James Truitt
LightNews LightNews
linguistory.bsky.social
James Truitt
@linguistory.bsky.social
160 followers 46 following 260 posts
Digital archivist at Swarthmore College. Testing out bluesky; more active on Mastodon as @[email protected]

Good at regular expressions; still working on irregular ones.
Posts Replies Media Videos
linguistory.bsky.social
I will say, the thing I've read that most disheartened me about AI refusal was an excerpt from this 2007 LC report that absolutely could not fathom that Google was already reshaping the public's information-seeking habits www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/...

I just hope that's not us
8) Relevance of a retrieved search result. Pre-coordinated subject headings can be used to improve the relevance ranking of systems like Google. David Bade of the University of Chicago in a recent posting on the ALA subject headings listserv stated : “... we would do well to point out to other librarians and system designers that subject headings, especially precoordinated headings based upon a particular thesaurus and system (i.e. LCSH), have far greater potential for relevant retrieval than any algorithm can or ever will. The chief reason for that is that subject headings are the product of human judgments of exactly the same nature as the relevance judgments made by the searcher, while relevance ranking a la Google and Endeca can never be anything other than statistical analyses of probabilities based upon surrogates.”
November 21, 2025 at 9:35 PM
linguistory.bsky.social
Help my metadata prof's first example of something to make a MARC record for is an Individual. Cancelled. Check.

Complete with an S/C note, multiple creators, and a subject heading

What are we doing y'all

#GradSchoolGripes #BadArchivesPractice #Metadata
Screenshot of a slide titled "Example #1", with a picture of a cancelled check and the following metadata: • Creator: Brand, L. C. • Title: Cancelled check • Date created: March 21, 1895 • Size (Extent): 1 item. • Place: San Antonio, Texas • Scope Note: Check written by C.L. Brand to Annie T. amilton in the amount of $500 for purchase of her norses drawn on an Alamo National Bank account ir San Antonio, Texas on March 21, 1895. • Preferred Citation • Use/Reproduction • Source of Acquisition • Subject/Name: Hamilton, Annie T. • Subject/Topic: Horses • Subject/Genre: Cancelled check • Added Author: Alamo National Bank
November 11, 2025 at 5:33 PM
linguistory.bsky.social
TIL that Sabrina Carpenter's hometown is Quakertown, PA.

A modern version of "All the Quakers are Shoulder Shakers" has never seemed more likely
Cover of "All the Quakers are Shoulder Shakers (Down in Quaker Town)". It depicts several young couples in ~1920s attire dancing while an old man in colonial-era black and white Quaker garb looks on disapprovingly
November 10, 2025 at 11:45 PM
linguistory.bsky.social
www.historians.org/perspectives...
A meme made from two screenshots from an episode of The Simpsons. The top image is a view of a bus driver from behind and the driver is saying "Don't make me tap the sign".The bottom image shows the driver's finger pointing at a sign that says "Watson, B. M. 2021. “Please Stop Calling Things Archives: An Archivist’s Plea.”".
November 6, 2025 at 1:31 AM
linguistory.bsky.social
Paper from 2002: METS is important for enabling multimedia presentation

Me: "Multimedia" … what an aughts-ass word

Me: *checks Google Ngrams* Oh wow it really is
Screenshot of Google Ngram graph for "multimedia", The word is basically unused until 1970, starts gaining usage rapidly in the late 80s and early 90s, peaks in 96, and then slowly tapers off for the rest of the twentieth century, ending at about half the height of its peak
November 5, 2025 at 5:41 PM
linguistory.bsky.social
Screenshot of the "I'm in this photo and I don't like it" meme
September 30, 2025 at 4:57 PM
linguistory.bsky.social
Like, this excerpt from a 2006 paper by Anderson and Hofmann on faceting in LCSH (doi.org/10.1300/J104...) just dismisses post-coordination out of hand as useless for browsing, and advocates for something like the screenshotted string instead

It feels like arranging deck chairs on the Titanic
Screenshot w/ the following text: LCSH headings can be used, but they cannot be combined into one comprehensive heading according to current syntax rules: West Africans -- Missions -- History -- 19th century. African American Baptists -- Southern States -- History -19th century. National Baptist Convention of the United States of America -- Missions -- Africa, West -- History -- 19th century. Carey, Lott--Contributions in missions. In contrast, here are the same LCSH descriptors (main headings and subdivisions) merged into a single string using faceted syntax. The procedures for creating such a faceted string are explained later in this article. In accordance with standard practice in faceted indexing, natural language role indicators may be inserted within angle brackets to clarify the relationship between descriptors: West Africans. Missions <to>. <by> African American Baptists: National Baptist Convention of the U.S.A.; Carey, Lott. <from> Southern states; <to> Africa, West. 19th century. History. This comprehensive LCSH heading would appear in the alphanumeric subject catalog under each descriptor, providing significantly more direct access than current LCSH syntax allows. For example, this comprehensive heading could be found under the following additional headings, compared to current LCSH practice: Missions; History; 19th century; Southern states; and Africa, West. Here is the complete list of headings under which this faceted heading could be found: 19th century Africa, West African American Baptists Carey, Lott History Missions National Baptist Convention of the U.S.A. Southern States West Africans
September 13, 2025 at 1:38 PM
linguistory.bsky.social
Currently reading Alghnimi and Force's 2024 American Archivist article “Digital Preservation Practices and Challenges at University Archives in the United States" (doi.org/10.17723/232...), and people are out here with single video files that are over 600GB… what are we doing?
Screenshot of text: "…Also, Respondent 42 explained that audiovisual media consumes a great amount of their archives’ storage space: 'The content that we have preserved, so far, has heavily leaned toward A/V materials including digitized video deliverables with durations up to 5 hours that consume 600+GB of storage for a single file.'"
September 3, 2025 at 2:07 AM
linguistory.bsky.social
Want to keep letting Philly college students experience the joys of transit? Tell the PA state senate to fund SEPTA!

☎️ Joe Picozzi (215) 281-2539
☎️ Tracy Pennycuick (215-541-2388)
☎️ Frank Farry (215) 638-1784
Poster with the following text: Does your state senator LOVE TRAFFIC? Their SEPTA rail cuts could add 350,000 MORE CARS to your commute! (And then there's parking…) Tell your state senator: Less transit means more traffic. FUND SEPTA
August 23, 2025 at 6:53 PM
linguistory.bsky.social
LESS TRANSIT ➡️ MORE TRAFFIC!

Think traffic & parking are bad now? Just wait til the PA state senate cuts SEPTA—and 350,000 rail passengers get on the road!

Tell your state senator: Fund SEPTA!

📞CALL NOW:
Frank Farry
(215) 638-1784

Tracy Pennycuick
(215) 541-2388

Joe Picozzi
(215) 281-2539
Poster with pictures of Joe Picozzi, Tracy Pennycuick, and Frank Farry, along with the following text: Does your state senator LOVE TRAFFIC? Their SEPTA rail cuts could add 350,000 MORE CARS to your commute! (And then there's parking…) Tell your state senator: Less transit means more traffic. Fund SEPTA.
August 13, 2025 at 2:28 AM
linguistory.bsky.social
First thing, off the bat: they talked to 280 people across 24 institutions, an average of ~12 ppl/shop. That's WAY out of step with the typical archive. A*Census II found that only 25% of archives have 6+ FTE (sr.ithaka.org/publications...). We're mostly dealing with the biggest ¼ of the field here
Text: Executive Summary This report synthesizes extensive discussions with approximately 280 archival professionals across 24 special collections and archival institutions in the United States and the United Kingdom, capturing their direct experiences and reflections. Rather than presenting prescriptive solutions, the findings highlight the challenges, lived realities, and complex ethical
August 7, 2025 at 1:36 AM
linguistory.bsky.social
Now that's what I call a long 19th century
Screenshot of Wikipedia's info panel on Isaac Newton, showing he lived from 1643 to 1727 Screenshot of Wikipedia's info panel on John Locke, showing he lived from 1632 to 1704
June 8, 2025 at 2:55 PM
linguistory.bsky.social
Bringing this one over from Mastodon because A) I really do believe it, and B) it was hard to explain the context

#Digipres
Three Mastodon posts: 1: Unfortunately there are no good choices for long term data storage, but flash is a particular bad choice. 2, a reply to 1: what is the best currently available option? 3, my reply to 2: Institutional stewardship. Asking what medium to use is the wrong question. If you want to save something digital for 100 years, you can't leave it on a shelf untouched. It needs periodic refreshment by humans caretakers. The issue isn't the storage technique. The issue is the infrastructure of labor and funding.
May 9, 2025 at 1:34 AM
linguistory.bsky.social
Wandered into a little shop last weekend and found an A/V-archivist starter kit in barrette form

#A/V #Archivists
Three chunky barrettes in the shape of a spreadsheet, a strip of movie film, and a traffic cone that resembles the VLC logo
March 27, 2025 at 7:03 PM