Lisa McColl

[Arts at WCU @ArtsAtWCU]

Special Collections is hiring! Check out more information below and consider joining this wonderful team! 📚💜🐏💛✨

[Lisa McColl @abra_lm]

@martin_sexton - “Real Man” lyrics: “the price of my pain” or “the prize of my pain”?

[Lisa McColl @abra_lm]

@DrHarrisonPVSD He is just so adorable! I hope you're doing well!

[CALL TO ACTIVISM @CalltoActivism]

A British writer penned the best description of Donald Trump I’ve ever read:

“Why do some British people not like Donald Trump?”

A few things spring to mind. Trump lacks certain qualities which the British traditionally esteem. For instance, he has no class, no charm, no coolness, no credibility, no compassion, no wit, no warmth, no wisdom, no subtlety, no sensitivity, no self-awareness, no humility, no honour and no grace – all qualities, funnily enough, with which his predecessor Mr. Obama was generously blessed. So for us, the stark contrast does rather throw Trump’s limitations into embarrassingly sharp relief.

Plus, we like a laugh. And while Trump may be laughable, he has never once said anything wry, witty or even faintly amusing – not once, ever. I don’t say that rhetorically, I mean it quite literally: not once, not ever. And that fact is particularly disturbing to the British sensibility – for us, to lack humour is almost inhuman. But with Trump, it’s a fact. He doesn’t even seem to understand what a joke is – his idea of a joke is a crass comment, an illiterate insult, a casual act of cruelty.

Trump is a troll. And like all trolls, he is never funny and he never laughs; he only crows or jeers. And scarily, he doesn’t just talk in crude, witless insults – he actually thinks in them. His mind is a simple bot-like algorithm of petty prejudices and knee-jerk nastiness.

There is never any under-layer of irony, complexity, nuance or depth. It’s all surface. Some Americans might see this as refreshingly upfront. Well, we don’t. We see it as having no inner world, no soul. And in Britain we traditionally side with David, not Goliath. All our heroes are plucky underdogs: Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Oliver Twist. Trump is neither plucky, nor an underdog. He is the exact opposite of that. He’s not even a spoiled rich-boy, or a greedy fat-cat. He’s more a fat white slug. A Jabba the Hutt of privilege.

And worse, he is that most unforgivable of all things to the British: a bully. That is, except when he is among bullies; then he suddenly transforms into a snivelling sidekick instead. There are unspoken rules to this stuff – the Queensberry rules of basic decency – and he breaks them all. He punches downwards – which a gentleman should, would, could never do – and every blow he aims is below the belt. He particularly likes to kick the vulnerable or voiceless – and he kicks them when they are down.

So the fact that a significant minority – perhaps a third – of Americans look at what he does, listen to what he says, and then think ‘Yeah, he seems like my kind of guy’ is a matter of some confusion and no little distress to British people, given that:

• Americans are supposed to be nicer than us, and mostly are.

• You don’t need a particularly keen eye for detail to spot a few flaws in the man.

This last point is what especially confuses and dismays British people, and many other people too; his faults seem pretty bloody hard to miss. After all, it’s impossible to read a single tweet, or hear him speak a sentence or two, without staring deep into the abyss. He turns being artless into an art form; he is a Picasso of pettiness; a Shakespeare of shit. His faults are fractal: even his flaws have flaws, and so on ad infinitum. God knows there have always been stupid people in the world, and plenty of nasty people too. But rarely has stupidity been so nasty, or nastiness so stupid. He makes Nixon look trustworthy and George W look smart. In fact, if Frankenstein decided to make a monster assembled entirely from human flaws – he would make a Trump.

And a remorseful Doctor Frankenstein would clutch out big clumpfuls of hair and scream in anguish: ‘My God… what… have… I… created?' If being a twat was a TV show, Trump would be the boxed set.”

-Nate White

[Lisa McColl @abra_lm]

@RonMcColl

[Lisa McColl @abra_lm]

@librarianbeth Wish I was there!

[Deborah Paul @idbdeb]

#PIDs from #wikidata and @ORCID_Org IDs for FIVE MILLION LINKS. @tdwg happy to be part of raising profiles of people and organizations doing the work. Thanks again @dpsSpiders

[Casalini Libri @CasaliniLibri]

#ALAAC23
The Share Virtual Discovery Environment Workshop, scheduled for the morning of Mon 26th June at the ALA Conference, will provide an overview of the advantages of a collaborative approach to linked data and #knowledge sharing. @atCult
>> https://t.co/hI1XSTyWoV

[LC Labs @LC_Labs]

"Having an API available makes it much easier to get the data you really want." Learn more about the @librarycongress open APIs in our interview with Laura Wrubel and Patrick Rourke! https://t.co/R3eM3sAAgu

[Tom Gran @tommgran]

i’ve been struggling to put this into words for a while but i think a lot of this AI art craze comes down to these guys feeling the joy of being creative for the first time and mistaking it for something much deeper.

[Lisa McColl @abra_lm]

@LehighLTS @LehighSpecColl Nice work everyone!

[Lehigh LTS @LehighLTS]

“We want to make it a place where students who might otherwise feel marginalized feel that they are in a place where they feel safe and accepted at a university that cares about their sense of belonging,” said Greg Reihman, vice provost for LTS. https://t.co/yCYD7FpydA

[Lakota Man @LakotaMan1]

Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert absolutely hate this poster. So for god’s sake — don’t even think about liking it or retweeting it.

[AFRICAN & BLACK HISTORY @AfricanArchives]

On this day in 1933, the legendary, iconic, singer and activist Nina Simone was born.

[Steve Martin @UnrealBluegrass]

We've seen few humans this devoted and humble as Jimmy Carter.
Quietly continuing his mission,which was to do good.
If you must leave us go gently . Leave your heart and bravery so we might learn.
Thank you President Carter.
Jimmy.

[Lehigh LTS @LehighLTS]

Celebrate #BlackHistoryMonth with our new OverDrive collection, Black Futures, books/ebooks including speculative fiction/poetry, memoir, scholarship, and science writing by writers from the African Diaspora that engages with real and imagined futures. https://t.co/8ak9Ji7CbJ

[Lisa McColl @abra_lm]

@sam_buttrey @cindypepper Well, you made me crack up!

[Lisa McColl @abra_lm]

@jveloso100 @EmilyKawaler Agreed!

[Daniel Nguyen @Jeopardaniel]

All the episodes from @ThisAmerLife are excellent, but the profile of #Jeopardy superchamp Ryan Long @blirish_charm in this one makes it exceptional: https://t.co/QPqz0jw4of

[Lisa McColl @abra_lm]

@Jeopardamy Keep these play by plays coming. It’s gold to us fans!