Timothy Vollmer

UC refuses to grow any category of academic personnel, including lecturers, clinical faculty, grad student instructors and researchers. But non-academic hiring continues to surge. utotherescue.blogspot.com/2026/10/line... h/t @cnewf.bsky.social commenting on recent report from @ucfaculty.org

Last week the Canadian Tri-Agencies released their update OA policy that we've all been waiting for a looooooong time. Here's my take on what it does and doesn't do and what it all means for funded researchers, their institutions, and the public. www.scholcommlab.ca/2026/10/15/c...

Reddit's win over SerpAPI and Perplexity sets a dangerous precident, and will embolden gatekeepers to make the web less open.

GSA Closed the Comment Count Loophole on Regulations.gov https://www.chrismarcum.com/marcum-blog/2026/10/23/GSA-Closed-the-Comment-Loophole-on-Regulations-dot-gov.html #openevidence

“Declining or narrowing NDA terms means libraries can share information about institutional license terms with faculty, administrators, and researchers … [and] can also expose patterns and build support for collective action for better negotiated terms.” www.arl.org/news/arl-boa... via @arl.org

Paywalls on court documents impede democracy. But instead of getting rid of PACER fees, the judiciary is implementing a 20% fee hike. free.law/2026/10/21/p...

Enrollment is up. Tuition is up. Laying off lecturers and reducing instructional support makes no sense in this environment. The UC needs to be transparent about their motivations. Take action now! ✊ actionnetwork.org/letters/30-s...

“There should not be any cases where the Court cannot weigh in where we need it to, and especially not because they are moonlighting doing something else other than the job we gave them lifetime appointment to do.” www.techdirt.com/2026/10/20/s...

The Olivia Tremor Control are the Rosetta Stone of Elephant 6 ... yet I've met so many people who don't know this sprawling collective. With the wondrous, third and final album by OTC out this Friday, @robinpr.bsky.social and I attempt to tell the E6 story @npr.org www.npr.org/2026/10/20/n...

Instead of fighting back against federal cuts, UCB administration prefers this approach: the institutional socialization of perpetual austerity. Seems like it was probably part of the plan all along. www.dailycal.org/news/campus/...

Less than a third of rentals in the bay area are affordable on a six-figure income. The typical SF home rented for $4,680 in August 2026. www.sfchronicle.com/realestate/a...

Some recent film photos, shot on Kodak Ektapan 100.

Calling all U18 lecturers: join on Tuesday, October 20 at 5pm for our Fall Bargaining Summit. We’ll discuss how to build power to win the contract that will not only improve our jobs but help us build a better UC. RSVP at tr.ee/uLc6GmQbm- #WeTeachUC

“If officials continue to reduce the university’s commitment to research infrastructure, it should inspire faculty members to take more direct control of funding policies that in fact are restricting their academic freedom of research.” utotherescue.blogspot.com/2026/10/line...

You don’t want late night libraries you want union halls

Check out the details from our October 8 contract bargaining session at UC Riverside. UC-AFT’s Unit 18 table team advanced proposals on academic responsibility, professional development funding, and summer session. weteachuc.org/2026/10/14/b... #WeTeachUC

Like @prisonculture.bsky.social keeps saying, fascism isn’t coming, it’s already fucking here. This is textbook.

Read Schumer’s statement about ICE shooting a New Yorker with a small kid in the car and I keep coming back to this analogy

What institutions care about is prestige and money, not people. The Nobels bring this out perfectly: every institution where a recipient so much as gave a talk once claims them as their own.

USA has reached the FedNet broadcast execution section of 1997’s Starship Troopers.

All these guys spent all this effort to get "fuck you" money and can't even bring themselves, even once, to use it to say "fuck you" to Trump. Pathetic.

Class sizes are growing, and Instead of investing in faculty, UC invested in management and administration. Now, faculty are feeling the effects. www.sacbee.com/news/local/e...

“You are basically telling your undergraduate population that the first organization that’s on the chopping block for budget cuts is one of the biggest and oldest support systems for undergraduate education.” www.dailycal.org/news/campus/...

Solidarity with our library worker colleagues at Tufts!✊ And sign the petition below to tell Tufts leadership to recognize the union and immediately begin contract negotiations in good faith. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

“According to arXiv, it received 9,869 submissions in September 2016, 20,569 submissions in September 2024, and 40,363 submissions in September 2026. Submissions on the site have doubled in the last two years and have sextupled in the computer science category.”

“Ross can be reconciled with Bartz and Kadrey. Both judges assumed a training market could exist; they just held that lost fees don’t count when the use is transformative. Ross’s use wasn’t transformative.” via @copyrightlately.bsky.social copyrightlately.com/thomson-reut...

“Instead of donating the profits to cancer research or to Roth’s scholarship, Cal Athletics allegedly collected the proceeds for themselves.” www.dailycal.org/news/campus/...

Some recent film photos, shot on Fujifilm C200

Calling all UC-AFT lecturers and librarians: Fall organizing is heating up, and we need everyone in the fight! Contract negotiations, our bargaining summit, and a statewide day of action are coming up soon. Check out linktr.ee/ucaft for the details and RSVP.✊ #WeTeachUC

The opinion “never addresses the circularity problem the Supreme Court flagged in Oracle and that other decisions guard against: every rightsholder loses a licensing fee if the relevant market is defined as the market for licensing the very use at issue.” www.authorsalliance.org/2026/10/02/t...

“It is the first time UC has formally asked a court to reject the government’s antisemitism case against it. […] Until now, UC had largely left the most aggressive court fights to faculty groups, unions and researchers.” www.latimes.com/california/s...

Coming up next week! October 8 our team is back at the bargaining table at UC Riverside. Join Unit 18 lecturers and let’s keep the pressure on to secure the contract we deserve! RSVP at tr.ee/3mQZ3qfonk

“We now have a genuine circuit split between the Fifth Circuit and the Ninth Circuit regarding how to interpret the Copyright Act for the internet age. This division makes the issue incredibly ripe for Supreme Court review.” @kylekcourtney.bsky.social copyrightfightclub.substack.com/p/the-first-...

Insane. “Lyons also co-proposed a major shift in Berkeley (and UC) research towards ‘VC sponsored fundamental research.’ The idea is that basic research would be funded and therefore steered by outside investors rather than faculty and other campus researchers.”

BREAKING: The Third Circuit affirmed Thomson Reuters' win over ROSS, the first appellate ruling on fair use in AI training. Westlaw's headnotes sit behind a paywall. The court's reasoning now sits behind a seal. My quick take: copyrightlately.com/thomson-reut...

Obviously, it’s quite difficult to opine on an opinion that hasn’t been published. But the news today that @ROSSIntel has lost its appeal in the third circuit does leave room for a couple of general observations regardless of the details.

Today in libraries aren't, and never have been, neutral www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Coming up in two weeks! Join us to unpack scholarly metrics and set a plan for maximizing your research and publishing impact. Our fall workshops for new academic authors hosted together with partners @authorsalliance.bsky.social. update.lib.berkeley.edu/2026/09/29/r...

Today, Re:Create Executive Director @bb.usefairuse.com sent a letter to Senate Leadership outlining key concerns regarding H.R. 10204. Read the full letter here: