iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Isla H. Macfarlane @bibliophisla.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

And so Baby Ramsay joins the ranks of Baby Willie and Baby Betty in the @innerpeffray.bsky.social visitors' books! 😊

Innerpeffray library visitors' book entry dated 26/3/26, signed by Isla Macfarlane and baby Ramsay

Photo of a large sign for Innerpeffray Library with a woman and a baby standing in front of it, their backs to the camera.

Isla H. Macfarlane @bibliophisla.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

I am officially on maternity leave from today! Next time I visit @innerpeffray.bsky.social, I'll be emulating the Herbinsons and Dunlop families from July 1897 by signing the visitors' book with 'Baby' in tow! 👶

Photographic excerpt from Innerpeffray Library Visitors' Book Volume 1, f.186v (21 & 22/07/1897), highlighting two 'baby' visitors: Baby Willie George Herbinson and Baby Betty Dunlop.

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Kate Finlay @katefinlay.bsky.social · 27/07/2025

Hi! If anyone has a spare 15 minutes to fill out a short survey about their opinions on museums it would be very much appreciated. Just click this link: forms.gle/LgCSvTSYTjRK... Please repost or share with anyone you feel would also like to take part! #UKmuseums #culturalheritage

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Daniel Bellingradt @dbellingradt.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

Why not start your week with blowing the perfect soap bubbles while running naked and jumping over a skull?

A detail from an early modern print showing a young boy jumping over a skull while blowing soap bubbles. The scene is framed with a memento mori theme: Alles vergeht Gottes Wort besteht". The publication "Zwölff Geistliche Andachten" was published in 1693 (VD17 23:704497Y).

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Library of Innerpeffray @innerpeffray.bsky.social · 27/07/2025

We're looking forward to our Summer Fayre next Friday and Saturday! Local craftspeople, refreshments and lots of secondhand #books

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Isla H. Macfarlane @bibliophisla.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

Very exciting to see @physiciansgallery.bsky.social's The People's Dispensary published online! I loved working on this project a few years ago — sometimes I can still see Dr Andrew Duncan's handwriting when I close my eyes... www.rcpe.ac.uk/peoplesdispe...

rcpe.ac.uk

The People's Dispensary

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Library of Innerpeffray @innerpeffray.bsky.social · 26/07/2025

John Everett Millais was a friend of Rupert Potter, father of Beatrix, and they both enjoyed visiting Scotland. The Potters visited Innerpeffray in 1868 and you can read more in @bibliophisla.bsky.social blog innerpeffraylibrary.co.uk/beatrix-pott...

innerpeffraylibrary.co.uk

Beatrix Potter at Innerpeffray - Innerpeffray Library

As it is the 155th anniversary of Beatrix Potter’s birth on the 28th July 2021, we are celebrating by exploring some of the links between Beatrix Potter and the Library of Innerpeffray. Helen Beatrix ...

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Isla H. Macfarlane @bibliophisla.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

This is what I have so far for my handover notes, hoping to help myself hit the ground running when I return to the PhD after maternity leave. I think it'll be really helpful. 🙃

A powerpoint slide with colourful clouds as a background, entitled 'Returning from Maternity Leave'. Text includes: "Hi future-Isla, it's 2025-Isla here to say, you can do this!" and "Hi baby!!"

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Lucie Matthews-Jones @luciejones83.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

#skyhistorians We are looking forward to our Divergent Minds in the Archive workshops in Cardiff (29 July) & Liverpool (14 Aug). There’s still time to sign up & we are looking for a broad group of archive users! We have travel bursaries & can if needed help with hotel accommodation. More details👇

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Isla H. Macfarlane @bibliophisla.bsky.social · 02/07/2025

Great fun the last couple of days at @natlibscot.bsky.social comparing nine editions of Murray's Handbook for Scotland (1867-1913), looking at how the descriptions of @innerpeffray.bsky.social as a visitor attraction/tourist destination have changed throughout time. #librarytourism

Photo showing the spines of 9 editions of Murray's Handbook for Scotland travel guides: 1867, 1868, 1873, 1875, 1883, 1894, 1898, 1903, 1913.

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Charlotte Lydia Riley @lottelydia.bsky.social · 25/06/2025

The government response to this petition is infuriating. “Maternity and other types of Parental Pay are intended to provide a measure of financial security to support parents whilst they are away from the workplace; they are not a replacement of earnings” except they literally are??? Please sign:

petition.parliament.uk

Petition: Raise statutory maternity/paternity pay to match the National Living Wage

Statutory maternity and paternity pay is £4.99 per hour for a full-time worker on 37.5 hours per week - approximately 59% less than the 2024 National Living Wage of £12.21 per hour for workers aged 21...

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Dr Alison Ray @liber-ray.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

Rock on! For #ManiculeMonday here’s a handy example of a reader highlighting text passages that I spotted in @bodleianlibraries.bsky.social MS. Laud Misc. 651 📜🤘

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Isla H. Macfarlane @bibliophisla.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

Absolutely not! I do not consent, I don't like it, make it stop.

Screenshot of an email from Academia with the subject line "An AI wrote a review of your paper"

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Isla H. Macfarlane @bibliophisla.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

I've got some reading to do before baby arrives, courtesy of @innerpeffray.bsky.social!

Title page of Dr James Nelson's 'An Essay on the Government of Children' (1753)

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Isla H. Macfarlane @bibliophisla.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

I have witnessed two separate people being SO RUDE to @natlibscot.bsky.social staff today and the NLS staff being unfailingly polite in return. It's not that hard to treat people with common decency - especially when they are just trying to help you!

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Dr Alex Bond @thelabandfield.bsky.social · 26/05/2025

No email has ever found me well.

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Isla H. Macfarlane @bibliophisla.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

I love a little drama on a Wednesday morning! 💒 On 4 May 1872, the Revd and (allegedly) Mrs A. M. Gibson visited @innerpeffray.bsky.social together and signed the visitors' book - but they weren't actually married until the 21st of May, almost three weeks later!

Extract from Innerpeffray Library Visitors' Book Volume 1, f.22v, showing the signatures of The Revd. A. M. Gibson, Minister of Portsoy, and "Mrs" Gibson.

Edited clipping from the Greenock Advertiser, 25 May 1872, showing the Marriage Announcement of Rev. Andrew Miller Gibson to Helen Anderson Gardiner, married on the 21st May 1872.

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Isla H. Macfarlane @bibliophisla.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

I just stumbled across an old article in The Central Queensland Herald, Australia, by an international visitor to @innerpeffray.bsky.social - Miss Constance Bardsley visited Innerpeffray with 2 others on 1st July, 1937. On her return home, she wrote about her 6-month world tour in her local paper.

Section of a visitors' book page from Innerpeffray Library, showing the signatures of E. F. Harvey, Constance Bardsley, and Doris Bardsley, all from Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. (Library of Innerpeffray Visitors' Book Volume 4, f.106v)

Excerpt from a newspaper article published in The Central Queensland Herald, Queensland, 04/11/1937, titled "Miss C. Bardsley | Impressions of World Tour"

Further extract from newspaper article, "Miss C. Bardsley | Impressions of World Tour", The Central Queensland Herald, 04/11/1937. This section mentions that Bardsley visited Innerpeffray, "the oldest free library in the world."

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Kit Baston @kgbaston.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

It's been a busy year for the Books and Borrowing Team - even though the project technically ended a year ago! Highlights include winning the @bsecs.bsky.social Digital Prize for 2025, a doctorate for @smithjj.bsky.social, and many new publications on the way...

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books-borrowing.bsky.social @books-borrowing.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

'A Year of Books and Borrowing'- read Katie Halsey's round-up here: borrowing.stir.ac.uk/a-year-of-bo... 😃📖📚

borrowing.stir.ac.uk

Books and Borrowing 1750-1830 :: A Year of Books and Borrowing

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Isla H. Macfarlane @bibliophisla.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

Clearly this display at my local library was a work in progress but also... pretty apt!

Photo of a library display titled 'Mental Wellbeing', with all shelves totally empty.

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Isla H. Macfarlane @bibliophisla.bsky.social · 22/05/2025

Genuine question - how does anyone get anything done while pregnant?? I've just hit the 3rd trimester and I am e x h a u s t e d 😴

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Isla H. Macfarlane @bibliophisla.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

On holiday last week I sadly couldn't see the Franciscan Library in Sorrento as it was all covered up by cloth panels (the woman running the exhibition seemed so confused that I actually wanted to see the library itself) but I did get to make traditional paper at a 13th century paper mill in Amalfi!

Sign reading 'Biblioteca Francescana: Francescan Library'

Isla leaning over a large well filled with cotton rags, filling a frame with pulp to make traditional paper, at the Museo della Carta in Amalfi.

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Library of Innerpeffray @innerpeffray.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

Very excited for the installation of 'Reading Forms; A Site-Specific Exhibition' today! Gorgeous work by textile Artist Helen Gallogly will be on display at Innerpeffray during May, with a launch event tomorrow eve and tours & talks throughout the month.

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Library of Innerpeffray @innerpeffray.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

Join our team and our special guests Richard Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian and Sir Alexander McCall Smith, Author for an introduction to Innerpeffray and its collections. There will be a short demonstration a chance to ask questions about the collection and the catalogue.

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Isla H. Macfarlane @bibliophisla.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

You can still register to join the Library of Innerpeffray for the launch of its shiny new catalogue at 4pm this afternoon! See you there 📚

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Library of Innerpeffray @innerpeffray.bsky.social · 17/04/2025

It's been a long time coming, but we are at last able to share our full catalogue online and we invite you to join us for the launch.

collage of pictures showing handwritten book sitting on desk beside laptop, plus man standing in old library with bookshelves and arched window, plus man seated in front of bookshelves.

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Joe Saunders @joesaunders1.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

The framing of palaeography as a challenge to be overcome rather than a useful skill and a joyful exercise is concerning and devalues both this critical ability and of historical research work generally.

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Isla H. Macfarlane @bibliophisla.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

Thank you so much to @louisecreechan.bsky.social for her talk on ‘Access, Accommodations, and Rigour, Oh My!: Neurodivergence and Method’ - excuse me while I go look up ndhumanities.com immediately!

ndhumanities.com

ND Hums – A a safe and generative space that accommodates the diverse, individual needs of scholars working in the humanities

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Isla H. Macfarlane @bibliophisla.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

Next up at today's @sgsah.bsky.social 'Supporting Neurodivergent PGRs' workshop - @luciejones83.bsky.social

Title presentation slide: 'Personal Reflections of a Neurodivergent Supervisor and Academic'

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Isla H. Macfarlane @bibliophisla.bsky.social · 15/04/2025

Delighted to be attending a conference online today: "Supporting Neurodivergent PGRs in the Art & Humanities" with @sgsah.bsky.social at the University of Stirling. It's already very comforting to be in a (virtual) room with lots of other people who have similar thoughts to me!

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The Book Shepherd @thebookshepherd.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

If you are planning a webinar or talk on AI and discussing the negatives and aren’t including copyright issues and intellectual theft, how much it gets wrong, or environmental impacts, then you are not doing the topic justice.

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Indie Book Spotlight @bookspotlight.bsky.social · 06/04/2025

give me your typos. your messy drawings. your silly memes. your cringey joys. your little doodles. your rewrites. your second attempts. your better attempts. your years-in-the-making stunning beauties that make you sigh with contentment at having perfected them at last. just give me works by humans

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Cleo O’Callaghan Yeoman @drcleoocy.bsky.social · 10/03/2025

Very honoured to be a part of this forthcoming publication, Feminist Librarianship, ed. Kirsten MacQuarrie and Leah Higgins @cilipscotland.bsky.social. My contribution reflects on female borrowers @books-borrowing.bsky.social in early c19 Scotland. More info here: www.cilips.org.uk/feminist-lib... !

cilips.org.uk

Feminist Librarianship – Winspiration’s Next ChapterCILIPSAccessibility ToolsIncrease TextDecrease TextGrayscaleHigh ContrastNegative ContrastLight BackgroundLinks UnderlineReadable FontReset

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BSECS @bsecs.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

#FeelGoodFriday The winner of the #BSECS2025 Digital Prize is the Books and Borrowing, 1750-1830 database! The database contains borrowing records from 18 Scottish Libraries, 43,000 register pages, 162,000 borrowing acts #skystorians #18thC 🗃️ @books-borrowing.bsky.social borrowing.stir.ac.uk

borrowing.stir.ac.uk

Books and Borrowing 1750-1830

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Curious Travellers @curioustravellers.bsky.social · 28/02/2025

Please join us at our forthcoming exhibition, 'Curious Minds: Thomas Pennant and Gilbert White', running April-June 2025 Launch event on April 8th at Gilbert White's House and Gardens, Selborne! (@gilbertwhites.bsky.social)

Poster for an exhibition, illustrated with a bird perched on a twig.

Text Reads: "Curious Minds: Thomas Pennant and Gilbert White. An Exhibition at Gilbert White's House and Gardens, Selborne. 8th April-22nd June 2025. Launch Event: 8th April (5pm-7pm). info@gilbertwhiteshouse.org.uk. 'These, Nature's works the curious mind employ' (Gilbert White, 1789)"

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Frances Hardinge @franceshardinge.bsky.social · 21/03/2025

If your books are among the 7.5 million pirated works on #LibGen, the resource #Meta has been using to train their #AI, you can at least send Meta a letter (using the @authorsguild.bsky.social's handy template) to state that they are violating your copyright. actionnetwork.org/letters/auth...

actionnetwork.org

Tell AI Companies They Do Not Have the Right to Use Your Work

I just sent a letter telling AI companies they do not not have the right to use my work. Use the Authors Guild's letter template to send your own.

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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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James Hamilton @lixmount.bsky.social · 07/03/2025

At the opening of the beautiful new "Below Stairs" bookshop, designed by @kgbaston.bsky.social at the National Trust for Scotland's Georgian House in Edinburgh's Charlotte Square.

A cartoon of Sir Walter Scott's Dominie in raptures at a collection of books with the Below Stairs Books shop sign.

Dr. Kit Baston is presented with flowers and a gift at the launch of the Below Stairs bookshop.

Matthew Bruce and Jo Hockey of the WS Society browse books in the Below Stairs bookshop.

David poses as a Georgian reader in the Below Stairs Bookshop

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Big Green Books @biggreenbooks.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

Hello Bluepals, we are open. Sorry i'm late. It's #worldbookday today, so I asked the books what they wanted to do for a treat. So we've been on the swings, had chips for lunch on the beach, a bit of crazy golf and we did a bit of shopping. We're home now. The books are exhausted now, bless em.

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books-borrowing.bsky.social @books-borrowing.bsky.social · 09/01/2025

This year's EDITION Spring Lecture will be talk by our Katie Halsey & @mjrsangster.bsky.social titled 'Towards a True History of Reading Lives: Borrowing in Scotland, 1747-1837'! This is an in-person event at the University of Edinburgh on Friday, 21 March 2025: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/professors...

eventbrite.co.uk

Professors Katherine Halsey and Matthew Sangster: EDITION Spring Lecture

A talk by Professors Katherine Halsey & Matthew Sangster titled 'Towards a True History of Reading Lives: Borrowing in Scotland, 1747-1837'.

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Isla H. Macfarlane @bibliophisla.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

We have a lovely painted copy of the monkfish at @innerpeffray.bsky.social - it's one of my favourite items to show to visitors! (La nature et diversite des poissons, 1555)

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Isla H. Macfarlane @bibliophisla.bsky.social · 05/03/2025

I forgot my laptop charger while working at the library on Monday so I scrawled out a bunch of a chapter draft by hand - it turns out that those 1,100 words aren't half bad!

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Isla H. Macfarlane @bibliophisla.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

Read on for a botanical love story between nineteenth-century visitors to @innerpeffray.bsky.social! 🧵 #BookHistory #Libraries

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Dr Liam Sims @liamsims.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

Incredible marginal face/manicule/face-icule, in a manuscript of Boethius’ De consolatione philosophiæ. Copied in England in the twelfth century and now MS Dd.6.6 @theulspeccoll.bsky.social #manicule

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Orkney Library & Archive @orkneylibrary.bsky.social · 17/01/2025

'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. It seemed to me I stood by the iron gate leading to the drive, and for a while I could not enter, for my eyes were too googly.'

A biography of Daphne du Maurier by Margaret Foster. Googly eyes have been added to the cover photograph of Daphne.

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Isla H. Macfarlane @bibliophisla.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

I'll be honest, neither of the cats enjoyed this, but I am utterly delighted 🎅🐈🐈‍⬛️

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Isla H. Macfarlane @bibliophisla.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

I'd never come across this lovely phrase before today - Robert Scarlett Grignon (visitor to Innerpeffray Library in September 1870) was described in the 1871 Census as a "Clergyman of the Church of England without Care of Souls."

Excerpt from 1871 Census, showing Robert Scarlett and Mary Augusta Grignon. Robert's occupation is written as "Clergyman of the Church of England without care of souls".

Excerpt from Innerpeffray Visitors' Book Volume 1, f.20r, showing the signatures of R. S. Grignon and Mrs Grignon, Lewes, England.

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Dr Sophie Michell @sophiemhistory.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

Bit of a family drama in New Mills, 1870. William Mellett, aged nineteen, married Margaret Broadley, aged seventeen. They eloped to Manchester at the end of March and then stayed with Margaret's parents. William was the eldest of a family of eight children and the only working-age boy.

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