Happy belated Mother's Day from RBML! The first photo shows Gwendolyn Brooks next to her mother, Keziah C. Wims Brooks (second from right), and her two children, Henry Blakely III (far left) and Nora Blakely (in regalia) in 1972.

We had so much fun painting fore-edges at our event yesterday! Thank you to everyone who came and participated, and a special thanks to the artists who let us share their work here! 🎨📚

May is Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month! These artists’ books by Jana Sim explore the challenges of living with two different languages. “Konglish” features movable paper wheels (volvelles). “Language Möbius” represents the mental loop between Korean and English in a conversation.

Just a sneak peek at some of the available designs we'll have at our Splendid Spredges event this week! Be sure to BYOB(ooks) to test them out yourself! 📚🎨

Join us on Thursday, May 7, from 3-5 pm and celebrate the semester’s end at RBML! Bring your own books and paint the edges with our supplies, and view historical fore-edge paintings from RBML's collection. All are welcome to attend. Refreshments will be served.

Happy Earth Day! 🌎 Understanding how Earth has changed over time is essential to our ability to protect its future. These materials provide some insight into how our planet has historically been observed and recorded, with particular focus on the United States.

Our newest blog post features reflections from RBML's archives staff on processing some now-available collections! Visit the following link to learn more: wordpress.library.illinois.edu/rbx/2026/04/...

The results are in! After 15 rounds, you chose RBML's oldest item, the Clay tablet with Sumerian cuneiform script, as the winner of RBML Madness 2026. 🥇🏆 You can check out the completed bracket at the following link: go.library.illinois.edu/RBMLMadness2... Thanks for playing along!

Did you know RBML's holdings extend far beyond books and manuscripts? Our new pop-up exhibit, “What is this Place? An Exploration of the RBML and its Collections,” is now up and ready for visitors. Stop by and discover all the unique items RBML has to offer! 💫

See more of the Carl Sandburg Collection from @illinoisrbml.bsky.social in the Digital Special Collections: go.library.illinois.edu/SandburgBask...

Join us on Friday, 4/17 from 3-5 pm for a Global Book History lecture by Dr. Warren C. Brown (California Institute of Technology), titled "Textual Materiality in the Medieval World." All are welcome and refreshments will be served.

This 1806 pocket atlas, with engravings by John Cary (1754?-1835), contains detailed maps of the counties, towns, and roads of England and Wales. Accompanying these are an index of each town and its distance to London, and possibly the cutest little pencil, which captured RBML's collective heart.

In the spirit of March Madness, so begins RBML Madness! ✨️ Each weekday at 12 PM CDT (3/17-4/6), check out our Instagram story to vote for your favorite item from some of RBML’s most popular materials. The winners of each round will compete until only one item remains (in the contest, don't worry)!

Join us on Thursday, March 26 from 3-5 pm for a talk by Dr. Anastassios Antonaras (Museum of Byzantine Culture, Thessaloniki). This event is sponsored by the Department of Classics and hosted at RBML. It is free and open to all audiences, and refreshments will be served.

In honor of Women's History Month, we are highlighting materials from the Nina Baym Western Women Writers Collection, which includes Western novels (many of which feature female protagonists), memoirs, and scholarship on women in the American West.

Exactissima (1625), by Italian physicist and botanist Petrus Castelli, is one of RBML's oldest illustrated botanical texts. Featuring beautiful woodcuts and plate engravings of exotic plants, it is more than just a scientific textbook. 🌸

Happy Lunar New Year! 🌑✨ To celebrate the Year of the Horse, we are featuring four images of horses from the tomb of Tang-dynasty Chinese emperor 太宗 Taizong (r. 626-649 AD). These lithographic reproductions, however, were created in the 20th century.

@illinoisrbml.bsky.social on the road!

Happy Valentine's Day! ❤️ Love can be found in all corners of RBML's collections, from drawings of birds that mate for life to collections of love poems to rom-com press kits and more!

Join us on Thursday, February 26 from 3-5 pm for a talk by Dr. Elias Petrou (Literatures and Languages Library), titled "The Evolution of the Greek Book: From Byzantine Manuscripts to Renaissance Incunabula." This event is free and all are welcome. Refreshments will be served.

In honor of Black History Month, we’re highlighting some of our Broadside Press materials! Broadside Press (now Broadside Lotus Press) is a Detroit-based publisher of Black poets and writers founded in 1965 by poet-librarian Dudley Randall.

Curses upon ye! How does a book owner stop thieves from stealing their books? Well, in the medieval period, one popular method to discourage thievery was book curses. These curses often threatened that excommunication or anathema (a formal curse from the church) would befall the thief.

Join us virtually on Wednesday, January 28 from 7-8 pm for a talk by Dr. Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, titled "Into the Dark Forest: Exploring Textual Representations of Enslavement in Children's Books and Comics."

RBML will be closed on Monday, January 19th in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

January is National Hobby Month! Get inspired for your personal hobby journey through hobbies represented in the RBML collection, including crochet, needlework, and photography.

Warm holiday wishes to you and yours! RBML will be closed for the holidays Wednesday, December 24–Friday, January 2. We look forward to welcoming you back in the new year on Monday, January 5! ❄️

Happy 250th birthday, Jane Austen! This post features two Austen first editions in RBML’s holdings, Sense and Sensibility (1811) and Pride and Prejudice (1813), and two scripts for Austen film adaptations that show different facets of the original stories and include some creative liberties.

Join us on Thursday, December 11 from 3-5 pm for some Reading Day relaxation! Celebrate the semester’s end with sweet and salty treats and some of our favorite winter-themed materials from the RBML vault. Make a button, color, puzzle, and leave with a live-printed linocut card! All are welcome.

The Rare Book & Manuscript Library will be closed on Thursday, November 27 and Friday, November 28 in observance of the Thanksgiving holiday, and will reopen on Monday, December 1. 🍂

Today's Collection Spotlight highlights a 1658 falconry manual by Simon Latham, an English gentleman falconer. Especially notable is the author's marginal note in this section on how to treat a hawk who is "imperfect and unclean within"...

Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson was born on this day in 1850. His best-known works include Treasure Island (1883) and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), both of which introduced themes and tropes that persist in popular culture today.

Join us at the Spurlock Museum (600 S. Gregory St., Urbana) on Monday, November 17 from 6-8 pm for a lecture by Dr. Emily Hauser, titled "Finding the Female Voice in the Ancient World." This event is free and all are welcome to attend.

Daylight Savings ended for much of the US over the weekend. Did you remember to change your clocks? Find this bookplate from @illinoisrbml.bsky.social in the Digital Special Collections: go.library.illinois.edu/OnderdonkPlate

Interested in coming to Champaign-Urbana and using the collections at @illinoisrbml.bsky.social ? We have a $3k visiting scholar program for that! Applications accepted beginning Nov 17. www.library.illinois.edu/rbx/research...

Join us on Wednesday, 11/12 from 3-5 pm for a talk by Prof. Gillen D'Arcy Wood (LAS) about his new book, The Wake of HMS Challenger: How a Legendary Victorian Voyage Tells the Story of Our Oceans' Decline. This event is free and all are welcome to attend. Book copies will be available for purchase.

Happy Halloween! 💀🎃 Popularized during times of plague and disease, Danse Macabre or "the dance of death" illustrates death as a skeleton dancing alongside people from all walks of life. As examples of memento mori, these images serve as a universal reminder or warning of death to the living.

RBML’s new exhibit, "Sweetbitter: The Literary Legacies and Afterlives of Sappho," features our much-loved interactive magnetic poetry board. Here are some recent creations by visitors to the exhibit. We invite you to follow in Sappho's footsteps and stop by to share your own creativity!

Join us on Thursday, October 23 from 3-5 pm for a talk by Scheide Librarian Emeritus Paul S. Needham (Princeton University), titled "Gutenberg's Second Invention: The 1460 Mainz Catholicon." All are welcome to attend. Refreshments will be served.

What do you get when you cross a peepshow with a petite book? A peti-pshow! A peepshow, or tunnel book, is a book format that spaces multiple illustrated leaves apart from one another to create an illusion of depth when viewed through a front opening.

Happy American Archives Month! To celebrate, we're highlighting one of our archival collections: the Motley Collection of Theatre and Costume Design. An added perk? It's digitized: go.library.illinois.edu/MotleyDigita...

The International Day of Sign Languages celebrates the linguistic identities of the Deaf community and all who use sign language. John Bulwer was the first person in Britain to advocate for the education of deaf people. His 1644 book explores the communicative and rhetorical power of hand gestures.

Friendly reminder that tomorrow(!!!), RBML is hosting a reception to ring in our new exhibit, "Sweetbitter: The Literary Legacies and Afterlives of Sappho," from 3-5 pm. Until then, please enjoy this timelapse video of our exhibit staff hard at work. 💪

Join us on Friday, September 19, from 3-5 pm for a reception to open our new exhibit, "Sweetbitter: The Literary Legacies and Afterlives of Sappho." This event will feature live dance and spoken word performances, as well as a look at the exhibit! All are welcome. Refreshments will be served.

Pepperoni pizza, anyone? We're not quite sure why, but this week's #MarbledMonday is making us feel a bit hungry! Whet your appetite for knowledge with Das erste Buch für Kinder, die gern bald lesen lernen wollen from @illinoisrbml.bsky.social: go.library.illinois.edu/Marbled1810

Visitors often ask: "What's the oldest item you have at RBML?" To which we answer: "A cuneiform tablet!" Pictured with our tablet are examples of old and new housing, one keeping the tablet safe for the last 100 years or so, and the other supporting its preservation for even more years to come!

Established as a national holiday in 1894, Labor Day is celebrated each year in September to honor the achievements of workers in the United States. RBML will be closed on Monday, September 1, in observance of the holiday and will resume our regular hours on Tuesday, September 2.

Happy first day of classes, Illini! Get back to basics with this 1552 Abcedarium Anglico-Latinum ; protyrunculis Richardo Huloeto exscriptore from @illinoisrbml.bsky.social

Today is International Dog Day, so we're celebrating by learning how to draw some cute canine friends. Consider trying one out (or sketching your own pet) and tag us in your drawing(s)! 🐶

English writer H.G. Wells used bicycles as a literary vehicle in many of his published works, including The Wheels of Chance (1896), which he wrote while living in the town of Woking, Surrey. Pictured here are some of Wells' drawings or "picshuas" from his time in Surrey that feature bicycles. 🚲

Haven't had the chance to check out our 2024-2025 exhibit? Time is running out! Visit RBML by the end of the week to take a look at "We are each other's harvest": Gwendolyn Brooks and the Formation of Black Literary Canon before installation begins on our next exhibit. 👀