#SpecColls
LightNews LightNews
bhgross144.bsky.social
Just went to the #NationalArchives website, and the announcement shared below has been removed.

It seems the question of whether historical research is a "legitimate business need" is moot, at least for now...

www.archives.gov/college-park

#Archives #NARA #ArchivesAreForEveryone #speccolls 🗃️📜
bhgross144.bsky.social Ben Gross @bhgross144.bsky.social · Jun 24
I should have posted the more striking banner image…

#ArchivesAreForEveryone
June 25, 2025 at 1:07 AM
bhgross144.bsky.social
"I WANT MYSTERIOUS GLYPHS AND SIGILS!"

(Me too, Calvin....Me too.)

#RareBooks #speccolls #CalvinAndHobbes
#VoynichManuscript #Voynich 🗃️📜
drleonj.bsky.social Leon Jackson @drleonj.bsky.social · Oct 29
Submitted, without comment
October 29, 2025 at 9:00 PM
bhgross144.bsky.social
Spotted during this afternoon’s reference shift @ransomcenter.bsky.social: T.E. Lawrence’s copy of #Ulysses, signed by #JamesJoyce! (A bit early for #Bloomsday, but impressive nevertheless…)

#humanities #literature
#modernism #speccolls
#LawrenceOfArabia #booksky 🗃️📜📚
June 14, 2025 at 10:04 PM
bhgross144.bsky.social
Where were you the night the bots came for @hagleycenter.bsky.social?

(cc: @businesshistoryc.bsky.social)

#BusinessHistory #Hagley
#BizHist #speccolls 🗃️📜
michaelsocolow.bsky.social Michael Socolow @michaelsocolow.bsky.social · Jun 24
Just went looking for something at the excellent Hagley Digital Archives, and was greeted by the message below.

They're being overrun by bots, as "AI systems increasingly target sites like ours to train machine learning models."

The web is being murdered. So aggravating.

digital.hagley.org
"The Hagley Digital Archives is currently offline due to a sustained bot attack" begins a message from the archive, explaining that AI is using bots to train machine learning learning models.
June 24, 2025 at 1:55 AM
bhgross144.bsky.social
Access to the historical record should not be restricted to "visitors with a legitimate business need."

Archives belong to everyone!

#NationalArchives #speccolls
#archives #skystorians 🗃️📜
June 24, 2025 at 8:55 PM
bhgross144.bsky.social
H O R N
B O O K
C O A S
T E R S!
||||

#ChildrensLiterature #ChildrensBooks #KidLit
#BookHistory #SpecColls #RareBooks
#WordsAndWonder #RansomCenter 🗃️📜📚
aarontpratt.bsky.social Aaron T. Pratt @aarontpratt.bsky.social · Mar 25
JUST IN: the make-your-own hornbook coasters we designed for the @ransomcenter.bsky.social's newest exhibition, Words and Wonder: Rediscovering Children's Literature.
March 26, 2025 at 9:14 PM
bhgross144.bsky.social
There is a hole in the world...or at least in this book about it.

#booksky #RareBooks #speccolls 🗃️📜📚
marshslibrary.bsky.social Marsh's Library @marshslibrary.bsky.social · Jan 19
Someone made a very clean job when they stole this illustration from our copy of Blaeu's Atlas Major, v.1 from 1662. That it's historical theft makes it no less galling!
Page from a 17th century book showing a large circular hole in the centre where an illustration was cut out.
January 19, 2026 at 4:42 PM
bhgross144.bsky.social
Calling all #BookHistory, #GLAM & #speccolls friends---help this post get to 100 likes!

(Unless you don't want to see some of the coolest books in @edunilibraries.bsky.social's Heritage Collections...)

library.ed.ac.uk/heritage-col...

#booksky 📚📜🗃️
edibibsoc.bsky.social Edinburgh Bibliographical Society @edibibsoc.bsky.social · Jul 20
Getting ready for our upcoming workshop! 📜🤫 If this gets 100 likes, we'll drop a thread of our absolute favourite books from the University of Edinburgh Heritage Collection.
July 21, 2026 at 10:10 PM
brimwats.com
Okay now feel free to nominate others and self-nominate (or ask me to remove you)! These starter packs are for folks doing critical work in or on #GLAMS: #galleries #libraries #archives #museums #speccolls and related work like #metadata #cataloging #infrastructure #sts #lod #linkeddata & etc.
brimwats.com bri watson 🐝 @brimwats.com · Nov 15
STARTER PACKS for #critlib #critarch #critlib and #GLAMS Studies (below)

literally just creating these to get it established! have a couple of appointments and I'll get really adding this afternoon! go.bsky.app/BkSyTAU
November 16, 2024 at 4:02 PM
bhgross144.bsky.social
#ICYMI: @finchinthestacks.bsky.social shared a fun #FellowFriday find from LHL's History of Science collection!

(Manuscript notes in a 1546 edition of Melchior Sachse's
Artzneybuch köstlich für mancherley Kranckheit des gantzen Leibs)

🗃️📜

#histSTM #histmed
#speccolls #RareBooks
finchinthestacks.bsky.social Finch Collins @finchinthestacks.bsky.social · Dec 20
Friday before Hanukkah and I’m reviewing books for a fellow, all well and good. Then I open this 1546 German medical book, and BOOM.
Sheet of paper covered with writing in a 16th-century German hand. The date at the bottom reads 1546.
December 20, 2024 at 10:20 PM
bhgross144.bsky.social
One of the cool things about visiting @ransomcenter.bsky.social is walking past the Niépce Heliograph *and* a Gutenberg Bible before entering our exhibit galleries!

More on the heliograph, which was created in 1827: www.hrc.utexas.edu/niepce-helio...

#photography #photosky #histSTM #speccolls 🗃️📜📷
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (French, 1765–1833), Untitled 'point de vue,' 1827. Heliograph on pewter, 16.7 x 20.3 x .15 cm. Gernsheim Collection, purchase, 964:0000:0001 Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin
July 17, 2025 at 3:51 PM
bhgross144.bsky.social
(Bangles) 🎵 It's just an emblematic Monday...🎵 (/Bangles)

#histSTM #BookHistory #NaturalHistory
#speccolls #Emblems 🗃️📜📖
#FestinaLente #Aldus🐬⚓
flori-p.bsky.social Flori Pierri @flori-p.bsky.social · Nov 18
Oh yeah, it's emblem time! First up, everyone's* favorite, Festina Lente. I'm guessing that I'm going to see a lot of these in this collection of papers.

*me, Aldus Manutius, and maybe Erasmus. That's everyone, right?

From Jacobus Typotius, Symbola varia Diversorum Principum... (1602)
image of a dolphin encircling an anchor. Written above the image is "festina lente"
November 18, 2024 at 11:12 PM
bhgross144.bsky.social
#Bloomsday has arrived! Did you know that @ransomcenter.bsky.social is home to the final first edition page proofs of #Ulysses, complete w/Joyce's handwritten corrections?

More details on the Center's #JamesJoyce Collection: norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/fin...

#literature #booksky #speccolls 🗃️📜📚
Final corrected page proofs of Ulysses (1922), James Joyce Collection (1.10).
June 16, 2025 at 6:45 PM
bhgross144.bsky.social
#ICYMI: Tonight @amertrustbl.bsky.social is hosting a conversation b/w @cnlibrarian.bsky.social & Philip Palmer about an Oscar Wilde exhibition that opened at the Morgan Library in September 2001.

#RareBooks #SpecColls #BookSky 🗃️📜📚
amertrustbl.bsky.social The American Trust for the British Library @amertrustbl.bsky.social · 17d
Join the ATBL for a FREE virtual program Sept. 16 to commemorate the 25th anniversary of 9/11 with an untold story about international curatorial collaboration, #oscarwilde, and the #morganlibrary from that day. Featuring curators Christine Nelson and Philip Palmer. Register here: buff.ly/X54xxA4 .
September 16, 2026 at 6:35 PM
nkivilcimyavuz.bsky.social
#jobKlaxon #bookHistory #manuscriptStudies #cataloguing #specColls
visithmml.bsky.social HMML @visithmml.bsky.social · Jun 16
HMML is hiring a "Cataloger of South Asian Manuscripts," a full-time, benefits-eligible, remote position. Details: https://bit.ly/4uGD6PE

The Cataloger will be working on Islamic manuscripts recently digitized in India and Pakistan. This is a two-year, grant-funded position.

#LibraryJobs #Hiring
A manuscript (ATUP 00786) in the collection of Anjuman-i Taraqqī-yi Urdū Pākistān, located in Karachi. Learn more about the collection: hmml.org/stories/where-were-working-anjuman-i-taraqqi-yi-urdu-pakistan
June 17, 2026 at 1:58 PM
bhgross144.bsky.social
#OnThisDay in 1859, French funambulist Charles Blondin became an international celebrity after successfully crossing the #Niagara River on a #tightrope.

This illustration of that event comes from @ransomcenter.bsky.social's #Circus Collection🎪: hrc.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/coll...

#speccolls 🗃️📜
Detail from "Mons. Blondin's walk across the cataract" [undated] Circus Collection Harry Ransom Center
June 30, 2025 at 1:01 PM
bhgross144.bsky.social
Also: If you find yourself passing through Providence, be sure to visit @jcblibrary.bsky.social’s latest exhibition, “Boundaries of Enlightenment: Exploring Authority and Enquiry in Spanish America.”

(Online version: americana.jcblibrary.org/exhibitions/...)

#RareBooks #SpecColls #LatAmHist 🗃️📜
August 20, 2024 at 8:37 PM
bhgross144.bsky.social
For those seeking another reason to oppose #Anthropic (or #AI more broadly):

"Anthropic described the project as 'our effort to disruptively scan all the world’s books' in an internal memo, which noted 'we do not want it to be known that we are pursuing this project'."

#booksky #speccolls 🗃️📜📚
AI labs buy, scan, shred millions of rare books
If you have retreated to physical books because the internet is too full of AI slop, bad news — now they’re shredding the books to feed their AI slop machines.
www.news.com.au
July 29, 2026 at 4:29 PM
bhgross144.bsky.social
How well do you know the members of the Linda Hall Library's 2024-25 fellowship cohort?

New for #FellowFriday: Learn more about the brilliant scholars who will be exploring our collections during the next academic year!

www.lindahall.org/research/lin...

#histSTM #histsci #histtech #speccolls 🗃️📜
August 16, 2024 at 11:17 PM
bhgross144.bsky.social
Lots of great accounts to follow on this list...

(And I'm there too!)

#speccolls #RareBooks #BookHistory 🗃️📜
jasonwdean.com Jason W. Dean @jasonwdean.com · Sep 26
Hi everyone, I've made my first starter pack for Rare Books and Spec Coll folks. I am completely sure I've missed folks, so please speak up in a reply and I'll add you to the pack! follow on, friends! 📜 #bookhistory go.bsky.app/4fvc2XS
September 26, 2024 at 1:27 PM
bhgross144.bsky.social
"Who'd have thought learning about religion could be fun?"

#Simpsons #speccolls 📜
January 31, 2025 at 4:06 AM
bhgross144.bsky.social
@finchinthestacks.bsky.social recently took a #RareBookSchool class on the history of scientific illustration. Today @ lunch, he shared some of what he learned with LHL staff & fellows. Afterwards we looked at some examples from our rare book collection.

#histSTM #RareBooks #speccolls #BookHistory📜
September 17, 2024 at 6:47 PM
bhgross144.bsky.social
If you're interested in learning more about the history of magic, be sure to check out @ransomcenter.bsky.social's upcoming exhibition exploring the treasures of Houdini's library!

Further details: www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/...

#speccolls #rarebooks
#Houdini #BookCollecting 🗃️📜
[Houdini in his home office], c. 1925. Gelatin silver print. Courtesy of the Ken Trombly Collection. Harry Ransom Center University of Texas at Austin
March 4, 2026 at 4:58 PM
bhgross144.bsky.social
"Ensuring public access to records in the #archives is part of #NARA's core mission and the new security standards do not--and would never--change this."

(X update from the National Archives re: College Park, HT @anthonyclark.bsky.social, link in alt-text)

#ArchivesAreForEveryone #speccolls 🗃️📜
https://x.com/USNatArchives/status/1937872088934883624 June 25, 2025 We caused a misunderstanding yesterday in the way we communicated long overdue enhanced security standards that are going into effect at the National Archives at College Park, M.D. First things first: For those who want to come to College Park and look through the records, the research rooms were, are and will ALWAYS remain open to the public. Ensuring public access to records in the archives is part of NARA's core mission and the new security standards do not - and would never- change this. The National Archives is implementing long overdue enhanced security standards at College Park due to several recent incidents that have left those in the building- including researchers- and our nation's records vulnerable to threats. In addition to other measures, NARA is increasing video surveillance and mandating that traffic bollards stay up closer to the building. Many of these measures mirror security standards that have been in place for many years at the research rooms at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. and research facilities at presidential libraries. We look forward to continuing to always welcome researchers to College Park. ###
June 25, 2025 at 4:58 PM
jasonwdean.com
Teaser of a new acquisition here at LHL … #rarebooks #speccolls #histsci #histstm
July 26, 2023 at 7:24 PM