A very special day today, when my lovely former colleagues @theul.bsky.social have digitised the founding documents of @rsliterature.bsky.social to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the signing of our Royal Charter. My favourite line: "We have become a People of Readers"

Amazing @lauragreenfield.bsky.social! How we’ll miss you @theul.bsky.social! Lucky @rsliterature.bsky.social!

Where it all began. What a pleasure to be back @universityofleeds.bsky.social taking part in interviews at the Brotherton Library with @masudk.com and remembering my student days at the Faculty of English.

First work day at #UKSG25 is over 🥂 - stand out for me was the Library CEO with Tony Zanders, @jessicagardner.bsky.social and @kmdames.bsky.social talking about library leadership. Authentic, vulnerable and people-centred - a reminder that in a world of e-resources & OA it’s people who create change

Internship opportunity! We & 5 others Pilgrim, Radcliffe, Idlewild, Anna Plowden, and Julia Rausing Trusts are funding a no. of internships. The first, a Manuscripts Conservation Internship - is advertised today! Spread the word!! www.jobs.london.ac.uk/Job/JobDetai...

Today, I presented our approach to Education Spaces and Campus Reimagined at the University Design Forum reference visit to @universityofleeds.bsky.social. Really good engagement and questions from the audience. It is always a pleasure to partner with Ann. #LearningSpaces #UserExperience

My family and friends don’t always pay attention to what happens at my work, but they are all messaging me about the 1960s Crunchie wrapper!

Calling all librarians! Join us for 'Librarians change lives' on 18 March, celebrating 10th anniv of Weston Library, & 175th of the Public Libraries Act. Speakers include Librarian of Congress Dr Carla Hayden, @aminatshah.bsky.social & Neil McInnes! visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/mar25/...

I had such a great time discussing The Poisonwood Bible with @chinemcdonald.bsky.social at our Really Popular Book Club @theUL.bsky.social tonight. If you missed it, you can see Chine at the launch of her next book, Unmaking Mary, at St Paul’s Cathedral in a few weeks www.stpauls.co.uk/unmaking-mary

I was asked to write an Op Ed piece by @resprofnews.bsky.social on universities cancelling journal Big Deals: www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-v... I was keen to stress that at least some of any savings must be used to support new, fairer models

There’s still time to apply for the Munby Research Fellowship 2025! This 2-year Research Associate position in Bibliography and Natural History Humanities is a collaboration between Cambridge University Libraries & @camglamresearch.bsky.social Closing date: 17 Jan www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/49338/

While libraries are on my mind. Please pause for a moment and realize how amazing the library is. You walk in and say, I would like this book/info/space to sit/reading hour/book club/knitting circle. And they say, welcome. Our doors are open to you. They are lighthouses of democracy. Fight for them.

Beautiful along the commons in the frost this morning with brave rowers already out, oars pulling hard through the Cam and the cold.

Come work with us! There’s still time to apply for the two-year Munby Fellowship for a Research Associate in Bibliography and Natural History Humanities, a collaboration between @theul.bsky.social and @camglamresearch.bsky.social: jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/49338/ Closing: 17 Jan

Cambridge University Library features in Episode 2 of Lucy Worsley Investigates (Series 2) on BBC Two at 9pm this Friday! In this episode, @lucyworsley.bsky.social investigates the Gunpowder Plot. The full series is available to stream now on the BBC iPlayer : loom.ly/jJZZokI

Awesome dinosaurs in the joyous evolution-themed garden at the Natural History Museum. Can we have one @theul.bsky.social please?

📚The Really Popular Book Club is back on Tuesday 28 January, 7-8pm! 💻 Join us online to discuss Barbara Kingsolver’s classic, The Poisonwood Bible, with journalist, broadcaster and author @chinemcdonald.bsky.social ✅Register for your FREE place now: loom.ly/iQU0F1g

Glorious sunrise and frost on the way for a meeting at the Natural History Museum. Expect awesome photos of dinosaurs later.

Hurry! You have just two months left to see ENDLESS STORIES at the UL. 📍 Cambridge University Library until 22 February 2025 ⏰ Monday – Friday 9am – 6:30pm & Saturdays 9am – 4:30pm 🎟️Tickets are completely FREE and are available to book now: www.lib.cam.ac.uk/endlessstories

I am delighted to advertise an executive leadership position in my team - Director of Cultural Collections and Curatorial Practice - Permanent - Grade 10 - Salary range £69,757 to £83,079. #LibraryJobs #ArchiveJobs #Library #Archives #Jobs berwickpartners.co.uk/opportunitie... Come join us at Leeds.

Joyous beautiful morning sunlight rising over King’s College Chapel on this morning’s winter walk-to-work @theul.bsky.social.

Overindulged over Christmas? In medieval times, treatments for gout were limited. Sufferers sought out many different cures, ranging from the simple and familiar to the outlandish and bizarre… Find out more in this article by our Curious Cures team: specialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk?p=26866

New year and blue sky: home-from-home back at the UL. @theul.bsky.social

No, definitely not in Cambridge anymore. #wintersun

Happy Christmas from @theul.bsky.social!

A beautifully illuminated nativity scene from a 14th century English Book of Hours in the care of Cambridge University Library. We wish all our staff, library users and followers from across the world, a very Happy Christmas! Ref: Book of Hours (Use of Sarum) CUL MS Dd.4.17

Goodnight Library! See you in 2025! @theul.bsky.social

If you didn’t visit this year, please come next year! www.lib.cam.ac.uk/stories/year.... We have The Really Popular Book Club (free, online www.lib.cam.ac.uk/bookclub) and some wild medieval medicine as our @wellcometrust.bsky.social funded Curious Cures project becomes a major exhibition!

You know it is nearly Christmas when… It’s tree time @theul.bsky.social!

Off to first Christmas party (thanks very much indeed to @camlibresearch.bsky.social), with new blue festive sparkly jumper (tick), appropriate bottle to share (tick), and present for hosts (tick). Feeling very deliciously un-Tuesday-like. Smiles.

Inspired by this to look at dye colours in the notebooks of plant biochemist Robert (Robin) Hill (1899-1991), who experimented with plant dyes (and also invented a fish-eye lens for whole-sky cloud photography). MS Add. 9267/B.45 @theulspeccoll.bsky.social @theul.bsky.social

So many wonderful items on display in the British Library’s major exhibition celebrating the lives and works of ‘Medieval Women’. Enjoy this beautiful page showing author Christine de Pisan writing her book (1434).

It was fantastic to be at the launch of the University of Cambridge ‘African Collections Futures’ report tonight. Incredible, rich, important work by Dr Eva Namusoke through the Collections-Connections-Communities research initiative. Summary report here: www.ccc.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/u...

Come work with us! Excited to advertise a two-year Munby Fellowship for a Research Associate in Bibliography and Natural History Humanities, a collaboration between @theul.bsky.social and the Collections-Connections-Communities Strategic Research Initiative: jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/49338/ Closing: 17 Jan

Seems too long ago @masudk.com! You should come again soon!

Afternoon off home-from-home in Oxford catching up with @davidprosser.bsky.social of @rluk.bsky.social and an old old library friend now at Harris-Manchester College (hence the Christmas pic). Happily, there are a lot of lovely bookish people in my life.

David Mills [@qmul.ac.uk] visited the Cultural Heritage Imaging Lab @theul.bsky.social for an OCT (Optical Coherence Tomography) session. We’re investigating the unique black material used to conceal several hymns in a 15th-century Jewish liturgical codex, CUL Add.662. #HebrewManuscripts

Winter Lights in Cambridge University Botanical Garden last night. An absolute wonderland, mixing light show sounds and science. Joyful. Book here: www.botanic.cam.ac.uk/cambridge-bo...

Hidden in Plain Sight is a collaboration between @QMUL, @QMUL_HSS, @theUL, @MAACambridge, @NLWales, and other leading libraries. We’re using cutting-edge technology at Cambridge University Library to reveal the hidden stories of ancient books.

My son won the Senior Latin Prose competition, organized by the Faculty of Classics at the University of Cambridge last week. He used the gift card he received as a prize to purchase his first Loeb Classical Library book: Euripides, Cyclops. Alcestis. Medea. So proud of him.

The wondrous Lindisfarne Gospels, around 700 AD, in the British Library Treasures Gallery. Here in London for trustee meeting of Friends of the Nation’s Libraries @thefnl.bsky.social. But who can resist a little manuscript gazing alongside?

Don't miss tomorrow's #ReallyPopularBookClub The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. We'll be joined by bestselling science fiction writer @unamccormack.bsky.social 📍 Online, via Zoom ⏰ Tuesday 26 November 2024, 7PM to 8PM 🎟️ Register for free: www.lib.cam.ac.uk/whats/really...

Brilliant news: very much hope there will be opportunities to work with the amazing Hannah Fry to promote access and engagement with @theul.bsky.social mathematical and scientific archives. www.cam.ac.uk/research/new...

What IIIF can do IS simply impressive, a plea from the IIIF panel to make its implementation quick, simple and fun especially for non-techies #TaNC

I wish you could hear this: the wind is rising and the autumn leaves are circling and crackling round the Library tower @theul.bsky.social. Loud and wonderful enough to pull me out of my computer screen to enjoy.

This really was a brilliant lecture from Timothy Young (Yale) for this year’s Sandars Lectures. @theul.bsky.social

I've not come across a starter pack focusing specifically on senior leaders with overall responsibility for university libraries (dean, director, head) so thought I'd start one. I'm sure I've missed plenty of people, so let me know to be added! go.bsky.app/7DgUMvf

Any excuse to go up the Cambridge University Library tower @theul.bsky.social to see the accumulation of popular culture books acquired through Legal Deposit over the twentieth-century. Decades of publishing history and book art through the original book jackets at the UL.

Moonlit walk in Suffolk. The season for ghost stories is upon us.

Hmm what do librarians do on a day off??