iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Henry Handley @bookgreeble.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

If you send your class of students who are mere WEEKS into their college careers off to special collections to request things in storage without communicating with special collections AT ALL please know you have exhausted and demoralized everyone involved including, eventually, yourself

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BOO! k HistoriAAAH 🎃 @book-historia.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

If I had to travel back in time for a mundane reason, it would be to ask a variety of bookbinders what the fuck

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BOO! k HistoriAAAH 🎃 @book-historia.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Thinking about books & publishing from a different perspective? Want to write a review of the new game/trend that foregrounds bookishness? Want to express how the Muppets have influenced your book history pedagogy? Submit a proposal to @sharpnews.bsky.social Features! docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

A book with an eye in the center walking along on a metal stand

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Adam Koszary @adamkoszary.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

people underestimate the power of the curators. they can just pick up, like, a baked bean and put it in the collection. bean will be there for forever. bean will have a label.

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Henry Handley @bookgreeble.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Shoutout to everyone searching their library or archives collections for Dolly in their grief and discovering a misspelling of patron somewhere

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Per Engzell @pengzell.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Academia gives you the extraordinary freedom to choose which impossible deadline you are currently missing

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Henry Handley @bookgreeble.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Lyric poetry + book of hours = my whole deal, bonus corvid riding atop Death's scythe. #newacq from Quaritch!

A page from a Neo-Latin poetic take on the book of hours, featuring the Sapphic stanza and a woodcut (or possibly metalcut) of Death personified, with wings, a scythe (mowing down people before stomping on them), a mini clock, and a corvid who's saying CRAS CRAS (tomorrow, tomorrow).

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Ika Willis @ikax.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

#BookHistory friends, this is the finest moment in our discipline’s history

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Katie Birkwood @girlinthe.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

In things I wish I hadn't seen, but now I have and you will too... New research published in the Journal of the Institute of Conservation recommends PPE for handling all red rot because of the risk of heavy metal contamination (lead, arsenic, cadmium). #GLAMS 📚 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

tandfonline.com

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Henry Handley @bookgreeble.bsky.social · 11/07/2026

My phone camera roll is a casualty of library building temperature woes so here is a #BookHistory find from last month that I want to do something with someday

Endpapers of a copy of the Oxford Book of English Verse (1925) with Robert Frost's bookplate on the pastedown, an ink inscription "from R.F. / October 1929 / South Shaftsbury" and below it attached with cellophane tape a typed note signed by Wade Van Dore: "This book was given me by Frost in 1929 from his library before he had moved to the Gulley. Four years later, after he had moved to the Gulley but had gone down to Amherst for the winter, I kept house (1933) and, at his request, pasted the Lankes bookplates into all his best books.
Having this with me I at that time graced it with a bookplate, also. (in pencil) Wade Van Dore"

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Jay Moschella @jaymoschella.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

As is typically the case, the pages of the haggadah are stained with food and wine from centuries of use at the seder table. The gutters are actually full of matzah crumbs! Anyhow, this is not Boston Public Library f.2026.54 bpl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S7... 7/7

An opening profusely stained on both pages

In the gutters (that is, the inner margins), piles of matzah.

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Violet Fox 🦊 @violetbfox.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Enjoyed this sign while touring the Michigan State University Library backrooms. 🪄📚

A sign from the 1990s reading "This card catalog is not complete. Use magic and consult staff."

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Katie Collins @spissatella.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Audited one of my favourite drawers today. As far as I can tell there was an entire generation of past mollusc curators who communicated entirely by means of passive-aggressive drawer notes to each other

A drawer of fossil molluscs mounted on cards taken from a pre-1980s display. In the middle is a curatorial note in red pen that says "Don't fumble with these until we find out smarting of glue they are stuck down with" and underneath in a different smaller hand in black ink "yes I will! Fumble fumble fumble - so there!". Several additional notes in the second hand are scattered in the drawer with arrows pointing to various specimens. They all read "fumble fumble fumble".

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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

Curious about the status of early gay organizing in national library associations? I've uploaded "Gays In Library Land" written in 1990 by library LEGEND Barbara Gittings about the early days (1970s) of ALA's Gay and Lesbian Task Force. It's a good read. archive.org/details/gays...

archive.org

Gays In Library Land : Barbara Gittings : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The Gay and Lesbian Task Force of the American Library Association: The First Sixteen Years

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Henry Handley @bookgreeble.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

I got stitches in my finger for a clumsy kitchen injury and am debating whether to become the one-gloved rare book librarian, scorned by all, or simply not touch any books for 10-12 days

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Henry Handley @bookgreeble.bsky.social · 19/04/2026

Okay, what were the practices around Thomas Merton signing books at the Abbey of Gethsemani and how many did Fr. M. Marion send out with inscriptions like this (and who were Jim and Tom)

Half-title page for Thomas Merton's No Man is an Island, with his signature as "Fr Louis" and an inscription from Fr Marion, O.S.C.O.: "Jim / This is a poor way to say thanks for everything / I'll pray for you! / Please pray for me! / In Jesus & Mary"

Free front endpaper of the revised edition of Thomas Merton's Seeds of Contemplation with penciled notes to that effect, and describing Thomas Merton's "Blessings / Fr Louis" which is written above a very similar Fr. Marion
inscription to a Tom: "This is a poor way to say thanks for everything. I promise you my prayers for what they may be worth — and I count on yours. / In corde Jesu, Fr. M Marion osco"

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

Finder’s fee: seasonal fruit. Early modern provenance mark on the flyleaf in a 16th-century illuminated manuscript: ‘This book belongs to Catrina Leoners. Whoever finds it should return it to her for an apple or a pear…’ #rarebooks #earlymodern #bookhistory 💙📚📜

Detail of the provenance mark reading: Catrina Leoners hoort dit bouck toe, die het vindt die doet haer weer om een appel of een peer die het en doet

First page in the manuscript with a decorated letter A in blue and red and border decoration in green and red

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Henry Handley @bookgreeble.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

The fragment I was actually looking for yesterday and found today! We have two of them. Philip Duschnes, you old so and so...

A leaf from an illuminated manuscript in Arabic, pencil note declares it's from a Qur'an, Persia, 17th-18th century

A small and (sorry) fuzzy closeup of pencil
inscription: Philip Duschnes, $10, January 1962

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Henry Handley @bookgreeble.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

This week in surprise fragments while looking for something else!

A leaf from a printed pecha in Tibetan script (?) with a typed label reading "Page from 200 year old Tibetan Prayer-Book."

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Henry Handley @bookgreeble.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

I need a Catholic friend to order one of these (you CAN order one of these, with the current pope on it! from the Vatican on the internet!) and tell me if it's on real parchment now, because the library's blessing from 1952 was not real parchment www.elemosineria.va/papal-blessi...

A "papal blessing parchment" with a portrait of Pius XII, signed in 1952, and addressed to "The Rev. Lawrence Monheim, S.M. the Director and Members of the Marian Library, University of Dayton" who "humbly prostrate at the feet of Your Holiness beg the Apostolic Benediction"

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Henry Handley @bookgreeble.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

That's what I'm trying to do, book

The green and yellow of a book with the title Search for Publication stamped in all caps, the series title (The Minds of Men) and an eagle's head design at the lower left corner

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ACRL/Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) @rbmsinfo.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

The 2026 RBMS Conference Program Planning Committee is issuing a second call for proposals for virtual and short-form content, due March 6. Find more info and submit a proposal on the conference website! buff.ly/3cuaLh0

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 19/02/2026

Ok, here’s a proof of the 2nd layer, which adapts a broadside published in April of 1854 to warn Black residents of Boston about slave-catchers in the city, following the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act www.nps.gov/articles/000...

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Ennius @enniusredloeb.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

Initial 'L'(e) at the beginning of Bk 12 in which trees and their products are discussed. Bodleian Library Arch. G b.6; Historia naturale di Caio Plinio Secondo, tradocta di lingua latina per Christophoro Landino; 1476 CE; Venice; f.148v @bodleian.ox.ac.uk

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Henry Handley @bookgreeble.bsky.social · 09/02/2026

I forget how bad the yellow lighting in this special collections storage area truly is until I photograph something in it 😬 cc @colleenlovesbks.bsky.social & @transbookhistory.bsky.social

Colophon for Boris Pasternak and Thomas Merton, Six Letters, printed at the King Library Press, shown in natural light

The same colophon in my working, YELLOW light in the stacks.

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Henry Handley @bookgreeble.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

My bible's pronouns are Great He/Great Him

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Henry Handley @bookgreeble.bsky.social · 06/01/2026

I have talked about books upside down for an audience but not like this and not with volvelles 😬😬😬

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Henry Handley @bookgreeble.bsky.social · 23/12/2025

I missed the Ides of December this year but I think Amerbach would agree December 23 has "dum pia virgo parit" vibes too

The final page of a collection of works by Vincent of Beauvais published by Johann Amerbach in 1481, with Amerbach's verse colophon taking up most of the second column of text.

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Henry Handley @bookgreeble.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

#MuppetBibliography (also what great examples of personal and historical value being messy and interconnected to financial value! and in such things as the $10k Muppet Christmas Carol Rizzo bucket with puppeteering hole)

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ACRL/Rare Books and Manuscripts Section (RBMS) @rbmsinfo.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

The deadline for submitting workshop, panel, or poster proposals for #RBMS26 is December 12, 2025. 📜📚 Need another panelist? There is a spreadsheet for organizing panels here: docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

Image that says Submit a proposal or apply for a scholarship deadline December 12th, 2025.

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Dylan Lewis @iamdylanlewis.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

I hate gay Halloween what do you mean you’re an uncataloged book someone tried to rebind with duct tape

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Henry Handley @bookgreeble.bsky.social · 30/10/2025

This guy has the 1855 Whitman frontispiece of books about the Virgin Mary by Presbyterian-Episcopal-Catholic converts and priests (posthumous).

Frontispiece portrait of Xavier Donald Macleod, a 19th century bespectacled white guy. He's wearing a cape and has one hand on his hip, which adds to the vibe. His signature is printed below.

Title page of Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary in North America, printed in New York without a date specified though there is a penciled-in [1866] below the New York imprint.

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Sarah Pyke @sarahpyke.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

everything is terrible apart from the University of Texas Austin students who, protesting a committee set up to review the humanities curriculum, have produced this graphic arranging committee members by length of hair www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Headshots of eighteen professors with the text ‘The President’s committee of mostly white professors tasked with deciding on curriculum for the University of Texas (arranged by length of hair)’

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Henry Handley @bookgreeble.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

You can't find time to become an expert? We'll have a lunch and learn!

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rahaeli @rahaeli.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

If you can afford it, a *monetary* donation (it goes a lot farther!) to your local food bank would be a most excellent thing to do right now.

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Henry Handley @bookgreeble.bsky.social · 19/10/2025

Jamet Mettayer, d. 1605, you would've loved Minecraft

Printer's device for Jamet Mettayer, a 16th-century French printer, depicting a textured cube in a landscape, with a fruits-and-flowers border surrounding an oval frame. The frame text reads "rectus ubique."

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Henry Handley @bookgreeble.bsky.social · 14/10/2025

The guy who tells cats to yell at 5 am

A blue lithograph border illustration below printed religious (Catholic) music. A regular kind of gargoyle is speaking/whispering to a cat-gargoyle hearing them out on what appears to be a scheme or plot.

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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 06/10/2025

"PEN America identified 2,520 book ban cases... out of those, only 3% of the bans were triggered by a law requiring the removal of a book—the rest, 97%—came from bans caused by the fear that districts had of being out of compliance" #DontComplyInAdvance www.wordsandmoney.com/pen-america-...

wordsandmoney.com

PEN America Report Finds the Battle Over Book Bans Has Entered an Alarming New Phase

“For many students, families, educators, librarians, and school districts, book banning is a new normal,” the report, 'Banned in the USA 2024-2025: The Normalization of Book Banning,' concludes.

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Henry Handley @bookgreeble.bsky.social · 22/09/2025

Caught covid for the first time 5 years in, shortly before annual shot. and I gotta say naming variants after clouds is underwhelming at best and 100% offensive to clouds

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Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies @sims-mss.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY, September 19, 1984, Former U. S. President Gerald Ford was stuck in an elevator in the Van Pelt Library at UPenn. Was there a medieval manuscript stuck in the elevator with him? Probably not, but we can dream. #medievalsky

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Thomas Hendrickson @thomashendrickson.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

Booklist for the 10th century library at Bobbio. Among the various categories: "Books We Have But Can't Find" (de libris quos non reperimus sed habemus)

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Henry Handley @bookgreeble.bsky.social · 05/09/2025

Personal announcement: I've been appointed Assistant Director of the Marian Library and Special Collections here at UD (Dayton, not Delaware) which means among other things that I get to figure out things like this copy of Anatomy of Melancholy with a detached front board and uh, this bookplate?

A marbled pastedown in a detached board of a 19th century book, with a bookplate dated January 1, 1866 and addressed to Ulysses S. Grant from the "citizens of Boston" with city seal and a decorative border.

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aggressive deaccessioner is aggressive @kayloulee.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

It's always like this with archives, i have so many beefs with dead people

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