Dr. Ben Mitchell

@drlibraryben

(he/they) Scholar. Geek. Nova Scotian. 🌍 Libraries (#GLAM), medical humanities, history/public history, neurodiversity and disability studies. 🌍 Geekier at: @willow0wisp.bsky.social

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Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· Jul 12

New reaction image courtesy of the BBC series Evolution:

A Digital reconstruction of metaspriggina, an ancient precursor to all vertebrate animals that lived in the Cambrian sea about 500mn years ago © BBC Studios/Moonraker. It is a small, tube-like creature with tiny dot eyes on its forehead and a wide open mouth like the shocked emoji.

Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· May 4

This is the tone in which I read all emails from universities and other corporation when they're talking about AI during periods of mass layoffs, austerity, and wildfires... especially the emails I am unable to opt out of.

Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· Mar 25

Feel like I've been spending my time here a lot lately... like, emotionally (also practically)

A screenshot of a loading screen with far too much white space around a small single sentence. At the top left of the page it reads "Please wait while we transfer you to EBSCO Information Services..."

Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· Nov 4

"Impact" metrics, no matter how positive, don't feel like they are often used to actually inform any kind of evidence based decision making, but mainly serve as post hoc rationalizations when a reason is needed for taking something away. It is another form of governance through gaslighting.

A version of the Marge and the Law meme. Two panels. The first panel shows Marge Simpson talking while looking forlorn. She is handcuffed and surrounded by three police officers. Chief Wiggum on the right is smiling and looking at her while holding an ice creme cone in his left hand. The text below her reads: "I thought you said metrics were important?" The second panel is near identical to the first, except Chief Wiggum is talking. The second caption reads: "Important for defunding you, not helping you."

Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· Aug 28

A screenshot of a twitter post from 8/22/18, 2:36 PM. User Blurry McBronzeFace (@apollodorus9) writes: "At the end of this course, students will be able to..." Socrates: "... Know that they know nothing." Education Administrator: "I'm sorry, but that is not a measurable learning outcome."

Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· Jul 11

Glad to see @smallhistory.bsky.social on BlueSky Celebrating with a copy of one of their first posts that really caught my eye (still don't know what lobster smacking is though) #NovaScotia #Seamonsters #lobstersmacking

A screenshot of an old tweet by Small History NS. Their icon is of a ship. The tweet reads "The Latest sensation here is the appearance of a sea serpent. One fine morning as Mr. B. Conrod was making his rounds 'smacking' lobsters for Smith Bros, he saw what he believes to be a sea serpent, about 30 feet long, swimming on the water quite near his boat. Popes Harbour, Jul 5th 1906.

Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· Jun 30

Between workplace surveillance, surveillance capitalism, state surveillance, and social surveillance (the cop in your head and everyone else's), I can't help but keep thinking of this fundamental animal need: Even lizards need hides.

A photo of an artificial reptile hide against a white background made to look like a log with a hole in it. It is affixed to the white with two transparent suction cups. A winding tawny gecko is poking its head and forelegs out of the hole in the artificial log.

Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· May 16

Going over student feedback from last year and just remembering this gem. This will get me tenure, surely?

A photo of a postit on a faux wooden desk. The postit reads "Your government assigned fursona is a unicorn" with a picture of a smiling face beneath it.

Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· Apr 15

After getting covid again in February, I'm finally accepting that it's not like public health is going to get _better_ any time soon. May as well be fancy with it.

A selfie taken in a hallway from a slightly low and askew angle. A figure can be seen from the torso up. They are white with hazel eyes and thick eyebrows. They are wearing a bowler hat and have a slightly wide-eyed expression as if to say "oh well, world's on fire forever I guess." They are also wearing a shiny, starry, cosmic, white stars on a blue background face mask-like scarf that obscures all but their eyes, a purple collared shirt, and a dark grey vest.

Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· Apr 13

I think I may have been under-watering my tradescantia. It's flowering much more frequently now.

Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· Mar 24

Speaking as an academic librarian, this is my preferred one-shot model:

A promotional image from the indy game "OneShot." It features a pixily text "One Shot" (bottom) beside an anime inspired cat person (top). The cat person has large eyes, a hat that has holes for their ears, overly long sleeves, and a long purple-blue scarf trailing to the left of the image. The "O" in One Shot is a stylized incandescent light bulb.

Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· Mar 16

Whenever anyone asks me about my heritage on my mother's side of the family:

An old brown book with gold images and text that is standing virtually up so that it's spine and front cover are facing the viewer. The spine reads "British Goblins, Wirt Sikes, Sampson Low & Co." The cover features an image of a man at a doorway holding a slightly translucent spectre in his arms. The image is framed by rectangles that each have a bat in them, for flavour one assumes.

Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· Mar 8

"Registration for Breaking Barriers: APLA Virtual Conference 2025, is now open! Proposal Submission Deadline is March 14, 2025! [Virtual] Click here to visit our website! tinyurl.com/49pkevkb "

A black and white photograph of a bearded person in a flat cap, with thick glasses and a black medical mask. They are wearing a linen collared shirt and are standing with their arms clasped in front of them. There is an elaborate tattoo on the back of their left hand. They are standing in front of a natural history display, a circle of crustaceans with smaller ones radiating out to larger ones. The legs of a Japanese spider crab fan out on either side of them like chitinous wings.

"They help to organize the Neuro-GLAM-erous Discord server and yearly NeuroGLAM conference for neurodivergent gallery, library, archives, and museum (GLAM_ workers. Engaging inspiration!

Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· Feb 24

Tradescantia blooming

A close-up photo of the small purple flower of tradescantia zebrina, set off against the purple/green leaves.

Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· Jan 1

Seventh night of Hannukkah, and the last night of 2024.

A photo of a menora on the 7th night of Hannukkah. The candles are lit. A colorful dreidel lays in front of it.

Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· Nov 26

Hate flying. Love being with the people I love.

A photograph of a hawk in the sky carrying away a cartoon version of the autism creature in its talons. The autism creature is looking down expressionless. It is by Tumblr user molabuddy.

Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· Nov 19

Honoured to announce that I have been invited to be a keynote speaker at the Atlantic Provinces Library Association's annual conference: Breaking Barriers #APLA2025. The working title is: Rainbows at Night: Neurodiverging Literacy and Librarianship in “the Darkest Timeline”

A poster with text framed with a fragmented collection of dark blue, light blue, and brown triangles. The text reads: APLA: Breaking Barriers/Brisons les Barriéres 2025

Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· Nov 19

violetbfox.info/against-ai/

A Librarian Against AI, or, I Think AI Should Leave

Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· Oct 3

I've been asked to do an "Academic Integrity in Context" kind of talk.... Not sure they knew what they were getting themselves into.

A screenshot of a keynote slide titled "Not Always a Place of Honour." A bullet point on the left of the slide reads: "The difficult, messy reality is that we're somewhere between "All of this is BS" and "Everything academia says about itself is true." An image on the right displays a pair of red bootyshorts with "This place is not a place of honor" written on the butt, in reference to the "Long-term nuclear waste warning" from the 1993 report by the Sandia National Laboratories.

Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· Sep 27

This is a variation on the "hey little man hows it goin" meme. It is a four panel comic titled "A true conversationalist." In the first panel a simple rounded drawing of a person wearing glasses looks down and asks "Hey, Chronicle of Higher Education, how's it going?" In the second panel, a simple image of a baby with a single curled hair on its head, arms wide, and mouth open sits on the floor. Above it is a screenshot of an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education. The accompanying picture is of a filled in bubble answer sheet, with text that reads "Do Colleges Provide Too Many Disability Accommodations? The third panel is of the person in glasses with a neutral expression, not saying anything. The fourth panel is the person in the glasses with an awkward smile saying "Yikes!"

Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· Sep 24

CFP: Fungal Horror and Popular Culture networks.h-net.org/group/discus...

A pixilated picture of Shroom from the SNES game Earthbound. It is an uncanny mushroom man with noodly arms, a kind of melting texture to his body, and a vacant expression. He sits on pixilated patch of green surrounded by smaller mushrooms.

Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· Jul 12

"Education universally extended throughout the community will tend to disabuse the working class of people in respect of a notion that has crept into the minds of our mechanics and is gradually prevailing, that manual labor is at present very inadequately rewarded, owing to combinations of the rich against the poor; that mere mental labor is comparatively worthless; that property or wealth ought not be accumulated or transmitted; that to take interest on money lent or profit on capital employed is unjust. ... The mistaken and ignorant people who entertain these fallacies as truths will learn, when they have the opportunity of learning, that the institution of political society originated in the protection of property. ~ Thomas Cooper, Elements of Political Economy, 1821."

Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· Jun 20

Source: Annika Stefanie Reinhold et al., Behavioral and neural correlates of hide-and-seek in rats. Science 365, 1180-1183(2019). DOI:10.1126/science.aax4705

A screenshot from the study featuring two illustrated boxes. The box on the left has the word "Interact" written above it. The illustration in the box shows an abstract human hand tickling the belly of a blobily drawn mouse on its back. The box on the right has "Return" written on it, and is an illustration of human hands returning the mouse to its box.

Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· Jun 11

As the campus librarian at a small satellite campus, it's easy to feel more like a mascot than a decision maker... then I realized that if I had to be a mascot, at least I could be the library's Gritty.

An extreme closeup of the face of the Philadelphia Flyers's mascot Gritty. His large orange eyes stare directly at the viewer. His mouth is open.

Dr. Ben Mitchell@drlibraryben· Jun 7

The frequency which with Greg Rutkowski's art is used in AI art was brought up today at #CAPAL24 once again bringing my Magic: The Gathering obsession into these sphere of my professional activity. Though about making a Karn commander deck, but decided to use Alibou, Ancient Witness instead.