A few of the sights from the Akron Antiquarian Book & Paper Show, not including the Nonesuch edition of William Morris’ selected writings that I walked away with.

OSU’s leaf of this Maghrebi Qur’an manuscript, formerly owned by the Lima Public Library (one of the primary recipients of Ege’s leaves).

The prospectus from the Grabhorn Press’ 1925 edition of Richard de Bury’s “Philobiblon” (a medieval text all about books) includes chapter 17, “Of handling books in a cleanly manner, and keeping them in order” with ironically, intentionally added fingerprints, laid in flowers, marginalia, etc.

The most interesting archival object of the week: this gorgeously printed silk propaganda cartoon aimed at Italian Americans, glorifying the US’s role in WW1. Presented by a student and discussed in the grad seminar on decolonization embedded in our department this semester.

Congratulations to my fabulous colleagues on the Small Performances project and the clever people at @camdiglib.bsky.social on launching the Baskerville Punches collection and associated RTI embedded viewer www.lib.cam.ac.uk/stories/bask...

Blood Phlegm Yellow bile Black bile

In 1900, German colonial authorities hanged Mangi Molelia for resisting their expansion into what is now Tanzania. A few days ago, his great-grandson Tony Molelia visited German to pray with Mangi Molelia's bones, held in one museum, and to wrap himself in the cloak his murders also stole.

So little is online, AND digital surrogates are not capable of reproducing the physical experience of handling cultural heritage/historical objects in real life. The crackle of the turning pages, the smell of the glue or the parchment/paper, the nuances of the binding structure, and on and on and on

Has anyone studied how researchers and academics use library catalogues? I'm struggling to find any literature on researcher (not student) information needs and information seeking behavior. Any leads? My focus is rare books/archives/special collections, but I'm looking broadly right now.

Plant shopping in c. 1830s Japan! Woodcuts by Hasagawa Settan (長谷川雪旦, 1778-1843). In 江戶名所圖會, a collection of plates and description of the important places in Edo. In the Herman J. Albrecht Library of Historical Architecture, on deposit at OSU libraries.

Absolutely DEVASTATED and yet enthralled by this past librarian’s “conservation effort” which resulted in the marring of this most famous of cover designs and yet also yielded a very interesting book object

Every Opening Ceremony, but this one in particular, has Eurovision levels of camp/wtf is happening and I love it.

Notgeld—local currency made in Germany during the Weimar Republic.

Got our Audubon facsimile out for class as a reminder that size matters!

Books + postcard + fabulous bookplate design I saw at work recently! book historians, chime in on printing technique of the postcard—would this be multicolor halftone? Traditional lithography? Also, descriptors for the style of the plaid bookbinding? Decorative paper boards…? Details in alt

It’s not enough to say Abolish ICE. It’s not enough to vote no on ICE funding. It’s not enough to confront Kristi Noem or Greg Bovino with Stern Words. If you are a leader, what are you doing to protect your community? How are you using your power, privilege, and position to confront this threat?

Bill Siemering, founding program director of NPR, author of its mission statement, has asked me to inquire if any profs might be interested in a Zoom class visit? No honorarium necessary. Bill founded All Things Considered, Fresh Air, won a MacArthur, etc.

The semester starts in a week and we already have 85 class sessions scheduled in Special Collections. Departments from Biology to Landscape Architecture to Spanish to Theatre, all coming to use rare books and archives! Huzzah!

First day back in office—mid-century printing and type catalogs. Could be worse!

JOB ALERT! 3-year postdoc at @girtoncollege.bsky.social - research anything you like in History, Archaeology or Anthropology in a wonderful, welcoming scholarly community. PLEASE SHARE! Closes 12 January www.girton.cam.ac.uk/job-vacancie...

Book reading highlights from 2025. The year of not as much reading as I may have wished, but a year in which I got to discover these awesome books and their writers—which makes it a great reading year!

Book collecting highlights of 2025! Indulging my loves of Arthuriana, tactile and beautiful bindings, the fine press movement, Austen (in facsimile), and the works of Carlos Ruiz Zafón.

I’m doing a survey of fine bindings (19th c. English, specifically) in our collection because I have the best job and it’s December 23rd. Enjoy some delicious gilt-tooled leather spines!

An 18thC advertisement for the Greenwich bookbinder Joseph Naples, who offers to fit up gentlemen’s libraries ‘in the neatest and best manner, and on the most reasonable terms’. Another piece from an album of book trade ephemera, compiled by Tim Munby & now @theulspeccoll.bsky.social, Munby.b.131.

Post-doc positions: "Academic freedom is under pressure today. This requires rescue havens of free research. ... [we] invite early career researchers, whose work is restricted due to political pressure in the USA..." uni-freiburg.de/frias/call-f...

I always love a surprise appearance from an old friend.

Happy holiday season from Kanga, who is NOT happy that he’s been prevented from batting at the newly hung ornaments. Plotting has commenced.

So, SO delighted that four additional leaves of the Josephinum Bible (my longtime reconstruction project) have found their home at Ohio State! These are the first illuminated leaves in OSU’s collection, which now owns a total of 14 leaves from this parent codex broken in the late 1990s.

A collection that I engage with a lot at work is a library of historical architecture books and related materials. I’d like to share some things I have learned and observed about the early modern-contemporary pursuit of classical architecture and its relationship to white supremacy.

My review of @robertamazza.bsky.social’s “Stolen Fragments”—an excellent piece of detective work and a thoughtful commentary on our responsibilities as stewards of cultural heritage—is available OA in Manuscript Studies. I loved this book and I think you will too :)

The @scottpolar.bsky.social are looking for a librarian. This is a rare opportunity! Work with (probably) the world's largest dedicated polar library alongside archive and museum colleagues. The dream 😍 📜

Recent books and bookplates I saw at work! Sharing the mostly art nouveau (+ one early modern) aesthetic love with you all on this autumn Sunday.

Pretty disappointed, but unsurprised, at the lot descriptions for the upcoming Christie’s Books and MSS auction citing, with little exception, ONLY de Ricci’s Census and its supplement. I doubt I need to enumerate the reasons that this is not only bad scholarly practice but also very suspicious.

One of the innumerable things to love about Ben Wickey’s fantastic graphic novel about the Salem Witch Trials and their entry into the American consciousness, “More Weight,” is the beautifully accurate drawings of the various forms of printed matter—including these stab-stitched pamphlets!

no it can't, you're just describing phrenology, a white supremacist pseudoscience

Just found out about this amazing example of #manuscript #recycling . The whole manuscript is made up from the margins of an earlier liturgical manuscript, cut out and rearranged (hence the unusual format), the (mostly) blank margins then used to copy various magical texts in the mid 16th century.

Bibliography friends: any source recommendations that discuss the use of “marginalia” as additions specifically related to the text vs. other manuscript additions (ownership inscriptions, unrelated notes, etc.)?

Cleveland, OH: Northeast Ohio Broadcast Archives Manager, Cleveland Public Library

“Hereticks are as good as Papists for all their Masses and Wafers and convents and whorish Nuns and Inquisitions” Tell us how you really feel! (From the lives of the Princes of Orange, 1693)

Delightful line of ownership documented in pre-title pages of this 1566 edition of Tyndale’s New Testament—a line of Bonds! Thomas, Bonds. Printed by Richard Jugge, with his mark.

Planting a pollinator bed or two this fall time and pulled up these beauties in the process!

"Where am I, and what is the time?" he said aloud to the ceiling. "In the House of Elrond, and it is ten o'clock in the morning." said a voice. "It is the morning of October the twenty-fourth, if you want to know." #Tolkien #BookSky Image: "Rivendell - The Riders" by @donatoarts.bsky.social

Enjoying some time with Jean Mabillon and his extremely approachable transcriptions of Merovingian scripts, in addition to the other joys of De re diplomatica (1681)—the work first establishing the science of paleography.

Dare I say I was torn when deciding to pull this?

the US govt has mounted a repeal of the right to culture. There is simply no other way to understand dismantling Dept of Ed, PBS, NPR, NEH, NEA + IMLS, defunding universities, censorship of artists, attack on equal access to institutions,+ erosion of free speech. hyperallergic.com/1049388/how-...

Description: handwritten by MRJames

Spent some extremely healing quality time with the most beautiful book ever printed today.

MLGB is back!! Delighted that Medieval Libraries of Great Britain @bodleian.ox.ac.uk is now back online. We are also working had on plans for the next phase of the resource, enhancing & adding data & functionality. HUGE thanks to my colleagues for their hard & clever work mlgb.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

If you haven’t yet read Vnouček’s fantastic article on the parchment in the Hamburg Bible, I am constantly recommending it!

Me welcoming the students to class in October: