"PEN America identified 2,520 book ban cases... out of those, only 3% of the bans were triggered by a law requiring the removal of a book—the rest, 97%—came from bans caused by the fear that districts had of being out of compliance" #DontComplyInAdvance www.wordsandmoney.com/pen-america-...

Caught covid for the first time 5 years in, shortly before annual shot. and I gotta say naming variants after clouds is underwhelming at best and 100% offensive to clouds

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY, September 19, 1984, Former U. S. President Gerald Ford was stuck in an elevator in the Van Pelt Library at UPenn. Was there a medieval manuscript stuck in the elevator with him? Probably not, but we can dream. #medievalsky

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025... I don’t have words

Booklist for the 10th century library at Bobbio. Among the various categories: "Books We Have But Can't Find" (de libris quos non reperimus sed habemus)

Personal announcement: I've been appointed Assistant Director of the Marian Library and Special Collections here at UD (Dayton, not Delaware) which means among other things that I get to figure out things like this copy of Anatomy of Melancholy with a detached front board and uh, this bookplate?

It's always like this with archives, i have so many beefs with dead people

Tom Lehrer outlived Kissinger, and I think that is evidence that there are at least some good forces in the universe. “I do have a cause, though. It is obscenity. I’m for it.” -from the intro to “Smut”

Finally got around to doing a first draft of an infographic/drawing on the basics of handling rare books :)

This is #BookHistory too. Of a heartbreaking kind. Tho' I imagine they haven't succeeded in accessing ICE detention facilities, this seems a good time to remind people to support the Prison Book Program (prisonbookprogram.org), which does amazing work compensating for the cruelties Öztürk describes

Early (earliest extant?) mention of library collections at what became MPOW, 1876: "Useless books are to be removed from the Brothers' Library and put in an old box to be stored away somewhere."

Streaming It's Not You, It's a Trend: Managing Social Media in Archives and Special Collections since 2020 at #rbms25 and that title... oof, spot on.Grateful for survey work, panelists willing to share challenges in case studies and to @librarycolleen.bsky.social!

The pope posted this this morning and I’m thinking a lot about it

The story of LGBT rights is a story of advances followed by setbacks followed by media with no skin in the game saying, "It's because you were too loud/asked for too much/moved too fast/got too big for your britches/didn't make your case." That never changes--but happily it's never the last word.

I am ❤️

Honestly would use this with 9 am library visit tomorrow as a bridge between breakfast, hand washing, and old book touching. Books are like eggs! Think about it

I saw this sign in an antique shop yesterday and I can’t stop thinking about it. Books are like eggs

New (to me) library lore: the first out-of-scope donation in 1943, "the first in a long series of books which have been donated to the library by those who insist on judging a book by its cover" 🙃

Brutalist Academia

Save the Archives and Special Collections department at Bangor University: chng.it/Z6T6dyRPPb

Habemus new angle for better box and/or conservation $ for this Marian miscellany (written on vellum and paper!) attributed to a different Pope Leo

This illegally issued cedola, or receipt of a betting slip, for the papal #conclave of 21-24 April 1585, was undersigned by the Medici ambassador to Rome (👀), who wagered 100 gold scudi on the victory of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. (+ a blank version for all your #papalelection betting needs ...)

archivists:

Today is a good day to weed many duplicate coffee table books. Maybe even a TV Guide cataloged as a monograph.

Omg

Out of the office but still in a zoom meeting with the hawk nesting in the stacks

This looks like when they trapped wasps in The Giant Jam Sandwich but to catch early modern historians

Where to find other limited ed. copies (including at MPOW): saintjohnsbible.org/heritage-edi... (this reminds me to turn the page next week)

Things are more or less safe and dry on my side but the "at least there isn't water running down the stairwell [like the last time this special collection flooded]" of it all 🫠

🌻😮 my namesake! #BookGreeble

"Here’s the word I cannot remember: ciao. Here’s the thing I should not go around humming: ‘Mambo Italiano’." www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

I wrote it, and I even found a suitable screencap! Happy 100th to this man, hope it's not too weird to have a birthday on Good Friday in vowed Catholic etiquette (it went up early on the work blog) udayton.edu/blogs/marian...

'we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. Unconsciously, I suppose, we were grateful. Who wants to think?' How fascism steals attention -- from Milton Mayer's They Thought They Were Free press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago...

HOMOS PAY TAXES, HOMOS NEED ART GRANTS. From NEA organizing in the 1990s, Minnie Bruce Pratt Papers. Still relevant.

"I'd like you to think about who the pizza man might be" - 80s video I'm skimming for work, somehow

It's Flores Seraphichi FMonday, and we also have a hawk nesting in our stacks, you know there's a Capuchin friar for that

columbia, brown, georgetown, cornell and now tufts — they’re taking our students, our colleagues, our kin https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/international-student-tufts-university-reportedly-taken-into-federal-custody/2VK55QMAOZFIDBR2A6XNKC5XOU/?outputType=amp

Today’s Typography Tuesday is from this completely bizarre astrological/political/apocalyptic text called The Panther-Prophesy (1661). It makes use of extremely non-standard typographic layout with various panels and dividers separating the main text from various notes/interjections

Problem: previous book owner(s) wrote their name(s) on the title page of your book Solution: turn them into fish

Rose's thread here is great—I've been thinking about how to include Fraktur/gothic history in the classroom this year (namely in 50- and 75-min one-shot special collections instruction). Definitely delving into the resources here for potential pre-reading!

At a Trump rally in October 2024, Elon Musk wore a MAGA hat written in font in the family known as "Fraktur." This font family, descended from Gothic script, has a complicated history pertaining to white supremacy and Nazi/neo-Nazi ideals. I'm thinking about this today. Let's discuss. 🧵

I'm now officially promoted and tenured—while trans and working with Catholic special collections, within Catholic institutional policies and current red state/US politics. Still expecting something to come down from somewhere to say actually I'm not 😬

Every area of special collections work is impacted by our knowledge of the collections. If things feel out of control, take a collection item and sit with it. Investigate it. Research it for an hour, or even for 15 uninterrupted minutes. Then, write something about it.

Amazing (if near invisible) addition to this plate on “the attitude in which a boy should always place himself when he begins to speak” from a 1820 elocution book

🤝 from an institutional inbox addressed as "Dear Ms. Marian Library,"

The Farnese Hours, 1546, with a portrait, BY EL GRECO, OF THEIR MINIATURIST, WITH THE BOOK OPEN AT THE SAME PLACE (excuse my caps). Musei Capitolini, Rome, Farnese show. The book is Pierpont Morgan MS 69, the painting is at Naples, Museo di Capidimonte, and the miniaturist is Giulio Clovio.