iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Laura Cleaver @laurajcleaver.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

I’m leading this London Rare Book School course on the history of collecting. Ideal for anyone interested in studying the history of libraries and how and why books have survived. We’ll be looking at why special collections are special. 22-26 June. #bookHistory👇📚📖 ies.sas.ac.uk/study-traini...

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BOO! k HistoriAAAH 🎃 @book-historia.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

And we’re LIVE! This episode of #BiteSizedBookHistory is all about bookbinding, and how judging a book by its cover can tell you about its history and where it came from. youtu.be/3aUdEy0Edf4?...

youtu.be

Judging Books by Their Covers: Bookbinding! | Bite Sized Book History

YouTube video by Book Historia

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Aaron T. Pratt @aarontpratt.bsky.social · 22/01/2026

If you missed Ann Blair’s @ransomcenter.bsky.social Pforzheimer Lecture last night, you can check it out on YouTube: www.youtube.com/live/u16QHaI... I think you’ll agree that it’s both sharp and a lot of fun.

youtube.com

Dr. Ann Blair - How Renaissance Scholars and Printers Decided on the Size of Books

YouTube video by Harry Ransom Center

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Teaching the Codex @teachingcodex.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

Hello Bluesky! We're an interdisciplinary project on the teaching of palaeography and codicology, and we're now branching out to include early printed books. Check out our website for lots of learning resources: teachingthecodex.com

teachingthecodex.com

Teaching the Codex

Pedagogical Approaches to Palaeography and Codicology

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Alice Wickenden @awickenden.bsky.social · 30/06/2025

hello. if you work at a university please ask your library to buy my book. it is all about books and libraries and also plants, museums, the Royal Society, and the ways we learn. I think it will be interesting to lots of people, hopefully. thank you www.cambridge.org/gb/universit...

cambridge.org

Hans Sloane's Library Collection and the Production of Knowledge | Cambridge University Press & Assessment

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 12/06/2025

One immediate action item following our "Building BookLabs" symposium was to establish a mailing list where folks running/founding/dreaming up book labs & adjacent initiatives can share resources, opportunities, events, & other materials—if you’d like to be connected sign up at the link below!

lists.illinois.edu

booklabs - BookLab Network List - subscribe

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Danielle Westerhof @behindthespines.bsky.social · 12/06/2025

Serious geeking out today at Chantilly: exhibition about (and with!) Les très riches heures du duc de Berry. Some amazing manuscripts on display...

Two leaves from the famous book of hours of the Duke of Berry, displayed upright as part of an exhibition celebrating the restoration of the manuscript. One leaf is showing a handcoloured image of the month of September, with a grape harvest in front of a castle. The other leaf is the calendar for November with saints days.

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Danielle Westerhof @behindthespines.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

Usual British railchaos going back up north from London...

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National Trust @nationaltrust.org.uk · 15/05/2025

Many farmers are already showing that farms can be profitable and nature-friendly. But they can’t do it alone. Alongside the RSPB, we’re calling on the UK Government to invest in nature-friendly farming. Together we can help grow a brighter future for our wildlife, our farmers, and all of us.

Close up of a bee on a bluebell flower. Text over reads, Nature can't afford a pay cut

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Katie Birkwood @girlinthe.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

ESTC is back online in a new beta version hosted by CERL: datb.cerl.org/estc/ #RareBooks #BookHistory #Skystorians #GLAM 📚📜

datb.cerl.org

English Short Title Catalogue

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Lynne M. Thomas 🏳️‍🌈🚀🦄 📜 @lynnemthomas.com · 09/05/2025

Just because I am not surprised does not mean I'm not angry. Carla Hayden, like every other *actually qualified federal worker* that has been shamefully treated in this unconscionable manner deserves better. www.npr.org/2025/05/09/g...

npr.org

President Trump fires Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden

Hayden, who became the first woman and the first African American to serve as the Librarian of Congress when she was appointed in 2016, was abruptly fired via email late Thursday.

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John Gallagher @earlymodernjohn.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

Early modern book people: I'm writing about how readers used errata lists and corrected errors in books they bought. Is there good work on errata lists and correcting the material text (after the book is printed and sold)?

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Durham University Library @dulib.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

📣 Shakespeare Recovered: Durham's First Folio exhibition is now open to the public! Free entry but advance booking strongly recommended 👍 Find out more and book your tickets via the link below 👇 @durham-university.bsky.social #Shakespeare #FirstFolio #Exhibition

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Anna-Lujz Gilbert @annalujz.bsky.social · 04/04/2025

Early modern libraries conference! #EarlyModern #BookHistory I spy the beautiful poster design work of @samuscript.bsky.social

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Durham University Collections @ducollections.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

Tonight is the Night! Counting down until the opening night of our Shakespeare Recovered Exhibition! Come and learn the story of Durham's First Folio! Opens to the public 4th April - free entry Book Tickets here: www.durham.ac.uk/things-to-do...

Colour photograph of exhibition guides on an antique wooden desk. The exhibition guides are titled 'Shakespeare Recovered'.

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Claire Turner @claireturner.bsky.social · 26/03/2025

I'm looking for references to the smell of death, decay, and cadavers in the early modern period. Any pointers would be much appreciated!

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Danielle Westerhof @behindthespines.bsky.social · 24/03/2025

I don't have access to this article unfortunately, but it looks worth a read! It's always good to ask questions about practices we take for granted, even if they might be considered provocative.

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Durham University Collections @ducollections.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

Shakespeare Recovered: Durham’s First Folio Opening 4th April-Cosin’s Library The story of our First Folio after its theft and the work of our Conservation Team making it accessible again. Visit to experience a book as you’ve never seen one before. Tickets: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/shakespear...

Photograph of Cosin’s Library with the text “Something is Coming” in the bottom left corner. Library has wooden floors with bookcases along the walls, a balcony, two portraits and large windows. A museum case with a book on display is in the centre of the library.

Illustration of William Shakespeare with the text “Shakespeare Recovered” on the left side and bottom left corner of the image. Behind the illustration is a bookcase from Cosin’s Library.

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

Operation Ballot CONTINUES. A reminder to Durham UCU members: get your vote in, and tell us you've gotten your vote in :)

A human person interacting with a mailbox, through the medium of putting an envelope in it.

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Leo Cadogan @leocadogan.com · 19/03/2025

Good instance of the occasional magic of ultraviolet.

Under ultraviolet in a darkened room, an inscription clearly visible.

In daylight, the same inscription very faded.

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Tanya Kirk @tanyakirk.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

We are hiring at St John's! We have an opening for an Early Career Librarian post, 3 year fixed term, salary £27,786, and as part of the role the College will pay the successful candidate's fees and give them day release to undertake a Masters' degree in Librarianship. www.joh.cam.ac.uk/vacancies

joh.cam.ac.uk

Work at St John's | St John's College, University of Cambridge

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Kaja Marczewska @kajamarczewska.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

Come hang out with me, @uclspeccoll.bsky.social and @sladeschoolucl.bsky.social as our first ever Small Press in Residence. £5,000 to spend flexibly, access to collections, and some super facilities: blogs.ucl.ac.uk/special-coll...

blogs.ucl.ac.uk

Call for a Small Press in Residence at UCL Special Collections | UCL UCL Special Collections

UCL Homepage

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Lisa Smith @historybeagle.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

Looking forward to the online #EMROCTranscribes panel on 7 March (5-6 pm UK/12-1 EST): Women Talking, Women's Health. We will answer questions about #EarlyModern women's health. Details on booking here: emroc.hypotheses.org/transcribath... #WomensHistoryMonth +

emroc.hypotheses.org

March 7 Transcribathon Preview

Want to know more about early modern recipes before the big day? Join us for an online discussion devoted to recipes and women’s health. Friday 7 March Women Talking, Women’s Health 5pm – 6pm GMT/12pm...

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SHARP @sharpweb.org · 24/02/2025

Hi there! We are the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing. Our members promote research in the history of the book including manuscript culture, print, digital technologies + beyond. Follow to connect with bookish scholarship from around the world + across time periods.

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Shannon K. Supple @mazarine.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

Are there any rare book-focused special collections librarians experimenting with or systematizing sustainable stewardship practices in line with OCLC’s Total Cost of Stewardship? www.oclc.org/research/pub...

oclc.org

Total Cost of Stewardship: Responsible Collection Building in Archives and Special Collections

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Steven Van Impe @svanimpe.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

Bookstore (with wine cellar and living space) for sale in Haarlem, for those looking for a romantic way to go bankrupt!

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AltYellostoneNatPar @altyellonatpark.org · 11/02/2025

Musk's censorship algorithm on Twitter reduced our audience by about 95% since he bought it. So we moved over to blue sky. Help us build another great following right here where the skies are clear and the water is fine ;-) Please do Follow Retweet & repeat

Mama bear wrestling with her cub. She's got him by the rear paw, nibbling on his toes I guess. They're in spring grass with a tree on the left.

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Mike Galsworthy @mikegalsworthy.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

Please share. 🙏🏻

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Bylines Scotland @bylines.scot · 28/02/2025

🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦

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Florian Klenk 👨🏻‍💻 @klenkflorian.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

Der Präsident eines Staates, der seit drei Jahren geschunden und zerstört wird und dessen Bevölkerung vergewaltigt wird, muss sich vom US-Präsidenten vor der ganzen Welt anbrüllen lassen. Was für eine Schande

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Endless Screaming @infinitescream.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

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Tom Hamilton @tombhamilton.bsky.social · 24/02/2025

I'm involved in this programme with a project on 'Forging Social Solidarities during Religious Wars', which is recruiting a Career Development Fellow and funding a PhD candidate in early modern European history – please share widely! I'm happy to chat with anyone interested in applying #earlymodern

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Prof Julia Steinberger 🌹🌱🌍 #ClimateAction #Fightfascism @jksteinberger.bsky.social · 23/02/2025

As promised, here are the slides I shared with students to convince them to NOT use chatGPT and other artificial stupidity. TL;DR? AI is evil, unsustainable and stupid, and I'd much rather they use their own brains, make their own mistakes, and actually learn something. 🪄

NO CHATGPT Or other artificial stupidity: motivation
First, clarity on distinguishing AIs:
Non-generative: grammar aid, translation, dictionary, text-to-audio (e.g. Natural Reader): no problem
As long as you use the appropriate tools (least intensive in data and server energy use).
Why? Because you provide the content. Your brain is doing the most important work
Generative: ChatGPT & Co.
You only supply the prompt, the AI supplies the content.
Why is this delegation of work problematic?
3 domains: ethical, environmental, intellectual engagement.

(Caveat: generative is probably ok for computer programming, where it can be useful and save time. Not relevant to this class.)

1) AI and ethics
Mass theft of all and everything
«learning» on books, articles, blogs, social media, images, music, cultural production, without permission of authors/creators, and leading to their mass joblessness. Profits are not reditributed to originators.
Permanent destruction of the mental health of underpaid precarious tech workers in the Global South (Kenya, Philippines …):
«correction» to avoid production of violent and pedophile contents etc, tech workers are obliged to watch and correct super violent contents for days on end, leading to extreme psychological suffering and trauma, from which recovery is doubtful. No or little compensation (certainly not at the level of the suffering inflicted).
In short, an industry built on theft of real human creation and sacrifice of real human health, profiting a few megafortunes.

2) AI and (un)sustainability

Massive consumption of electricity, water, server capacity for generative AI.
Outcome: keep fossil fuel companies in business, using up new renewable capacity, without any satisfaction of basic human needs.
Massive misappropriation of the finance necessary for climate and ecological action (renewable generation, efficiency and retrofit for buildings, public transit, infrastructures for cycling etc) towards AI industry.
Overall: undermine climate action, reinforce fossil industry, waste resources necessary for human development.

3) AI and intellectual engagement

First, what learning is (or should be) about:
The goal should not (only) be the reproduction of «correct» knowledge,
But mainly personal engagement and experience of thinking about topics of interest. Personal engagement = using one’s own brain.
The most important activity for learning and intellectual engagement is the experience of making one’s own mistakes, by trial and error, corrections based on new ideas, starting over again. Learning to recognise nuances, knowledge gaps, better explanations
This kind of learning is possible only through using your own brain, not AI.
Also, Ais are not «intelligent». At all.
They simply reproduce pre-existing patterns. They «bullshit», invent false references, false facts, false data, simply because those sound plausible. VERY DANGEROUS.
If you learn how to NOT use AI, and how to research facts and data on your own, this will serve you and your communities for the rest of your life.

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Oxford Bibliographical Society @obs1922.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

We are delighted to welcome Melanie Bigold for our next event -- all welcome!

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Christian Algar @ceebarnacles.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

Anyone seen / know this bookplate? #bookhistory

Monogram initial capital H over A with an ornamental background contained in a single lined box with lettering ‘EX LIBRIS’ at the foot of the design. It has a small number ‘101’ printed in red on a small piece of paper tagged on to the lower right hand side of the bookplate (when looking at the item)

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Jenny with a Green Ribbon Around Her Neck @readingtheend.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

hi friends! the Library of Congress has done something quite shady in releasing a new proposal to change all "Gulf of Mexico" headings to "Gulf of America" and all "Denali" to "Mt. McKinley." deadline to email your comments about this is TODAY so please do email if you have a chance!

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Durham UCU @ducu.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

BREAKING NEWS: Durham UCU's consultative ballot on strike action over redundancies closed this afternoon. The results, with 61.5% of potential votes cast: 87.0% YES on a ballot to mandate industrial action.

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Endless Screaming @infinitescream.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

AAAAHHHHHHHHH

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Danielle Westerhof @behindthespines.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Well, this looks like a fun read! 🤓 📖

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Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies at York @cecs-york.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

📣 Funded PhD at York with the National Trust: ‘At Home with Angelica Kauffman: The Material and Print Culture of an Eighteenth-Century Artist’. Co-supervised by Chloe Wigston Smith @chloewigstonsmith.bsky.social & Rachel Conroy @curatorrachel.bsky.social #18thC wrocah.ac.uk/cda-projects...

First page of the advert for the funded PhD at York, with the National Trust. Follow the link in the post for full info about the funding.

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Georgina Wilson @georginaemw.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

On 21st Feb I'll be talking about Why Making Books Means Reading Differently at York's Thin Ice Press - come along to hear about books familiar and curious, amid our printing presses, ink, and type www.thinicepress.org/events/why-m...

thinicepress.org

Why Making Books Means Reading Differently — Thin Ice Press

Do you prefer to read novels on Kindles or curl up with a paperback? Have you ever discarded a dustjacket to the waste-paper basket, or decided you preferred the original front cover to a new edition?...

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