of Seeing"
Job Offer from December 04, 2025
www.biblhertz.it
December 6, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Come research with us at the Max Planck Research Group for Machine Visual Culture — “Artificial Intelligence and the History of Seeing” positions open under Dr Leonardo Impett. We’ll get to hang out sometimes. www.biblhertz.it/3757971/0412...
Reposted by Katie McDonough
The academic administrative class has gone all-in on there being nothing left to administrate in ten years time.
My employer, Dartmouth College, today boasts it's 1st Ivy "to launch AI at an institutional scale." It is doing this by partnering--"more than a collaboration"--with Anthropic, a company that stole the books of many faculty, me included, which many of us are suing.
December 6, 2025 at 5:16 PM
The academic administrative class has gone all-in on there being nothing left to administrate in ten years time.
Reposted by Katie McDonough
Just over a week until @tag2025york.bsky.social! Excited to speak about #landscape change and conservation with maps and machine learning (@kmcdono.bsky.social, @david-alexander.bsky.social and team!), and to explore creative interpretations of our pasts through #storytelling @archaeolu.bsky.social
December 6, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Just over a week until @tag2025york.bsky.social! Excited to speak about #landscape change and conservation with maps and machine learning (@kmcdono.bsky.social, @david-alexander.bsky.social and team!), and to explore creative interpretations of our pasts through #storytelling @archaeolu.bsky.social
Reposted by Katie McDonough
📢CfP: DIFFICULT COLLECTIONS📢
What can practitioners & researchers do with difficult heritage preserved in galleries, libraries, archives and museums?
- Paper Trails (a Book as Online Open Content) Special Issue
- Proposal deadline: 31/01/2026
- Details: blogs.ucl.ac.uk/special-coll...
🗃️ #GLAM
What can practitioners & researchers do with difficult heritage preserved in galleries, libraries, archives and museums?
- Paper Trails (a Book as Online Open Content) Special Issue
- Proposal deadline: 31/01/2026
- Details: blogs.ucl.ac.uk/special-coll...
🗃️ #GLAM
Call for Papers: Difficult Collections | UCL UCL Special Collections
UCL Homepage
blogs.ucl.ac.uk
December 3, 2025 at 8:24 AM
📢CfP: DIFFICULT COLLECTIONS📢
What can practitioners & researchers do with difficult heritage preserved in galleries, libraries, archives and museums?
- Paper Trails (a Book as Online Open Content) Special Issue
- Proposal deadline: 31/01/2026
- Details: blogs.ucl.ac.uk/special-coll...
🗃️ #GLAM
What can practitioners & researchers do with difficult heritage preserved in galleries, libraries, archives and museums?
- Paper Trails (a Book as Online Open Content) Special Issue
- Proposal deadline: 31/01/2026
- Details: blogs.ucl.ac.uk/special-coll...
🗃️ #GLAM
Encouragingly similar to Mike Keller’s closing reflections encouraging deep reading, deep thinking, and deep respect in libraries, archives, and museums even as they engage critically with AI #ff2025
A writing group accountability friend said the way that she is resisting AI is to slow down when reading, and not give into the pressure to continually skim the written word.
I've tried to do the same, and to take more time to read, and reread.
I've tried to do the same, and to take more time to read, and reread.
December 5, 2025 at 6:31 PM
Encouragingly similar to Mike Keller’s closing reflections encouraging deep reading, deep thinking, and deep respect in libraries, archives, and museums even as they engage critically with AI #ff2025
Closing keynote at #ff2025 from @dorothyjberry.bsky.social "What are we looking at? Massive Models and Minimal Description" starts with a quote from @ryancordell.org and discussion of luddism & AI in archives and libraries.
December 5, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Closing keynote at #ff2025 from @dorothyjberry.bsky.social "What are we looking at? Massive Models and Minimal Description" starts with a quote from @ryancordell.org and discussion of luddism & AI in archives and libraries.
Reposted by Katie McDonough
Loads of great talks at #ff2025 - this was fab 👇
Slides and code from my #ff2025 talk, "Reasoning with Small Language Models (SLM) for Trustworthy Generative AI (GenAI)."
Slides:
docs.google.com/presentation...
Code:
github.com/jasonclark/a...
Slides:
docs.google.com/presentation...
Code:
github.com/jasonclark/a...
small-language-models-trust-clark-ff2025-shared
Reasoning with Small Language Models (SLM) to Create Trustworthy GenAI Jason A. Clark @jasonclark Montana State University Fantastic Futures 2025
docs.google.com
December 5, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Loads of great talks at #ff2025 - this was fab 👇
Reposted by Katie McDonough
My lightning talk at #FF2025, “Refactoring the @iiif.bsky.social Artificial Intelligence Community“ zenodo.org/records/1783...
December 5, 2025 at 3:21 PM
My lightning talk at #FF2025, “Refactoring the @iiif.bsky.social Artificial Intelligence Community“ zenodo.org/records/1783...
Reposted by Katie McDonough
Great opportunity to get all the titles in the (if I may say so) fabulous Text Technologies series at 40% off
December 5, 2025 at 3:22 PM
Great opportunity to get all the titles in the (if I may say so) fabulous Text Technologies series at 40% off
Reposted by Katie McDonough
I'm not saying such discussions need inevitably to lead to historiographic adoption of AI tools, but right now what we have is more like opposing political factions than careful evaluative frameworks. The frameworks we do have are mostly borrowed from other disciplines, not developed by historians.
December 5, 2025 at 12:16 PM
I'm not saying such discussions need inevitably to lead to historiographic adoption of AI tools, but right now what we have is more like opposing political factions than careful evaluative frameworks. The frameworks we do have are mostly borrowed from other disciplines, not developed by historians.
Reposted by Katie McDonough
🔎 Searching for an opportunity to hone your technical writing skills?
Our English edition invites proposals for new original lessons or translations.
🔗 tinyurl.com/open-call-2025-blog
📩 Send us your proposal by 15 February 2026
#CallForPapers #DigitalHumanities
Our English edition invites proposals for new original lessons or translations.
🔗 tinyurl.com/open-call-2025-blog
📩 Send us your proposal by 15 February 2026
#CallForPapers #DigitalHumanities
December 5, 2025 at 12:17 PM
🔎 Searching for an opportunity to hone your technical writing skills?
Our English edition invites proposals for new original lessons or translations.
🔗 tinyurl.com/open-call-2025-blog
📩 Send us your proposal by 15 February 2026
#CallForPapers #DigitalHumanities
Our English edition invites proposals for new original lessons or translations.
🔗 tinyurl.com/open-call-2025-blog
📩 Send us your proposal by 15 February 2026
#CallForPapers #DigitalHumanities
Reposted by Katie McDonough
In case you missed it yesterday @dchavezheras.bsky.social @kingsdh.bsky.social presented Intelligent Systems for Screen Archives ISSA collaborative project supported by BFI Innovation Challenge Fund in partnership with film archives & @kingsdigitallab.bsky.social github.com/kingsdigital... #ff2025
December 5, 2025 at 11:00 AM
In case you missed it yesterday @dchavezheras.bsky.social @kingsdh.bsky.social presented Intelligent Systems for Screen Archives ISSA collaborative project supported by BFI Innovation Challenge Fund in partnership with film archives & @kingsdigitallab.bsky.social github.com/kingsdigital... #ff2025
Reposted by Katie McDonough
And yet historians have been using bad online OCR for more than a generation - few of them knowing or acknowledging the ridiculously high error rates involved. The checking and the skills are desparately needed - along with the simple commitment to proper historical method.
December 5, 2025 at 11:02 AM
And yet historians have been using bad online OCR for more than a generation - few of them knowing or acknowledging the ridiculously high error rates involved. The checking and the skills are desparately needed - along with the simple commitment to proper historical method.
Reposted by Katie McDonough
If you have sample images from a museum, library or archive collection and want to see what metadata could be created about them, drop @aboutgeo.bsky.social a line! #FF2025 #MuseTech25
Working with a small museum/archive/project with digitized images but little metadata?
I'm looking for testers for a VLM pipeline for auto-enrichment (transcription, captions, tags, IIIF). If you share a few sample images, I'll run them through + share results. Would love to hear your feedback!
I'm looking for testers for a VLM pipeline for auto-enrichment (transcription, captions, tags, IIIF). If you share a few sample images, I'll run them through + share results. Would love to hear your feedback!
December 5, 2025 at 10:48 AM
If you have sample images from a museum, library or archive collection and want to see what metadata could be created about them, drop @aboutgeo.bsky.social a line! #FF2025 #MuseTech25
Reposted by Katie McDonough
JEPS is excited to announce that we'll be hosting a research conversation to launch our latest issue. If you would like to attend this 'JEPS In Conversation', it will be taking place online, on the 11 December 2025, 16:00 CET, Free and open to all upon registration: tinyurl.com/JEPSINCONVO
December 5, 2025 at 9:27 AM
JEPS is excited to announce that we'll be hosting a research conversation to launch our latest issue. If you would like to attend this 'JEPS In Conversation', it will be taking place online, on the 11 December 2025, 16:00 CET, Free and open to all upon registration: tinyurl.com/JEPSINCONVO
Wonderful project from @jnockels.bsky.social on improving text recognition in historical Scottish newspapers, in collaboration with the National Library of Scotland. www.dhi.ac.uk/projects/rec...
#ff2025
#ff2025
Recognising Text, Recognising Processes
eXplainable Automatic Text Recognition for Scottish Spiritualist Newspapers
www.dhi.ac.uk
December 5, 2025 at 10:18 AM
Wonderful project from @jnockels.bsky.social on improving text recognition in historical Scottish newspapers, in collaboration with the National Library of Scotland. www.dhi.ac.uk/projects/rec...
#ff2025
#ff2025
Fantastic talk from James Lee (Northwestern U Library) thinking about "archives as sensors" - love this idea. #ff2025
“What is the next biggest scientific discovery that can be made from a library collection (as a dataset)?” #FF2025
December 4, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Fantastic talk from James Lee (Northwestern U Library) thinking about "archives as sensors" - love this idea. #ff2025
Reposted by Katie McDonough
@bertspaan.nl (Allmaps.org) & @kmcdono.bsky.social speaking on “Text on Maps: From Collection Discovery to Research Data” at #FF2025 bit.ly/44bmrJE / learn more about the @iiif.bsky.social / Allmaps partnership here: bit.ly/446uNlN
December 4, 2025 at 11:55 AM
@bertspaan.nl (Allmaps.org) & @kmcdono.bsky.social speaking on “Text on Maps: From Collection Discovery to Research Data” at #FF2025 bit.ly/44bmrJE / learn more about the @iiif.bsky.social / Allmaps partnership here: bit.ly/446uNlN
Thanks @miaout.bsky.social!
Great 'text on maps' work presented by Katie and Bert #FF2025
Katie posted: If you want to play around with our text on maps data viz interface the link is text-on-maps-viz.allmaps.workers.dev
Katie posted: If you want to play around with our text on maps data viz interface the link is text-on-maps-viz.allmaps.workers.dev
Text on Maps
No features selected
text-on-maps-viz.allmaps.workers.dev
December 4, 2025 at 4:10 PM
Thanks @miaout.bsky.social!
Things you can do with the new text on maps #dataviz interface by @bertspaan.nl with Machines Reading Maps data:
- Compare geolocated text from 18th- & 20th-c. maps: here Trenton, NJ from an early American road maps & 1929 US real estate maps (Rumsey Coll.).
1/n (an occasional thread...)
#ff2025
- Compare geolocated text from 18th- & 20th-c. maps: here Trenton, NJ from an early American road maps & 1929 US real estate maps (Rumsey Coll.).
1/n (an occasional thread...)
#ff2025
December 4, 2025 at 4:07 PM
Things you can do with the new text on maps #dataviz interface by @bertspaan.nl with Machines Reading Maps data:
- Compare geolocated text from 18th- & 20th-c. maps: here Trenton, NJ from an early American road maps & 1929 US real estate maps (Rumsey Coll.).
1/n (an occasional thread...)
#ff2025
- Compare geolocated text from 18th- & 20th-c. maps: here Trenton, NJ from an early American road maps & 1929 US real estate maps (Rumsey Coll.).
1/n (an occasional thread...)
#ff2025
Reposted by Katie McDonough
Abstracts for the long papers on now www.conftool.org/fantastic-fu... and the short papers www.conftool.org/fantastic-fu... - find out more about brilliant work on maps, assessing archival records, computer vision and language models, and AI for art collections #FF2025
Fantastic Futures 2025 - ConfTool Pro - BrowseSessions
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with…
www.conftool.org
December 4, 2025 at 11:52 AM
Abstracts for the long papers on now www.conftool.org/fantastic-fu... and the short papers www.conftool.org/fantastic-fu... - find out more about brilliant work on maps, assessing archival records, computer vision and language models, and AI for art collections #FF2025
Reposted by Katie McDonough
Compar:IA allows users to evaluate multiple LLMs, revealing over-/under-representations, biases, environmental footprint, etc in LLMs’ responses. This tool helps building a high-quality data sets in French and other non-English languages (including users’ prompts data). comparia.beta.gouv.fr #FF2025
Comment ça marche
comparia.beta.gouv.fr
December 4, 2025 at 10:41 AM
Compar:IA allows users to evaluate multiple LLMs, revealing over-/under-representations, biases, environmental footprint, etc in LLMs’ responses. This tool helps building a high-quality data sets in French and other non-English languages (including users’ prompts data). comparia.beta.gouv.fr #FF2025
Reposted by Katie McDonough
“In bed with AI: the library learnings from working with big tech” by @agneatha.bsky.social & Amy Warner May from @bodleian.ox.ac.uk at #FF2025 bit.ly/4plnmzI
December 4, 2025 at 10:09 AM
“In bed with AI: the library learnings from working with big tech” by @agneatha.bsky.social & Amy Warner May from @bodleian.ox.ac.uk at #FF2025 bit.ly/4plnmzI
Thrilled to be at Fantastic Futures w/@bertspaan.nl to talk about working w/digitized map collections as research data!
You can explore VERY large datasets of text from maps with our prototype #dataviz interface at text-on-maps-viz.allmaps.workers.dev
Featuring Rumsey collection maps!
#ff2025
You can explore VERY large datasets of text from maps with our prototype #dataviz interface at text-on-maps-viz.allmaps.workers.dev
Featuring Rumsey collection maps!
#ff2025
December 4, 2025 at 9:34 AM
Thrilled to be at Fantastic Futures w/@bertspaan.nl to talk about working w/digitized map collections as research data!
You can explore VERY large datasets of text from maps with our prototype #dataviz interface at text-on-maps-viz.allmaps.workers.dev
Featuring Rumsey collection maps!
#ff2025
You can explore VERY large datasets of text from maps with our prototype #dataviz interface at text-on-maps-viz.allmaps.workers.dev
Featuring Rumsey collection maps!
#ff2025