#as a former academic

[exquisitedeadpanda]

This is a big fucking deal that I think a lot of people fail to understand.

This is the first step in creating an educated population: opening access to quality, well researched, peer reviewed information. Making it free of charge.

Fun fact: you can also access most academic articles through your public library. If they don’t have the article in their collection, interlibrary loan exists. These services are also free of charge (thank you, taxpayers!).

And the best thing? Conservatives fucking hate this shit. So you’re not only learning new and interesting things, you’re also pissing off the people who actively want to do you harm.

Which is super fun.

We are pleased to share a significant milestone: JSTOR is now available free of charge in 1,000 correctional facilities worldwide, benefiting more than 500,000 incarcerated individuals. This accomplishment, made achievable through the generous backing of the Mellon Foundation, highlights JSTOR's steadfast dedication to promoting inclusive education.

Learn more about the JSTOR Access in Prison program.

[wri0thesley]

truly think that dottore would invent the teyvat equivalent of the first hitachi magic wand just so he could overstimulate you until you cried

[sidecast-text]

i'm about to do an exam and i'm prettyyy sure i know most of the material but also these arbitrary numbers known as grades are basically singlehandedly responsible for upholding my ego so if i dont get at least 7.5 or an 8 i am going to be very upset i neeeed to be in the upper quartile of grade distribution. or i die

[athena-xox]

I do in fact kin apple so any hate is self hatred 🩷

[amelikos]

Friede being that bridge between generations and the beloved student of Liko and Amethio's parents, to the point Liko's mother entrusts her daughter's safety to him and that Amethio's father acknowledged his work and kept his ID card long after Friede left Exceed and trusts him enough to let him know he always has a place with him..

Something something, once a student, now the mentor guiding their kids.

[elekdragon]

I had a job candidate ask if there was anything they could do to improve their application at the end of an interview. One major thing anyone can do when applying for an academic librarian position is to address how you meet every single qualification listed in the job ad.

We have to use rubrics of different kinds to rate candidates, and the more equitable-focused searches try to remove as much possible bias from the search by focusing on data and facts.

You go through and lay out for us that you meet all qualifications, even if you just state "I am [a fast learner/adept with Word/experienced with assessment and pedagogy/a person who loves event planning]" without examples, you will rate higher than someone who doesn't explicitly state that. Give an example, and you rate even higher.

If we have to infer things from your cv and cover letter, then you will rate lower. We are doing less interpreting and more "Does it explicitly state x?" these days, so being blunt is good. We have to justify every decision and every "grade" so we're less likely to interprete things.

You were a server in a restaurant for 6 months? You are adept at handling multiple conflicting priorities in a fast-paced, user-centered environment! You can do more with less! You can answer random questions with a smile! You've dealt with difficult patrons and ended every interaction positively! You know when to refer an issue up the chain of command! There are soooooooo many ways you can connect a non-library job to library work! Please do so!!

So my best advice is go through the job ad, state in your cover letter how you meet every required and preferred quality even the slightest. We want to hire you! We really do! Make it easy on us!

My qualifications: 20 years of academic library search committee experience.

[the-everqueen]

me [takes your face gently between my hands]: hob gadling would not be a history professor at any number of british universities because of how humanities academia works and even if he were, rose walker would not be his student or advisee.

[niche-pastiche]

What’s your favorite part of writing The Prison of the Phoenix so far? Any particular quote or phrase? A scene? Some dialogue? Maybe a small minute detail that you liked? Details encouraged 👀✨

Ooh yay! I love that I'm getting an ask about The Prison of the Phoenix. The easy answer to this was always going to be that my favorite part is getting the chance to write with @wisteria-lodge. But that’s hardly unique to this fic and doesn’t feel like it’s really in keeping with the spirit of the question. But I wanted to say it anyway.

My real answer is that there have been a few favorite parts about it.

In a lot of ways, this fic has been a long term dream of mine. I remember reading long Snape POV fics when I was younger and wanting to write something like that someday. At the time, I didn’t have the skills and it seemed like such a far away impossible goal. But now I’m at a point where I can write the kinds of stories I dreamed of.

I really love the way Severus POV lets you talk in narration. It let you phrase things in certain ways that other characters we've written don't. Like calling academic articles he disagrees with “rank absurdities,” or letting me casually drop in words like “hematemesis”.

I also really enjoy every time this man is wrong about something. It’s often a reasonable conclusion or prediction based on what he knows at the time, but we know more about the situation than he does. He’s a very fun man to put into situations.

One fun detail we included was the way that one of the first things Dumbledore does in our fic is call Severus “dear boy”. The same as he calls Harry. We wanted to subtly connect the degree of control he has over the two of them, and their lives. They’re two of the people he has in his collection.

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

Do you know anywhere I can read about parchment practices of the middle ages?

raymond clemens + timothy graham's introduction to manuscript studies starts with a section about writing supports that covers parchment manufacture and other writing surfaces before going on to talk more about how manuscripts and books were constructed and assembled

the irish hand by t. o'neill is a nice introduction to irish manuscripts but to be honest it's more focused on specific books rather than their production and on writing systems more widely. it's a nice one for seeing glimpses of marginalia and notes written inside books though

here's a blog post about decorating flaws in parchment to make them part of the page. the BL has a number of posts on their conservation blog about working with medieval parchment and the various preservation challenges it can pose. this is however mostly looking at them from a modern conservation perspective rather than a medieval creative perspective

here's a useful overview of parchment with close-up pictures. the other pages on this site look like a good place to start with learning about making and using manuscripts in general.

unfortunately this is primarily not a topic i learned from books/written sources so my reading recommendations are a bit thin on the ground

[wilhelmloverera]

Bloodweave idea that came to me the moment I laid down to sleep:

Gale somehow using magic to create a barrier for Astarion so the sun doesn't hurt him, but the catch is that it lasts as long as Gale is alive.

[cctinsleybaxter]

I am truly haunted by someone saying on a (long since abandoned) book podcast that the love interest not liking dogs in romance novels is rarer than pseudo-incest in romance novels

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[belovedblabber]

I'm mad tired of tik tok style history actually

[skibasyndrome]

is it mentow iwness or am I just for whatever reason unable to live my life outside of the structures of going to uni and having tangible tasks to achieve and finish??

[cherrychiplip]

[brokoala-soup]

I've asked my mom to make me the strongest coffee she can and to buy me cake for the evening; I wanna feel alive again