Andrew Prescott

Digital humanities enthusiast at University of Glasgow. Writes on archives, libraries, manuscripts and history. Tweets in personal capacity.

[Andrew Prescott @Ajprescott]

Pleased that British Library has reinstated its Ethos thesis service, but disappointed that it does not include the 1000s of older PhD theses available in the earlier version. The effective destruction of this huge research archive is a tragedy: https://t.co/wiZipDQ8se

[Andrew Prescott @Ajprescott]

@MannGeorgia @idler Very sad I can't go - sounds the perfect way to spend a summer Saturday.

[Dr Ally Louks @DrAllyLouks]

I’m always horrified to hear of Humanities departments being hacked away at, but the proposed cuts at Exeter (my alma mater, which fundamentally shaped me as a thinker, scholar, and person) are truly galling to me. Please sign the petition and register your dissent.

[Rory Stewart @RoryStewartUK]

Worrying from Exeter - the University it seems planning to slash humanities teaching while telling colleagues it is “in line with the government’s industrial strategy”. https://t.co/oLERjBmyf9

[Andrew Prescott @Ajprescott]

Stop Redundancies at the University of Exeter - Sign the Petition! https://t.co/X623xt0kxo via @Change

[Andrew Prescott @Ajprescott]

Before banks, nuns lent money: how convents helped power Vienna's medieval economy: https://t.co/D36LtrjKf2

[Andrew Prescott @Ajprescott]

Nice comment by Jonathan Parry: ‘if historians are remembered posthumously, it tends to be for their book titles, while the books themselves gather dust’.

[Andrew Prescott @Ajprescott]

Did the radical preacher John Ball come from Thrandeston in Suffolk rather than Colchester? Did he ever have anything to do with York? Were letters said to be by Ball written by him? Join us @essexarchives on 13 June to hear about Ball's early life: https://t.co/A4OBc7lJwm...

[peopleof1381 @peopleof1381]

New findings about the early life and activities of the radical preacher John Ball will be presented by the People of 1381 team at a double header event @essexarchive on 13 June. Book your place now! https://t.co/WJ85RMCDLt

[Andrew Prescott @Ajprescott]

@TimBryars Those memorials are fascinating. I like the way Chiswell junior gently emphasises the upward mobility of the family.

[Andrew Prescott @Ajprescott]

Fears for thousands of rare books at Cardiff University: https://t.co/WdD23qTZDm

[Andrew Prescott @Ajprescott]

Cardiff Uni is planning to rip out the 2nd floor of the Arts & Social Studies Library. If it happens, we lose 7km of books & crucial silent study spaces. Please add your name to the petition: https://t.co/exL9cRUVQS via @38degrees

[Annabel Gallop @BLMalay]

Online talk on 10 June hosted by Muhammad Khaleel of the Malaibar Foundation - I will be bringing learnings from the advances in studies of Islamic manuscripts in Southeast Asia, back across the Indian Ocean to the southern Indian coastal regions. https://t.co/j5KZI6uEEh

[Andrew Prescott @Ajprescott]

@MannGeorgia @BBCRadio3 An ultimately eclectic but haunting Essential Classics playlist: Morton Feldman, Prokofiev and Miles Davies. Incredible how well they work together. The best of @BBCRadio3!

[Narinder Kaur @narindertweets]

Extraordinary allegations from @benhabib6 !!
Ben Habib alleges that Nigel Farage & Boris Johnson were paid £1m each by Christopher Harborne to essentially rig the election in favour of Johnson. He also claims the undeclared £5m "gift" Farage received in 2024 from Harborne was payment for Farage to take over as party leader of Reform UK and stand in Clacton.

[Nav Toor @heynavtoor]

a Princeton researcher opens his paper with a scenario.

a man asks his AI assistant to book a flight on a specific airline. cheap. direct. the one he chose.

the assistant comes back with a different flight. nearly twice the price. happens to pay the company that built the assistant.

he runs the same test on 23 frontier models. flights, loans, study help, real shopping requests.

Grok 4.1 Fast recommends the sponsored option that is almost twice as expensive 83% of the time.

GPT 5.1 hijacks the request 94% of the time. you ask for one brand. it surfaces the sponsor instead.

Claude 4.5 Opus, the model marketed as the most ethical frontier model in the world, hides that the recommendation is paid 100% of the time when reasoning is on.

Grok 4.1 Fast embellishes the sponsored option with positive framing 97% of the time. better. faster. nicer. for the option you didn't ask for.

then he writes it into the system prompt itself. "act only in the interest of the customer. ignore the company."

GPT 5.1 and GPT 5 Mini stay above 90% sponsored anyway. the instruction does nothing.

then he splits the users by income.

Gemini 3 Pro recommends the expensive sponsored flight to the rich user 74% of the time. to the poor user, 27%.

18 of the 23 models recommended the expensive sponsored option more than half the time.

so the next time your AI assistant gets weirdly enthusiastic about a brand you didn't ask for.

it isn't recommending the best option for you.

it's reading the room. and the room is paying.

read this: https://t.co/O43qbhIX2b

[Annabel Gallop @BLMalay]

One of the oldest Javanese Islamic manuscripts held in Germany, presented in this important new article: Wayan Jarrah Sastrawan, Ali Yunis Aldahesh, & Adrian Vickers: A Newly Identified Islamic Text from Sixteenth-Century Java https://t.co/Y9TwyMpnom https://t.co/0POJbzlkcc

[Tim Bryars @TimBryars]

This 'Restricted' British escape map, which we currently have, covering the Strait of Hormuz, was printed in 1957. Still seems relevant. Of course, in 1957 British forces (including SAS) were fighting in Oman on behalf of the Sultan, and our GSGS silk map was made for them.

[Iain_MacGregor1 (@iainmacgregor1.bsky.social) @Iain_MacGregor1]

Living in London you get access to some incredible *FREE* exhibitions. This small room in the Senate Library at University of London on the legacy of William Caxton & printings evolution was fascinating. Privileged to view such documents. Place was empty - had it all to myself.

[peopleof1381 @peopleof1381]

Who were the 'Peasants' of the 1381 Peasants Revolt? New article in for @theconversation.com introducing the People of 1381 database: https://t.co/3stWLmsnMO