English-language text written in 19th-century script by one hand, using black ink for the first line (which contains a name, number, and dollar amount) with red ink for the remaining four and a half lines, apparently containing a terse narrative.

I stumbled across something interesting during a live demo in yesterday's webinar. Not having anything prepared, I tried a page in the Queens University Archives' Riel Resistance Collection. The hand was extraordinarily difficult for me, even though it was late 19th-century North American script

"Besides working to digitize the least accessible volumes—the microfiche supplements—the Office continues to explore ways to improve our search tools and improve the utility and quality of all of [its] publications for students, scholars, and the general public." history.state.gov/about/hac/Au...

Indeed, history.state.gov has transformed these FRUS microfiche supplements from the "least accessible" to the "most accessible," by some measures. The digital edition offers not only transcriptions of the archival documents, but also the facsimiles—PDFs & zoomable IIIF images of the microfiche.

The FRUS microfiche supplements were a great addition to the collection in their time, but are now the least accessible volumes in the series. It's good to see the American Republics 1958-60 documents are now online.
history.state.gov/historicaldo...

Trump Nominates an Apostle of ‘White Erasure’ for the State Department

White House stands by State Department nominee who complains that "white Americans are increasingly second-class citizens," warns of "white erasure" and says "the Jews love to see themselves as oppressed." @camcgrady.bsky.social www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/u...

No children should be in ICE detention.

“The Immigrants” WC’s buddy Ray Funk, a highly respected music scholar and writer (and another unsuccessfully retired lawyer), pointed WC to a timely, powerful Gaby Moreno cover of David Rudder’s 1998 s…

As her encore, she performed a moving rendition of The Immigrants. Here are lyrics and a video of a previous performance of hers of this song. wickershamsconscience.wordpress.com/2018/08/09/t...

Photo of the sign at the entrance to Wolf Trap, showing that Gaby Moreno was playing that night

It was a thrill to see @gabymoreno.bsky.social perform live last night at Wolf Trap. She played from her most recent album Dusk and her Grammy-winning album X Mi and included many of my favorites from earlier albums. Such an incredible talent.

For anyone about to be hunkering down this weekend, the first book of my Black space opera series is on sale today.
Stay safe y'all 🤎
writteninmelanin.com/store/p/tlw1...

Xeirographa A guided learning platform for reading Greek manuscripts with interactive transcription exercises.

My (free) website for learning to read from Greek manuscripts is available. Still some tweaks to be made but it’s ready with 12 lessons, tips and hints, downloadable reports if you use it for a class, and links to lots of resources.

Please share and give feedback!

xeirographa.com

"Right on time for the start of the new year, the Dodis research centre is presenting its research on Switzerland’s international relations in 1995..." 1,800 documents published like clockwork on Jan. 1, 2016, "precisely when their legal protection period expires." www.dodis.ch/en/new-docum...

THE MANY MYSTERIES OF THE NUMBER 9

Here you go! wapo.st/44kP86J

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1989-1992, Volume XXXI, START I, 1989-1991 Editor: James Graham Wilson General Editor: Kathleen B. Rasmussen Department of State Washington 2025

Foreign Relations of the United States, 1989–1992, Volume XXXI, START I, 1989–1991 is out today!

Huge congratulations to @jamesgrahamwilson.bsky.social and the rest of the team at the State Department's Office of the Historian. history.state.gov/historicaldo...

In 1876, white terrorists attacked Black members of a militia company at Hamburg, SC. They killed half a dozen Black men, executing several after their surrender.

In 1916, the state erected a monument to the 1 terrorist killed in the assault, lauding his sacrifice for "Anglo-Saxon civilization."

Our friends at the Office of the Historian have been busy! Out today are three chapters from Foreign Relations of the United States, 1977-1980, Volume XXVII, Western Europe: Canada, West Germany, and the Nordic countries.
history.state.gov/historicaldo... #FRUS

With the dismantling of USAID, VOA, and tomorrow's anticipated RIFs at the State Dept. Ambassador William Burns' warning that "the future of our diplomatic service is uncertain" could not be any more urgent or timely.

We must continue to #StandUpForService. Learn how at ServiceDisrupted.org

NEH staff do valuable work. The Office of Digital Humanities has spurred innovation and supported research that has changed the lives of students across the nation.
Such a shame to see this destroyed.

Original picture by Elliott Brown (https://www.flickr.com/photos/ell-r-brown/6447506387/) - Remix by Juri Leino - The original picture shows the Bush House - Aldwych, London where Markup UK takes place. Juri added the phrase: "London Calling"

Hey, fellow XML nerds & tag lovers!

If you happen to be at Markup UK in #London this week, and got questions about eXist-db or want to talk about XQuery, native XML databases: Juri and Duncan from the eXist-db core team will be in the house! Come say hi — we’d would be happy to talk 💬😄

Facing a similar spike in aggressive crawlers in recent months, we have had to strengthen our existing caching layer (nginx) and rate limiting (haproxy + AbuseIPDB). The latter combination has really helped give our servers breathing room.

The eXist-db core developers published a statement concerning license violations in Elemental by Evolved Binary: exist-db.org/exist/apps/w... #LGPL-2.1 #XMLDB

New -slim images for duncdrum/existdb! 🚀

Now available for 6.4.0+, these come without stockapps in /exist/autodeploy — perfect for minimal base images or lean #XQuery only setups. All distroless variants have a -slim twin: e.g. duncdrum/existdb:6.4.0-nonroot-j8-slim

hub.docker.com/r/duncdrum/e...

Announcement from Columbia's History Lab: 🗄️ HistoryLab AI 📁 history-lab.ramus.network 🗃️allows natural-language queries of over more than 5 million primary source records -- CIA files, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) volumes, and State Department cables.

a cartoon of snoopy dancing with the words oh yeah written above him ALT: a cartoon of snoopy dancing with the words oh yeah written above him

We are happy to announce that version 6.4.0 of eXist-db was released last week 🥳

Thanks to all who helped getting it out and everyone else who contributed in any other way like posting issues and testing.

For more detailed information see: exist-db.org/exist/apps/w...

Happy hacking! 🚀

Just a reminder that Digital Scholar is hiring an administrative assistant. If you’re in the DC area this job might be right for you (hybrid; 2 days in Falls Church a week). We’re a fun bunch to work with and the pay and benefits package is good.

digitalscholar.org/job-administ...

Check out/sign up for our DHSI course, Processing Your XML/TEI with the XML Family of Languages, at DHSI Week 1 (May 26-30) in Montreal! ebeshero.github.io/UpTransform
Early bird registration ends March 31! bit.ly/2025-dhsireg @teiconsortium.bsky.social

How did the Daily Beast article's author, Liam Archacki, take the source WaPo article's 2 phrases about the SSA executive:

1. "... the security guards in Pearre’s office told him it was time to leave."
2. "They walked Pearre out of the building..."

... to mean "physically dragged?"

Cultural groups across U.S. told that federal humanities grants are terminated Among the thousands of groups affected by the sudden cessation of funds are state arts councils, museums, historic sites, archives, libraries, educators and media outlets in all 50 states.

Now Trump and DOGE are making massive cuts to grants and staffing at the National Endowment for the Humanities. NEH funding is a tiny fraction of the federal budget, but it makes a difference in every state across the country. www.npr.org/2025/04/03/n...

Key 🧵that puts in context why today's DC Circuit ruling was so bad. The civil service has been (among other things) an indispensable check on executive power, ensuring political apptees adhere to laws passed by Congress. Like courts, universities, media, etc. a key guardrail of democracy. No more.