Tim Sherratt

I blogged about my recent battles with AI scraper bots and moving all my GLAM databases to a new home with anti-bot defences. https://updates.timsherratt.org/2026/05/12/the-battle-of-the-bots.html #GLAM #bots #digitalHumanities

A brief update on the status of the Trove Data Guide: https://updates.timsherratt.org/2026/07/28/trove-data-guide-status.html #GLAM #digitalHumanities

Great job going at the State Library of Victoria for anyone interested in digital innovation in GLAMs – Innovation Lead in the SLV LAB (fulltime, 2 year fixed term): https://www.careers.vic.gov.au/job/innovation-lead-slv-lab-75882 Odd mix of tech skills though... #GLAM #libraries #JobAlert

Oooo look what arrived in the post -- a box of @hello@hcommons.social merch!

I got a trail camera for Xmas and have finally set it up to see what goes on in the backyard at night. No big surprises so far, though I didn't know the possums were raiding the bird feeder, and the pademelons hang around for longer than I expected. Here's some pademelon fun...

Archives AND time travel -- two of my favourite topics in one! Looking forward to reading this book by @lynnemthomas@wandering.shop

The convenience of Linux aliases is somewhat undermined by the fact that I can never remember what I've called them and then have to look up the command to list aliases which I never remember is actually just 'alias'.

Happy birthday to the State Library of Victoria's LAB, which is one year old today! I wish all GLAM orgs had labs to foster innovation & collaboration. https://lab.slv.vic.gov.au

Are you looking for Victorian newspapers from a particular town or region? Try my new Victorian Newspapers Explorer! Just click on the map to see a list of titles from the State Library of Victoria – both digitised and non-digitised. https://slv.wraggelabs.com/newspapers/ #maps #libraries #histodons

I haven't been able to update the Trove Data Guide since the NLA cancelled my API access, but I've edited the static HTML code to include a new warning. https://tdg.glam-workbench.net/home.html

Working on a new userscript that adds an option to the Trove interface to download a newspaper article or page as an image. Seems to be working...

I've migrated my GLAM databases to a new home with AI bot defences. I have redirects in place so the old addresses will continue to work for now, but if you use any of these apps it would be a good idea to update your links/bookmarks! https://glam-databases.net

Even though my residency at SLV has finished, you can keep georeferencing their digitised maps. I've set up automated processes to save all the data and feed it into the apps I created for exploration and use. 1,460 maps have been georeferenced so far! https://wragge.github.io/slv-allmaps/ #maps #GLAM

I've created a new sponsorship page on @Liberapay@mastodon.xyz! https://liberapay.com/wragge

I call this work 'Realtime bot blocking'...

Nice summary of some of the problems around 'transformative' agreements with academic publishers. https://researchwhisperer.org/2026/05/05/australias-open-access-strategy/

Job alert! Library IT support job at Uni of Queensland (full time, permanent): https://uq.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/en-GB/uqcareers/job/Library-IT-Officer_R-61005-1 #libraries #jobs

Waiting for @baibi@hcommons.social's segment, coming up soon on ABC Hobart, talking about Chinese Tasmanian history. Listen here: https://www.abc.net.au/listen/live/hobart

I've written a new blog post on the #Trove API keys debacle that answers some questions raised by my first two posts, and provides some updates on recent actions by the National Library of Australia. https://updates.timsherratt.org/2025/04/11/update-on-trove-data-access.html Please share!

#GLAM #histodons @histodons@a.gup.pe #digitalHumanities

I've updated my harvest of datasets shared by Australian GLAM organisations through government open data portals. There's now 446 datasets, containing 1283 data files, from 23 GLAM organisations. https://glam-workbench.net/glam-datasets-from-gov-portals/ #openGLAM

Testing a new Zotero translator for the State Library of Victoria collection that captures metadata from the catalogue as well as metadata and PDFs/images from the digital item viewer.

I hate surveys, but I just spent 10 minutes on this survey from the National Archives of Australia just so I could tell them they need an API to deliver machine-readable data from RecordSearch: https://naa.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=c3b65dcad91647101a032cb02&id=6308219368&e=d811c9bca7

Spent a few hours yesterday wondering why I couldn't get API responses from my Omeka-S instance. Turns out a firewall setting at Reclaim Hosting was blocking my requests. All fixed now...

If it's ok with everyone, I think we should just wind back and start this year again...

New #openAccess journal launching: Humanities Methods in Librarianship. https://www.humanitiesmethods.org #libraries #GLAM #digitalHumanities

If we don’t document the shape and structure of online GLAM collections now, how will future historians understand their impact? This post includes a list of datasets I've created from GLAM collections (mostly Trove & RecordSearch), and some notes about why I think it's important to do this sort of work – it's my love letter to future historians... https://updates.timsherratt.org/2024/09/20/preserving-the-history.html #GLAM #openData #histodons @histodons@a.gup.pe #digitalHumanities #digipres

There's more info about the Allmaps / @IIIF@glammr.us partnership (see last boost) here: https://allmaps.org/iiif-partnership I had a lot of fun hooking up IIIF & Allmaps to georeference digitised maps during my SLV residency, so I'm very glad to see this evolving. It's such a great demonstration of the value of open standards in the GLAM sector.

Looks like the AI bots have busy over Easter...

Registration is now open for the GLAM Labs Futures conference in Edinburgh in June! https://www.glamlabs.io/events/glam-labs-futures-26 #GLAM

Added a few experimental things to my new GLAM Databases server: https://glam-databases.net

The ARDC is running a co-design workshop aimed at developing tools and workflows for geospatial research in the humanities & social sciences. You can sign up here: https://ardc.edu.au/event/ardc-cdl-co-design-workshop-hass-geospatial-capability/

I've moved the Tasmanian, NSW & Victorian directories to my new server. Without any traffic it's all working beautifully! Feel free to have a play around so I can make sure things are ok before putting some redirects from the old addresses and letting the AI bots find them. https://glam-databases.net

There's still a couple of databases to add, including the GLAM Name Index search which is the biggest of the lot...

Ever wanted an easy way to save newspaper articles in Trove as high-resolution images? I've created a userscript that makes it easy to download cropped and masked articles, as well as full page images. https://github.com/wragge/trove-newspaper-images-userscript