National Library Workers Day sign

Library workers are a special kind of civil servant. Our mandate is to give you and everyone else free access to some of the best things you can have: learning, self-enrichment, community, contemplation, fun, and simple peace and quiet. the best way to appreciate us is to come use us. 🙂 📚

Is it just me or are there quite a few trad wife themed horror books come out in the last year or so? I swear, I found at least three.

I had lecturers ask me for a new edition of a book - edition that doesn't exist, but AI told them it does!

Not my housemate using the last of our shared rubbish bags we use for kitchen rubbish to throw away her room rubbish, and getting upset the next day that there are no rubbish bags left for kitchen.

Pray for more rubbish bags magically appear later 🙏

Keep going! 💪

❗ Members Spotlight - an opportunity to self-promote and share your personal experience being a business librarian! We published two instalments and are looking for more BLA members to feature. ❗

If you are interested, feel free to message us here, on Linkdln or email marketing@blalib.org .

95.9% of anecdotally gathered evidence shows that whenever you are stuck walking behind a person and struggle to walk around them is because they are staring at their phone.

AI Isn’t Lightening Workloads. It’s Making Them More Intense. The technology is increasing the speed, density and complexity of work rather than reducing it, a new analysis of 164,000 people’s work activity shows.

AI is increasing the intensity of work rather than reducing it, according to one of the biggest studies of AI’s effects on work habits to date.

Listening to a panel about finding joy in reading/writing/publishing and an audience member decides to complain about the word Diversity. Points to panel members for non engaging with this comment beyond polite acknowledgment. So tired.

Impression at #LBF26 no.2: @englishpen.bsky.social has done (and is doing) an excellet set of pannel talks. Enjoyed every one of them so far! Also, the only place I noticed where librarians are mentioned, which is very appreciated.

Impression at #LBF26 : audience and pannel members are becoming more comfortable asking uncomfortable questions, challanging assumptions. About time!

Don’t Steal This Book: AI protest at London Book Fair Empty book highlights AI theft

Don’t Steal This Book, AI protest at London Book Fair

What I read in February.
"Nova Scotia" and "Memories of Ice" stood out.
#2026Reads #FebruaryReads

**NEW POST**

LLMs hallucinate, & they hallucinate WORSE on topics we don't already know/write a lot about. This creates a huge accuracy gap.

This week I tested ChatGPT on Beethoven & Smyth to show how big this gap is & why it matters. It made up a LOT.

leahbroad.substack.com/p/chatgpts-a...

I have returned 3 books to the library and taken out 6 more.

This is the correct way.

And there are nerds in here playing Dungeons and Dragons.

It may just be the most perfect place on earth.

#libraries

For those interested in following #CopimConference we recommend following the wonderful @emmabooth.bsky.social for her excellent threads ⭐

maybe the humanities are needed bc without them the rich say things like "people are like horses"

Dan has been incredibly proactive: organising the #bla26 conference, and doing two presentations at the #blawe26 event, one quite extensive one on library marketing.

Impressive work. BLA is in good hands!

A recurring theme when talking about student usage of AI is uncertainty of their own knowledge. Keyword/database searching is still a challange. Tendency to accept AI answers as true. #blawe26

Absolutely fascinating presentation on activities one can do in an AI-centric session. I am definitelly taking some ideas to my library sessions. #blawe26

Content, for sure.

🎉 Welcome to the Public Domain, BLONDIE (1930) 📰

👒 Blondie debuted as a carefree flapper in Chic Young’s comic strip. Her early adventures focused on attempts to win the blessing of Dagwood's snooty, rich family.

Read the 1930 Blondie dailies ➡️ archive.org/details/blon...

🧵1/2

#PublicDomainDay

NHS closed Tavistock over care complaints – there were only eight An eye-opening FOI report has revealed that just eight people complained about the Tavistock gender clinic's care provision in 10 years.

pure elite capture - the uk just folded to a hardline anti-trans campaign pushed by a tiny number of people

www.thepinknews.com/2026/02/11/n...

"I have to multitask to mske this worth my time" - a perfect explanation why I read at the gym.

BLA committee was delighted to visit University of Birmingham campus last week!

Book your place here: bla1.glasscubes.com/form/91aa313...
All bookings close on 30th March 2026.

Here are some images taken during the tour.
Photo credits: @sjoukjeschots.bsky.social

#bla26 #conferences

❗ Call for Members Papers! ❗

Send your proposals by filling out this form: bla1.glasscubes.com/form/9f47c71...
Deadline: 20th February.

#conference #bla26 #librarianship

My dear colleague Jacob has a new book out! Very excited to read this as soon as my pre-order arrives (in UK).

Also, just look at this cover!

A year of reading: 6 books from 2025 - ACRLog Is it too late for a round-up post of the books I read this past year? I don’t really think so (or care, actually); I’d love to talk about a few of the 56 books I read this year. This has been my high...

I wrote a bit about the books I read in 2025, which included The AI Con by Bender & Hanna (obviously) and Imagination: A Manifesto by Ruha Benjamin.
acrlog.org/2026/01/09/a...

Incredibly honoured to present a talk with the amazing Cara Clarke! The lineup for this year looks really interesting!

This one is an oopsie.