Nicole Connell
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nicoleconnell.bsky.social
Nicole Connell
@nicoleconnell.bsky.social
She/her | Archivist & Librarian | Illinois MLIS '24 | Currently working on congressional papers!
Reposted by Nicole Connell
We can read 4000 year old texts. We can't open 20 year old digital documents
November 28, 2025 at 11:18 PM
Reposted by Nicole Connell
gonna pin my little blog where i trawl library digital collections and traipse around with a camera to compare postcards (aspirational, semi-real) with the visible present

www.postcard-past.com
Postcard Past / Present Photo
Exploring power, culture, & the history of cities through present-day photo recreations of old postcards.
www.postcard-past.com
November 12, 2024 at 11:41 PM
Reposted by Nicole Connell
If you want a perfect example of the aging up of YA fiction to appeal to adult readers at the exclusion of teen readers, it's getting rid of any references to the specific ages of the teen characters in the Six of Crows duology. www.tumblr.com/vilecemetery...
Post by @vilecemetery · 2 images
💬 70  🔁 987  ❤️ 1691 · leigh bardugo has massively edited and rewritten the six of crows books and no one has noticed · or has for some reason decided not to mention it at all or let anyone else kn…
www.tumblr.com
October 30, 2025 at 11:27 PM
Reposted by Nicole Connell
If you're going to talk about aging up YA characters into adults, you have an obligation to talk about how it adds fuel to the book ban fire. This article never even bothers. bsky.app/profile/book...
November 25, 2025 at 3:57 PM
Reposted by Nicole Connell
People write about teens doing things because, and I know this comes as a shocker, but teens do things. They have interior lives and interests. They experience things. People (are supposed to) write YA because teens also read things. YA isn't for adults. We're tourists.
November 25, 2025 at 3:01 PM
Reposted by Nicole Connell
In today's edition of I Read This So You Don't Have To, this nothing article about Six of Crows. Don't click, don't read, don't waste your time. www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...
From Young to Adult With ‘Six of Crows’: Your Favorite Books Are Being Quietly Re-Edited | Arts | The Harvard Crimson
Repackaged books with flourishes redesigned for current tastes are welcomed by fans. Is reediting, then, becoming just another add-on?
www.thecrimson.com
November 25, 2025 at 2:48 PM
I got the new editions through an author event and so missed all marketing of the book outside of that event (where the edits were not mentioned).

Had I realized, I probably wouldn’t have bought them.
The editing of the 10th anniversary edition of SIX OF CROWS was *not* done quietly. There were several advertisements that THIS particular edition, published for the 10th anniversary, WAS BEING EDITED FOR ADULT READERS.

It's also very clearly labeled adult on retail sites.
November 26, 2025 at 11:59 PM
Reposted by Nicole Connell
Look Out for Insane Foliage!

Hand-painted incunable borders and a little bit of book guts for a treat at #NewberryLibrary. (Inc. 1286; 109.5; 7250)

#Illuminated #BindingWaste
November 25, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Reposted by Nicole Connell
On Pins and Needles?

This Cat's about to ... Pounce!
15th c. book, with pricked or "pounced" details that go through the previous page. What's going on here?
November 18, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Reposted by Nicole Connell
Our collection of parrots, watercolour on velum, from Eleazar Albin's 'Natural History of Birds', mid 18th century
November 18, 2025 at 5:13 PM
Reposted by Nicole Connell
Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson was born on this day in 1850. His best-known works include Treasure Island (1883) and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), both of which introduced themes and tropes that persist in popular culture today.
November 13, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Reposted by Nicole Connell
Spydere Man, Spydere Man
Doth al things a spydere kan
Sondry webbes he kan weaven
Thieves lyke flyes he kan cacchen
Lo! anon cometh Spydere Man
November 13, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Reposted by Nicole Connell
Come work here at Illinois! We have two Diversity Residency Visiting positions open. I'm chairing one of the two searches:

www.library.illinois.edu/geninfo/resi... #libraryjobs
Library Diversity Residency Program – General Information – U of I Library
www.library.illinois.edu
November 10, 2025 at 8:30 PM
I get a little burst of excitement every time this newsletter shows up in my inbox
November 8, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Reposted by Nicole Connell
"Being trans is a new thing" meanwhile around her time were born:
- 1779: Thomas de Croismare
- 1786: Henriette-Jenny Savalette de Lange
- 1787: Christophe-Paulin de La Poix
- 1789: Dr. James Barry
New acquisition: a manuscript copy of a printed biography of a transwoman. France, 1859. (And after this, showing off cool items to Economics faculty…)
November 7, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by Nicole Connell
New acquisition: a manuscript copy of a printed biography of a transwoman. France, 1859. (And after this, showing off cool items to Economics faculty…)
November 7, 2025 at 4:19 PM
Reposted by Nicole Connell
NEW: Common Crawl, the massive archiver of the web, has gotten cozy with AI companies and is providing paywalled articles for training data. They’re also lying to publishers who have asked for material to be removed. “The robots are people too,” CC’s exec director told us when we asked about this.
The Nonprofit Feeding the Entire Internet to AI Companies
Common Crawl claims to provide a public benefit, but it lies to publishers about its activities.
www.theatlantic.com
November 4, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Reposted by Nicole Connell
#Caturday goals.
c. 1890 Special Collections Dept. Univ. of Delaware Library
November 1, 2025 at 12:04 PM
Reposted by Nicole Connell
Happy Halloween!

We recorded the ACTUAL Dance of Death (via music from a #NewberryLibrary book c. 1650) for your listening pleasure! Read all about it while you listen to the recording in my latest blog post!

www.newberry.org/blog/spooky-...
October 31, 2025 at 1:01 PM
Reposted by Nicole Connell
Worn #onthisday in 2003 by Idina Menzel as Elphaba on the opening night of the Broadway musical "Wicked" at the Gershwin Theatre in New York, NY. Susan Hilferty designed the Tony-winning costumes; the hat brim is curved upward on one side to make the wearer's face visible on stage. #OTD 📷 V&A Museum
October 30, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Reposted by Nicole Connell
🎃Thei did the Mash; thei did the Monstere Mash.
The Monstere Mash: beholde, sepulchral smash!
Thei did the Mash, and it kaughte on moost fast -
Hark, heare the Mash! Forsooth, the Monstere Mash!🎃
October 29, 2025 at 7:04 PM
Reposted by Nicole Connell
Dismantling #USAID and halting #ForeignAid is a huge set back in our work to #EndTB, but there's still reason for hope! Check out @johngreensbluesky.bsky.social's video from the Philippines where he gives an update on the project to eliminate TB on Guimaras Island
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mxmq...
Doing the Work Our Government Abandoned
YouTube video by vlogbrothers
www.youtube.com
October 28, 2025 at 4:19 PM
Reposted by Nicole Connell
"What's the first web page archived in the Wayback Machine?"

We get that question all the time. There's no singular first page. There is, however, a first collection, and it's a really important one ⬇️
🧵 In 1996, the #Smithsonian 📜 partnered with the fledgling #InternetArchive 🏛️ to create Web Archive 96. A venerable institution & a digital pioneer joining forces to preserve the 1996 U.S. presidential election online.

Get the full story ⤵️
blog.archive.org/2025/10/20/

#Wayback1T
October 24, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Reposted by Nicole Connell
"...It is our responsibility as archivists to properly describe and give context to those materials, but we also need to make sure we are taking care of our own mental health while doing so.” – Nicole Connell, Congressional Papers Processing Archivist
October 16, 2025 at 7:35 PM
Reposted by Nicole Connell
“Papercuts. I keep Band-Aids in my desk drawer! On a more serious note, sometimes archival materials discuss or depict difficult topics...."

Photo: A letter to former Senator Ben Cardin from former President Joe Biden, in October 1988.
October 16, 2025 at 7:35 PM