#archives — Public Fediverse posts

Welcome to the Stacks

By Cliff Potts, Curator
Your Local Device — August 22, 2026

Well now.

Look at you.

You made it all the way down here into the stacks, into the humming back room where the folders are a little crooked, the coffee rings are authentic, and the ghosts of headlines past still clear their throats from time to time.

First things first: thank you for visiting.

No, really. Thank you.

Archives don’t breathe without readers. They don’t stretch their legs. They don’t mutter, “You remember when?” They just sit there politely until somebody—maybe you, maybe at 2:13 a.m. in your kitchen glow—opens a page and says, “Wait. What happened here?”

That’s when the lights come on.

Whether you wandered in from across town or across time zones, whether you were looking for one specific date or just tugging on a thread of curiosity, we see you. We see the footprints. We see the return visits. We see the moments where you stayed longer than the algorithm expected you to. And that matters.

WPS News and Occupy 2.5 were never built to be disposable. They weren’t meant to scroll by and evaporate. They were built like file cabinets—stubborn, sometimes heavy, occasionally squeaky, but dependable. We believed then (and we still do) that the record matters. That somebody should write it down. That somebody should refuse to pretend it didn’t happen.

You showed up for that.

Some of you are locals. You know the names. You remember the meetings. You were there when the temperature in the room shifted. You don’t need a glossary—you lived it. When you visit the archives, it’s not nostalgia. It’s verification. It’s a quiet nod: “Yes. That’s how it went.”

Others of you are not from here. Not from this neighborhood, not from this movement, not from this particular corner of the internet where we stack our papers a little high and let the ink run where it must. You found us anyway. Maybe by accident. Maybe by search query. Maybe by rumor.

That’s the part that delights me.

Because archives are invitations disguised as storage. They say: “Come in. You don’t have to have been here in 2011, or 2016, or 2023. Just bring your curiosity.”

And you did.

To those of you peeking in from outside the usual orbit—welcome. Pull up a crate. Dust off a file. Take your time. The past isn’t fragile. It can handle your scrutiny.

Let me tell you something from behind the curator’s desk: it’s no small thing to keep a record. It takes stubbornness. It takes the willingness to publish when it would be easier to shrug. It takes a refusal to let events dissolve into “Was that really a thing?” gaslighting.

So when you open a piece from five years ago—or ten—and you read it carefully, you’re not just browsing. You’re participating. You’re keeping continuity alive. You’re helping stitch together a through-line in a world that loves amnesia.

And yes, I notice when you travel through the old pieces in clusters. I notice when an out-of-state IP lingers over a local zoning fight like it’s a thriller novel. I notice when someone reads a three-part series that absolutely did not trend at the time but quietly mattered.

That’s the secret: the archive outlives the trend.

The daily noise? It fades. The archived record? It waits.

You’ve proven something by being here. You’ve proven that attention still exists. That long-form still matters. That context is not a relic.

And I appreciate that more than you know.

This is the part where I’m supposed to say something polished and dignified about civic engagement and the enduring value of independent documentation. But let’s be honest: what I really want to say is thank you for caring enough to look.

Thank you for refusing the surface skim.

Thank you for clicking the older link.

Thank you for scrolling past the “recent” tab and wandering into 2018 like it’s a well-worn library aisle.

You don’t have to agree with everything in these stacks. In fact, you probably shouldn’t. Archives aren’t shrines. They’re records. They show the evolution, the corrections, the sharpened edges, the moments where we got it exactly right and the moments where we learned something.

That’s the beauty of keeping the receipts.

And here’s something forward-looking, because I can’t help myself: the archive you’re browsing today is the foundation for tomorrow’s clarity. The more we keep, the harder it is for reality to be rewritten. The more you read, the stronger that spine becomes.

So whether this is your first visit or your fiftieth, welcome to the shelves.

Stay as long as you like.

Pull another file.

Follow another footnote.

And know that your presence here—quiet, curious, deliberate—is part of what keeps WPS News and Occupy 2.5 alive.

We built the archive.

You gave it purpose.

And that, dear visitor, is no small thing.

SwissInfo: Battle is on to preserve legacy of dying Swiss shoe brand Bally. “The dedicated archivist is not allowed to give the media more information. The valuable collection and extensive archive are company property. But the future of the heavily indebted shoe store is uncertain. In the 1970s, Bally experienced countless identity crises. CEOs came and went, and the company alternately […]

Municipal Dreams: A Good Home Needed Urgently for One of the Most Significant Libraries of Housing and Planning in the Country. “The trustees of the Octavia Hill Birthplace Museum are disposing of its Harry Simpson Memorial Library in September, next month. The collection comprises the largest discrete library dedicated to housing and planning. The museum is located in Wisbech in the north of […]

#1371 Taryn Harris (ed) - The Royal Institution of Cornwall Newsletter 54. Royal lnstitution of Cornwall, Truro, October 2013.

#Cornwall #RoyalInstitutionOfCornwall #Archaeology #Museums #Archives #BookOfTheDay

Belfast Live: Belfast nuclear bunker now home to one of NI’s most important heritage collections. “A nuclear bunker built in South Belfast during the height of the Cold War is now home to one of Northern Ireland’s most important heritage collections. The new archive facility for the Historic Environment Record of Northern Ireland (HERoNI) was opened this week at the former Belfast War Room in […]

Creative Commons: Open Heritage in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. “CHIs [Cultural Heritage Institutions] understand that, as a representation of who we are, heritage helps define our shared humanity and that providing access to heritage generates numerous benefits for society. As such, CHIs, as stewards of trustworthy information imbued within knowledge and culture, have a crucial role to […]

@Pyb et ça tu as / tu veux ?

#Wikipedia #archives

Jeudi #ShlagTV : Sélecta : rap, Bruce Lee, Free Party, Dj Mehdi... / Docu impro - #live sur #Twitch : https://www.twitch.tv/brigatapinelli

#musique #underground #TVpirate #brigatapinelli #menilmontant #clip #music #clips #archives #news #tawa #antirep #g8

Andy Stowers Forest couldn't save his friend. So in 2022 he saved the paperwork instead. Screenshots. Dates. Archived pages.

That file is why 24 people's testimony reached reporters four years on.

#TransRights #QueerNews #LGBTQ #Archives #Journalism
Today's issue → thistleandmoss.com/p...

Anger, given a filing system, becomes evidence.
Find the ID-help project in your own state this week and give it one hour.
That's the whole assignment.
#TransRights #QueerNews #LGBTQ #Archives #MutualAidIsNotCharity #Solidarity #Journalism #Trans #Community #Chile #Documentation
Today's issue, with the full record → https://thistleandmoss.com/p/new-letterhead-same-fuckin-leash-a-rebranded-cure-an-all-caps-siege-with-a-limp-dick-and-water-gives?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=fedica
4/4

That archive is why twenty-four people's testimony was legible to reporters four years later.
He also runs a small nonprofit that has helped 25 transgender people get accurate identity documents. On a week when Kansas is voiding licenses, that's not a small number. #TransRights #QueerNews #LGBTQ #Archives #MutualAidIsNotCharity #Solidarity #Journalism #Trans

3/4

He couldn't fix that. So in late 2022, with a group of other survivors, he started collecting the documentation instead — screenshots, dates, saved pages, the boring cataloguing of what happened while everyone else was still arguing about whether it happened.
#TransRights #QueerNews #LGBTQ #Archives #MutualAidIsNotCharity #Solidarity #Journalism #Trans #Community #Chile #Documentation

2/4

He was pushed into the program's materials (Conversion therapy) by his own church leadership in Tallahassee. He later transitioned and moved to Chile. His friend died.
#TransRights #QueerNews #LGBTQ #Archives #MutualAidIsNotCharity #Solidarity #Journalism #Trans #Community #Chile #Documentation
1/4

Пишем huntZip — Как я написал библиотеку для архивов на Python

Hello world! Как то раз мне понадобилось работать с архивами в одном из своих проектов, но тут возникла проблема — Для ZIP тебе нужен zipfile, для какого нибудь TAR — tarfile, а для других (типа 7z и rar) вообще нужны rarfile и py7zr, И из за этого код превращается в не красивый забор из кучи и кучи импортов. И мне это надоело, вот где то 2–3 дня назад я начал делать свою библиотеку для архивов, которую я назвал huntZip.

https://habr.com/ru/articles/1072576/

#opensource #codeberg #python #archive #archives

📢 Nouvel épisode de la saison 2 !
🪧 A saisir, avant dernier disponible !

Quelques mots clés :
Secrets inavouables
Transparence
Démocratie
Disponible
Potentielle

Et bien sûr #Archives !

Crédit photo : Photo de Bud Silva sur Unsplash

5,000 Classic Movie Posters Digitized & Put Online: Free to Browse & Download

Who hasn’t pinned one of Saul Bass’ elegant film posters on their wall—either with thumbtacks above...

#archives #film
https://www.openculture.com/2026/08/5000-classic-movie-posters-digitized-put-online-free-to-browse-download.html

Pour la première fois, un état des lieux - même s'il est minime - des #archivescinématographiques conservées au #Liban par le ministère de la culture
https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1537074/la-cinematheque-libanaise-reconstitue-la-memoire-audiovisuelle-du-pays.html
Pendant des années, une partie des #archivesfilmiques libanaises est restée oubliée dans les bâtiments du palais de l’Unesco. « Un peu à l’abandon, un peu mis à l’écart », explique dans une petite vidéo Vanessa Helou, responsable des #archives #cinéma au ministère de la Culture #Beyrouth

The Politics of Ignorance

https://hamishcampbell.com/the-politics-of-ignorance/

"What socialism means for women" From the ILP (Independent Labour Party), 1908.

#archives

[#veille] Les Archives du Nord publient leurs premières fiches décès | La Revue française de Généalogie
https://www.rfgenealogie.com/infos/les-archives-du-nord-publient-leurs-premieres-fiches-deces
#genealogie #archives #archivesenligne #AD59 #Nord

Faraway, So Close: Reaching the End of My Selfie a Day for a Year Project. “As I write this on Monday, August 17th, there’s two more ‘selfie of the day’ posts left for me to do before wrapping up the project. I thought I’d do a bit of a review of my thoughts about this project, as well as write about my plans for what I’m doing for the next daily project when this is over.”

WEAR: NAS Pensacola transfers 900-plus boxes of artifacts to University of Georgia. “In an effort to preserve regional history and cultural heritage, volunteers from Naval Air Station Pensacola and the University of Georgia teamed up to transfer more than 900 boxes of archaeological artifacts and records from the installation to the university on Wednesday.”

Museums Association: National Library of Wales launches Culture and Climate Cymru resource. “The National Library of Wales has launched Culture and Climate Cymru, a new website and networking platform to help Wales’s culture and heritage sector respond to the climate crisis.”

Tom’s Hardware: Judge clears Nine PBS to retrieve 70 years of archival TV data — court rules station owns 50TB of data in Iron Mountain servers after host went under. “There’s light at the end of the tunnel for Nine PBS. We reported last week that the station lost access to 50TB of data representing 70 years of TV history. The issue was that its cloud storage provider went out of business […]