A 'Red Admirable', which we now call a Red Admiral! From Drawings of English Butterflies by Sir Thomas Gage (1781–1820) Vol. I, 1799 (Hengrave 61).

A perfect summer’s day @rspb.bsky.social Lakenheath Fen. @rspbengland.bsky.social

Hello. 💚

Gorgeous bronze & horn gift label, recording the donation of this volume to Bury Grammar School by one William Buckberd in the summer of 1565. It contains four works printed in Cologne & Antwerp in the 1560s, including Cato’s Distichs & Aesop’s Fables. Now @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Bury.48.7.

Day 22, #30DaysWild. Seven-spot ladybird in the Dye Garden at @theul.bsky.social this evening.

This first edition of Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince contains the story of a secret love affair... 📖The Happy Prince: and other tales by Oscar Wilde illustrated by Walter Crane and Jacomb Hood, 1888. (Keynes.X.6.3) #LGBTQ+ #PrideMonth #RareBooks #CambridgeUniversityLibrary

Illuminated initial F with St Jerome and a mysterious kneeling chap (any ideas?). In a Bible printed at Strasbourg c. 1473 and illuminated in France soon after printing. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Inc.1.A.2.2[3774].

Chun comóradh 60 bliain ó d’fhoilsigh Seamus Heaney a chéad chnuasach filíochta, Death of a Naturalist, a cheiliúradh, breathnaímid siar ar a fhilíocht trí lionsa difriúil: https://www.nli.ie/ga/news-stories/scealta/seamus-heaney-fear-miotas-forbairt-file

An absolutely packed room at @antiquaries.bsky.social )and more on Zoom!) to hear Andrew Honey from @bodleian.ox.ac.uk: “Graham Pollard revisited: New observations on the construction of English twelfth-century bindings at the Bodleian Library”

#Libraries #Librarians

'Printed in Defiance – Making the 1916 Proclamation' explores the story behind one of Ireland’s most iconic documents—focusing on the people who made it possible. New exhibition now open at @ucclibrary.bsky.social

"Three young Barn Owls looking out of the quatrefoil of a church in North Norfolk."

Enjoying the sunshine @cubotanicgarden.bsky.social as was this handsome #FoxOfTheDay

Earth Day reminds us: progress happens across systems. 🌱 @envconsjournal.bsky.social explores the science, policy, and practice shaping how we manage ecosystems, biodiversity, and sustainability at local to global scales: cambridge.org/enc #OurPowerOurPlanet #EarthDay @earthdayorg.bsky.social#OurPowerOurPlanet

Whether or not you have been to the Kederminster Library at Langley Marish (now in the suburbs of Slough), do share this one abd consider visiting. It’s utterly spectacular and worth a long journey. langleymarish.com/stmary/keder... - hats off for them for seeing that is open to be visited.

The new Book & Paper Conservation programme at @glasgow.ac.uk's Kelvin Centre has got off to a great start. As it's the first year there are just 4 students, numbers will increase in future years. Here's a blog from them about their first semester. iconscotland.wordpress.com/2026/02/24/b...

A sunny Sunday walk with cuckoo flower dotted through the meadows 🌸 #Springwatch

A perfect day @magogdown.bsky.social to admire swathes of cowslips and spot @theul.bsky.social #SpringWatch #CambridgeUniversityLibrary

Under the Cherry blossom at @theul.bsky.social. 📷 #photography

We are part of a consortium funding conservation internships, others are Pilgrim,Swire, Radcliffe, Anna Plowden and Idlewild and Julia Rausing Trusts. Currently calling for EOIs from those interested in hosting the tapestry conservation internship. See www.icon.org.uk/resource/cal...

Spring in a city garden 🌱 #SpringWatch

May not last, but today it’s full-on summer in Cambridge.

Bookish blooms and butterflies @cubotanicgarden.bsky.social

My Ides of March fun fact is that the place where Caesar was stabbed is now a cat sanctuary, and I think it’s beautiful that creatures with tiny knives on their feet live there

Fully funded PhD studentship: ‘Recording nature and writing the self: time, entomology and the archive in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries’. Closes 3 May. With Ruth Abbott, Staffan Müller-Wille, Ed Turner & me. @theul.bsky.social @zoologymuseum.bsky.social www.ccc.cam.ac.uk/initiatives/...

8 Badass Librarians We Need to Celebrate This International Women’s Day lithub.com/8-badass-lib... Obras Selectas de la Celebre Monja de Mejico, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz" at PG: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/74087 #womenhistoryMonth #librarians #libraries Dorothy B. Porter

Today in Brum, and delighted to see the new blue plaque in honour of John Baskerville, whose 3000+ typographical punches are in @theul.bsky.social in Cambridge (as well as being a key figure in the Midlands Enlightenment Baskerville was also Printer to the University of Cambridge).

The brilliant Future Nostalgia project @theul.bsky.social headed by our excellent colleague Leontien Talboom! Digital and analogue preservation intertwined. It’s been great working with her in #CULconservation 💾 #DigitalHumanities

Puzzle Binding! Tricky! These are almost as rare as hen's teeth, and we just... Had One??? And, it includes HOW Many Books? (Five from Germany c. 1601 and a blank one at last count...) #Vexierbuch #DosADos @newberrylibrary.bsky.social (Case C 823 .966)

Twilight @theul.bsky.social. 📷 #photography

Crocuses spotted flowering under a hedge in Ely. 📷 #photography

This Super Bowl Sunday, I’d like to introduce you all to the magical curse bowls used in Upper Mesopotamia and Syria in late antiquity. Written in Mandaic (as here) or Syriac Aramaic, they trap demons who trespass on a household by sucking them in with spiraling spells to the center of the bowl.

A Cambridge #TheWinter10. Green alkanet, Petty spurge, Common chickweed, Red dead nettle, Shepherd’s purse, Daisy, Greater periwinkle, Red dead nettle again, White dead nettle, Green hellebore and Common field speedwell. #WildflowerHour

Snowdrops in Cambridge. 📷 #photography

A stunning architectural binding, executed in Italy in the seventeenth century. On Gaspare Visconti’s ‘De Paulo e Daria amanti’ (printed at Milan in 1495), a poem centred on the false death of a lover, not unlike Romeo & Juliet. Bought by @theulspeccoll.bsky.social in 1966 & now Inc.5.B.7.23[4467].

The old Cambridge University Library. @theul.bsky.social #AlphabetChallenge #WeekBforBooks 📷 #photography

Some book trade ephemera for the cold weather: a piece of frost fair ephemera printed on the frozen River Thames by (or for) Mrs Sarah Baker on 18 January 1715/16 and probably later pasted into a book. Part of a collection assembled by A. N. L. Munby and now @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Munby.b.131.

A few favourites from Paula Rego: Visions of English Literature @norwichcastle.bsky.social Process, proofs and prints in the beautifully renovated galleries.

See you next year @theul.bsky.social #CambridgeUniversityLibraries #WinterSolstice #YaldaNight #Midwinter

Want to join the www.codicum.eu project? 3 year PostDoct at SDU (Odense, Denmark) for an Latin expert with palaeographical as well as text and book historical skills. #Medieval #Manuscript

Two days of Heritage Science and Manuscripts @ox.ac.uk with an excellent session @bodleian.ox.ac.uk Scientists, Historians and Conservators in conversation 📚

Dark, damp, but decidedly festive 🎄 @bodleian.ox.ac.uk and @ashmoleanmuseum.bsky.social looking beautiful in the rain this evening. #UniversityOfOxford #OxfordGLAM

Autumn days in Cambridge 🍂 @theul.bsky.social @clarecollege @corpuscambridge.bsky.social looking splendid on a crisp cold day. #CambridgeUniversityLibraries

Details of a fragment from an Abbasid Qur’an 📚 Iron gall ink on perfect parchment 🐑 @theul.bsky.social MS Add.1118, 3/4th century AH/ 9/10th century CE #IslamicManuscript #CambridgeUniversityLibraries #Parchment #JummahMubarak

#ManuscriptMonday from a flying visit to Words on the Wave @nmireland.bsky.social 📚 An exquisite show with wonderful archaeological objects, but always a joy to see books at the heart of an exhibition. #NationalMuseumofIreland #IrishManuscripts #FaddenMorePsalter #KinaleBookShrine

She is holding a book! 📖 Currently writing a section on visual evidence for book use in medieval Scotland - so this could not be better timed... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

New research may rewrite the story of the Book of Kells 📚 @tcddublin.bsky.social @tcdlibrary.bsky.social

Walnut (husk) ink in progress. #NaturalDyes #NaturalInks #PracticeBasedResearch

Day to day collaboration between #CULconservation and colleagues in #CHIL @theul.bsky.social 📚 📷

Catching up on 1920’s week in @sewingbee.bsky.social and noticed a familiar backdrop! @cam.ac.uk @caiuscollege.bsky.social