John Mark Ockerbloom

A Philadelphian with professional interests in libraries, technology, copyright, and culture, and nonprofessional interests that include singing, reading, hiking, biking. Also other personal interests that you might pick up from my posts over time.

He, him, his. Lent, Easter, Pentecost. Speak out, organize, vote.

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Last Notes

2026-05-27 01:37:46 UTC

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Extensive discussion of the Wikimedia Foundation's layoffs, the wish-list team disbandment, and the union drive, from various points of view (including some WMF representatives) can be found at the Village Pump on Wikipedia. Discussion may eventually move to a dedicated page, but here's one starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(WMF)#WMF_Community_Tech_team_has_been_disbanded,_engineers_laid_off

2026-05-26 18:18:55 UTC

From LB: "In ten days last month, the Wikimedia Foundation fired the longtime lead developer of MediaWiki and disbanded the team whose entire job was to listen to volunteers. Most of the people they fired were union organizers. Wikipedia’s editors are now threatening to strike....
The Foundation has spent twenty years telling donors it is not like other tech companies. The union drive is the moment when that claim either becomes true or admits it was always marketing." https://medium.com/@jakeorlowitz/wikipedia-is-doing-the-capitalist-thing-56a393232943

2026-04-27 22:36:09 UTC

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@nprofile…fwps I've listed it today on Online Books. Thanks for making it available, and letting us know about it!

2026-04-16 18:11:48 UTC

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@nprofile…44dh I think most bills that actually pass have a lot more than 2 sponsors, so at this point it's far from a done deal, though I don't know if more Congress folks may try to join later. So it's good to let legislators know you don't want them jumping on the bandwagon.

2026-04-13 12:57:14 UTC

"In the course of my life I have developed five little democratic questions. If one meets a powerful person... ask them five questions:
'What power have you got?
Where did you get it from?
In whose interests do you exercise it?
To whom are you accountable?
And how can we get rid of you?'
If you cannot get rid of the people who govern you, you do not live in a democratic system."
-- from Tony Benn's last speech in the UK House of Commons, 2001. Full text: https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200001/cmhansrd/vo010322/debtext/10322-13.htm

2026-03-04 14:21:38 UTC

Great to get to hear @nprofile…fwps present (remotely) at #c4l26 on "Cultivating Knowledge in the Age of Agnotology".
(Agnotology is the study of ignorance, and apparently also of how ignorance is cultivated. As he points out, nowdays that's not just via suppressing knowledge, but also by disseminating dsinformation and attacking sources of reliable knowledge.)

2026-03-02 18:32:18 UTC

A number of pages and sites removed recently from .gov sites now have archives viewable at govarchive.us - just substitute "govarchive.us" for "gov" in the URL that doesn't seem to work any more, and see what you find! https://govarchive.us/ #c4l26

2026-02-27 14:40:34 UTC

If you've realized that your AI-generated text is from a process designed to make it look just convincing enough to seem true without any assurance it actually is, the solution to your problem isn't "do another round of processing so it looks more convincing, but not any more true".
Hugh Rundle goes into more detail about the problems with Clarivate Nexus and its "Find Verified Alternative" citation generation feature: https://www.hughrundle.net/does-clarivate-understand-what-citations-are-for/

2026-02-16 23:04:00 UTC

"An agency, whether the Department of the Interior, NPS, or any other agency, cannot arbitrarily decide what is true, based on its own whims or the whims of the new leadership, regardless of the evidence before it."
Federal judge Cynthia Rufe orders restoration of the slavery exhibit at the President's House in Independence NHP, finding it was removed without the required consent of the city of Philadelphia. Full text of opinion (which also quotes from Orwell's _1984_): https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.paed.648842/gov.uscourts.paed.648842.53.0.pdf

2026-02-05 14:11:48 UTC

I have a listing of links to unofficial copies of the CIA World Factbook from various years, so readers can still consult them now that the CIA has discontinued the publication and apparently removed copies from its own website: https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=worldfactbook
Listings currently cover editions from 1981 to 2024. Crawls of the post-2020 versions may be incomplete, and I don't know of online copies of pre-1981 editions. I welcome suggestions of links to more editions, or useful alternates to these.

2026-01-27 17:00:58 UTC

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@nprofile…m8u8 I've never needed an app of any sort to get into a taxi at an airport. (Eventually I'll need to pay, of course, but I can either do that with cash or by using the taxi's credit card machine while I'm riding in it.) Is it different in the Bay Area?

2026-01-20 21:00:45 UTC

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@nprofile…tkx6 @nprofile…7nug But it he's really defending a "philosophy" and not a "philosopher", then why does his headline, and much of his article, focus on the "philosopher"? Why can't the "philosophy", which as far as I can tell has no defendable reason to be dependent on any particular person, be championed and defended in its own right? (And if it can't, or hasn't, is the philosophy really as sound as claimed?)

2025-12-21 21:53:50 UTC

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@nprofile…mwft If that's the 1930 edition, it might be public domain already. (The 1938 revised edition has a copyright renewal, but I can't find one for the 1930 edition, and any renewals for earlier editions, like the 1928 _Home Dietitian_ have expired by now.)

2025-11-17 19:55:29 UTC

Google stopped letting owners of early Nest themostats remotely control their devices last month. But it's still remotely collecting extensive surveillance data from them: https://www.theverge.com/news/820600/google-nest-learning-thermostat-downgraded-data-collection #privacy

2025-10-20 11:58:56 UTC

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@nprofile…j0re https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/17/nyregion/wikipedia-conference-gunman.html

2025-10-20 11:55:20 UTC

My immense gratitude to Wikipedians Richard Knipel and Andrew Lih, whose quick and courageous actions prevented an atrocity at this weekend's conference in New York. And my sympathies to the others who were there.

2025-09-06 15:37:24 UTC

Nice surprise! Spouse got the updated #COVID vaccine today at our local ACME as a walk-in, covered by our insurance. Pennsylvania's State Board of Pharmacy voted on Wednesday to let pharmacies follow vaccine guidelines from any of 4 recognized organizations (the ACOG, AAP, AAFP, or FDA) instead of having to use now-questionable CDC guidance: https://www.wgal.com/article/pennsylvania-covid-vaccine-pharmacies-guidelines/65978857.
Not all pharmacies have the new shots, and I don't know if all insurance covers it. But it'd be good to check where you are.

2025-08-23 12:58:03 UTC

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@nprofile…hujc Sorry to hear. There may be other UK libraries with the volume you need, and the librarians at Bristol might be able to arrange getting you a copy without you having to travel to the holding library.

2025-08-23 11:08:27 UTC

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@nprofile…hujc You're welcome. (I would recommend talking to your local librarians first-- I think you're at U-Bristol? since they might be able to save you a longer trip, depending on what services they offer.)

2025-08-23 11:04:08 UTC

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@nprofile…hujc Ask your uni librarian about what they can do; they're generally happy to help, if they're not swamped.
I used Jisc Library Hub Discover to find relevant libraries: https://discover.libraryhub.jisc.ac.uk/. Exact holdings aren't always easy to determine (or up to date) in a union catalog-- on a closer look, for instance, U-Cardiff might not have the particular year you're looking for. If you're considering a remote in-person visit, it's often useful to call ahead to verify you can get what you want.

2025-08-23 10:51:01 UTC

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@nprofile…hujc Would it be feasible to make a new image from a print copy? Some UK libraries have bound copies of the Century Magazine from that time period. (Jisc's union catalog tells me that Cardiff University does, for instance, and I believe you're not far from there. Inter-library loan, or librarian-mediated scanning and delivery, might also be possible.)

2025-07-03 23:10:58 UTC

"...For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury ....For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences.... For abolishing the free System of English Laws.. establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule..."
The Declaration of Independence will be read tomorrow at noon in our neighborhood. And maybe in yours? https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

2025-06-26 22:07:21 UTC

I've been active on a big Fediverse server for a few years now. I like it here, and I enjoy my experience more in some ways *because* it's a big server.
Some people like it better on small servers. That's good too! I use smaller, more specialized forums in other contexts (though most of my favorites aren't Fediverse-enabled).
If you want more folks on small servers, I recommend inviting them to your favorites. I'm not sure "don't use a big Fediverse server" by itself is very helpful.
#meta

2025-06-25 17:30:55 UTC

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@nprofile…7nxw @nprofile…2x6k I'm not sure how DPLA is funded at present, but if they do still have funds I wonder if it'd be better for them to find a new organization to transfer them to (whether for the sort of digital materials aggregation they used to be more supported and trusted for, or something else worthwhile) than to find a new project. There's no shortage of program-driven DL orgs needing funds, and I'd think they'd be better investments than a funding-driven DL org needing a program.

2025-06-25 12:50:41 UTC

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@nprofile…fle4 You can ask the partner libraries (many of whom also have their books in HathiTrust), but I haven't heard of any of them consenting to have large portions of their holdings destroyed. And you can also find lots of images of fingers in the Google Books scans (where they hired folks to turn the pages one by one, something you don't need to do if you're going to just cut the pages off the bindings and put them into t a sheet feeder): https://www.wired.com/story/google-books-glitches-gallery/

2025-06-25 12:43:24 UTC

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@nprofile…fle4 As far as I'm aware, Google Books scanned at scale non-destructively, as they borrowed the books from partner libraries and returned them afterwards. The Internet Archive also has worked with some libraries to scan their books on cradle scanners and return them to the shelves.

2025-05-29 13:13:01 UTC

The White House's "Make America Healthy Again" report cites papers that appear not to exist:
"Epidemiologist Katherine Keyes is listed... as the first author of a study on anxiety in adolescents. When NOTUS reached out to her... she was surprised to hear of the citation. She does study mental health and substance use, she said. But she didn’t write the paper listed."
NOTUS couldn't find the paper in the cited journal, and I've verified the claimed DOI doesn't resolve: https://www.notus.org/health-science/make-america-healthy-again-report-citation-errors

2025-05-27 17:31:29 UTC

Wishing that more content management systems included built-in redirect support for the old URLs of migrated documents, and the relevant URLs were easily and automatically included in the redirects upon migration.
(Yes, I've got a lot of broken links to fix, after coming back from some time away.)

2025-05-12 00:27:36 UTC

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@nprofile…jec2 Is there no way for a patron to tell Bibliocommons not to save that information (or delete it if it was saved earlier)? Seems like a privacy risk even if you never share it publicly.

2025-05-09 01:51:25 UTC

As far as I'm aware, the President *can't* fire the Librarian of Congress (though he can appoint a replacement when her term is up in 2026) since LC is an agency of Congress, not of the executive branch. Anyone have information otherwise? (This is re: https://democrats-appropriations.house.gov/news/press-releases/delauro-firing-librarian-congress-dr-carla-hayden ) #uspol #libraries

2025-05-08 21:46:57 UTC

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@nprofile…hujc Me, I've considered at various times replacing the email address on my website with a contact form, as I've seen other organizations also do over time. It's easier for me to do spam control with the form, and it puts it directly into a structured ticketing system I have a lot more control over than my inbox.

2025-05-03 14:14:59 UTC

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@nprofile…hujc @nprofile…ulux It is to a large extent now. But that's something that can change, if we can make them aware that there's more cost, and less benefit, to them in following his dictates than they think now.

2025-05-03 11:27:07 UTC

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@nprofile…hujc @nprofile…ulux If I recall correctly, all of Trump's annual budget proposals in his first term also proposed zeroing out most or all of these agencies. But Congress kept putting their funding back in. They can do so again this time if we make it clear to Congress that we want them funded.
(This time, of course, Trump has decided he can ignore Congress and shut them down anyway. Courts are now pushing back against that; we need to also ensure that all our Congresspeople are as well.)

2025-05-01 10:15:52 UTC

"This is an injunction, not a negotiation. There are no do-overs once a party willfully disregards a court order."
Federal judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers find Apple in civil contempt for defying court orders to stop anti-competitive commission requirements in its dispute with Epic Games, and calls on the US Attorney to consider bringing criminal contempt charges against its officers. Ruling: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.364265/gov.uscourts.cand.364265.1508.0_2.pdf News story: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/30/court-finds-apple-executive-lied-under-oath.html

2025-04-22 15:01:09 UTC

OCLC's complaint in its latest suit over records from Worldcat, this one against Baker & Taylor, makes it clear they intend Worldcat to be a monopoly ("*the* authoritative source of bibliographic records for libraries and academic institutions", emphasis mine), not limited to MARC records (not mentioned at all in the complaint, though Worldcat Entities are), and that any library "taking steps [to] devalue WorldCat" including unrestricted sharing, violates OCLC's contract: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.ohsd.301354/gov.uscourts.ohsd.301354.1.0.pdf

2025-04-17 14:06:17 UTC

Nearly 1000 Yale faculty so far have signed a letter to the university's administration urging it to stand firm against "extraordinary attacks that threaten the bedrock principles of a democratic society, including rights of free expression, association, and academic freedom". The last of the 6 actions urged in the letter is to "work purposefully and proactively with other colleges and universities in collective defense". https://sites.google.com/view/yalefacultyletter2025/home #HigherEd #USPol

2025-04-14 17:33:02 UTC

From an open letter by Harvard's president published today: "We have informed the administration through our legal counsel that we will not accept their proposed agreement. The University will not negotiate over its independence or its constitutional rights." https://www.harvard.edu/president/news/2025/the-promise-of-american-higher-education/
Good on Harvard. I hope other universities will stand with them as well. The alternative, as we've seen, is to be brought to heel one by one. #HigherEd #USPol

2025-03-27 16:23:50 UTC

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@nprofile…jenf It looks like Springer may have withdrawn the book; the link I had in my post now goes to a "page not found" message rather than a book cover page. (It still shows up in SpringerLink search hits, but unlike other book hits lacks a working link.)
I haven't seen any official announcement or news mentions, though.
#AIslop

2025-03-24 15:56:54 UTC

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If you're interested in this post, you might also be interested in helping save IMLS, which is now under DOGE attack. Here's something I wrote yesterday about the great stuff they do for libraries and museums, and how you can speak up for them to public officials who can ensure IMLS's healthy future: https://everybodyslibraries.com/2025/03/23/support-the-imls/

2025-03-24 13:20:06 UTC

Our library has access to a book published by Springer, _Advanced Nanovaccines for Cancer Immunotherapy: Harnessing Nanotechnology for Anti-Cancer Immunity_. Credited to Nanasaheb Thorat, it sells for $160 in hardcover: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-86185-7
From page 25: "It is important to note that as an AI language model, I can provide a general perspective, but you should consult with medical professionals for personalized advice..."
None of this book can be considered trustworthy.
(h/t @nprofile…jenf )

2025-03-17 16:41:42 UTC

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@nprofile…hujc LC's position as a unit in the legislative branch (it answers to Congress) rather than the executive branch (which Musk and his minions are trashing at the moment) appears to have kept it largely out of the main conflagrations to date. No guarantee of how long that will last, though.

2025-03-17 15:23:29 UTC

Not sure if my first failures to download the latest LCSH bulk file were due to unusually high demand, or just the usual server issues in this age of aggressive AI crawlers, but it took me three tries to get it just now.
The file's usually updated weekly, and the current version's dated March 12. The most recent LC geographic heading changes appear to have taken effect March 15.

2025-03-08 02:04:31 UTC

The Inquirer has a good writeup with pictures from today's #StandUpForScience rally in #Philly. (Folks who know our family might spot at least one of us in the pictures.) https://www.inquirer.com/health/trump-research-dei-cuts-protest-city-hall-20250307.html. Folks were on all sides of the stage by City Hall, with a total attendance probably around 1000.

2025-02-13 15:04:18 UTC

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@nprofile…fle4 McCormick is Republican, but it's still worth Pennsylvanians calling him to make their views known.

2025-02-11 16:06:20 UTC

"All the Christian faithful and people of good will are called upon to consider the legitimacy of norms and public policies in the light of the dignity [and rights] of the person, not vice versa…
The true ordo amoris that must be promoted is that which we discover by meditating constantly on the parable of the 'Good Samaritan'… that is, by meditating on the love that builds a fraternity open to all, without exception."
Pope Francis's letter to the US: https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/letters/2025/documents/20250210-lettera-vescovi-usa.html #catholic #uspol

2025-01-23 22:51:46 UTC

"'I have told officials at the highest level of the University that they only have two options: fire me, or let the [Harvard Slavery Remembrance Program] do this work properly,' Cellini wrote in a September statement to The Crimson.
"On Thursday, Cellini wrote in a text message: 'Today Harvard fired me. So now we know.'"
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/1/24/harvard-disbands-slavery-remembrance-program/
(Harvard also abruptly laid off the rest of the HSRP as well, transferring its work to an outside contractor.)

2024-12-28 13:52:12 UTC

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@nprofile…hujc One of the ones we watched was what I gather is a third Christmas episode. (I'd previously seen their Santa Claus/Father Christmas one and their Nativity one, but the Christmas Carol one was new to me.)

2024-12-25 18:41:27 UTC

More than funds, what Wikipedia really needs is more good editors. The number of people who regularly edit articles in English Wikipedia hasn't grown substantially in years, while the number of articles has, and editor demographics remains skewed. The foundation itself largely stays away from editing, leaving it to volunteers. While articles that get a lot of attention are often good, it's not hard to find ones with biased and promotional content in less-visited topics, and in other languages.

2024-09-18 14:31:22 UTC

I'm trying to provide feedback for a draft recommendation, and there's no way for me to do so unless I fill out a form that requires that I answer every question they ask (some of which involve complex interactions and/or don't give a "I have no opinion on this" option). This is not a good way to get broad feedback from your audience.

2024-04-05 14:44:53 UTC

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@npub13vv…0sze So, Vermont got a big snowstorm, then an earthquake, and soon the sun will be blotted out? Quite the week for you all.

2023-08-06 12:21:24 UTC

Longtime developer Jamie Zawinski (who worked on Netscape back in the day and coined the name "Mozilla") details how Mastodon's handling of replies to posts is seriously broken, and suggests a way it could be remedied. (His suggestion would also help with the problem of Mastodon servers DDOSing a site when a popular account posts a link to it): https://www.jwz.org/blog/2023/08/mastodons-mastodonts/

2023-07-14 13:14:09 UTC

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@npub1qgg…pvfw Possibly an editing error then; in the piece I read, there's a sentence that starts "Hart wrote this book more than a century ago..."

2023-07-14 12:52:06 UTC

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@npub1qgg…pvfw Glad to hear you've read it. (I wasn't sure based on the way it was characterized, such as the paragraph becoming first "an essay on masculinity in something called Harvard Graduates’ Magazine", and later "this book" by Hart). Personally, I'd find the reading a bit strained if it's just based on Hart's piece there, but I haven't read Kim Townsend's book, which may well give more perspective and context backing the reading.

2023-07-14 12:28:55 UTC

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@npub1qgg…pvfw Thanks! The Harvard Graduates' Magazine essay you refer to in the article is "Ten Years of Harvard", which ran in the September 1902 issue (pp. 58-69): https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.32044092634195&view=1up&seq=78&q1=%22ten%20years%20of%20harvard%22 "Harvard Manhood" is the heading on one of its paragraphs (on pp. 68-69). It does note class population changes, both of national origins and of class size, though links between nationality mix and noted changes in student character (either for better or worse) don't appear to be clearly stated there.

2023-05-15 13:42:12 UTC

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@npub1lrv…tth9 Right now, I have a two-tier search strategy. For general searches, I use DuckDuckGo, and find its results generally useful without a lot of ad-cruft. For precision searches (where I'm looking for sites with particular phrases, and use quote marks) I still find Google gives me better results, as it finds sites that DDG doesn't turn up (I think it does deeper web crawls) , and Google doesn't seem to throw up nearly as much ad-cruft on very specific searches.