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Dr Grace Touzel

@boundtobeused.bsky.social

140 followers 358 following 18 posts

Digital Special Collections / Metadata Librarian @nhm_library_archives. Easily distracted by bookbinding(s), blank books, rare books, and book history in general.

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Dr Grace Touzel @boundtobeused.bsky.social · 27/01/2026

When you need to retrieve all 13 volumes from four locations in order to catalogue just one 😂

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Dr Grace Touzel @boundtobeused.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

Having a bad day, walking grumpily from back-of-house to another back-of-house...then this view. Maybe things aren't so bad.

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Dr Grace Touzel @boundtobeused.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

On my desk today: unravelling the print records from the (fully digitised by @nhmlibraryarchives.bsky.social ) artwork of Henry Woodward's Table of British Strata. I particularly enjoyed the sarky note to future bookbinders! 🤣

At left, a hand-coloured manuscript chart detailing the stratigraphy of British geology. At right, two copies of the published work, one bound in red and the other in blue.

A handwritten note on the front endless of a bound book. The note reads "When re-binding these charts need re-arranging in correct order."

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Dr Grace Touzel @boundtobeused.bsky.social · 05/09/2025

A lovely thing to end the week on: Thomas Martyn's Aranei : or a natural history of Spiders (London, 1793). Bound by Christian Samuel Kalthhoeber? Perhaps. A striking frontispiece? Definitely.

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Dr Grace Touzel @boundtobeused.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

One of the more interesting bindings to pass across my desk recently. #bookbinding #specialcollections #naturalhistorymuseum #blueskybooks #rarebooks

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Dr Grace Touzel @boundtobeused.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

The things I couldn't walk past this week, including a trip over the road to the V&A. #bookbinding #Incunabula #Endbands #marbling #VictoriaAndAlbertMuseum #RareBooks #shelfie

An open antique book photographed from one end. The marbled edge of the book is held by an endband of alternating blue and white.

Three photographs of a 15th century book. Top lett, the closed book showing a brown leather spine and marbled paper. Top right, an open page with blue painted U. Bottom, the book edge, with "Ruralia" inked on the edge.

Four coloured book spines titled "Siberia in Asia" and "Siberia in Europe". Spines left to right are brown, orange, tan, blue.

A closely cropped image of three stacked books. The lower two have marbled edges of blue, yellow, pink, and white.

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Dr Grace Touzel @boundtobeused.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

This week's encounters of the bookish kind. #SpecialCollections #NaturalHistoryMuseum #Bookbindings #MarbledDesigns #Endpapers #BlueSkyBooks #Shelfie

Two photos of a 5-volume set of books on a shelf. Each image shows 19th century marbling on volumes now in 20th century bindings.

A wooden library shelf holding 15 small notebooks bound in brown leather.

A split image showing a black and cream swirling pattern at left, and a black and white crocodile-skin pattern at right. Both are book covers.

A recurring design of purple lines and green leaves on a cloth background, in an Art Nouveau style.

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Dr Grace Touzel @boundtobeused.bsky.social · 25/07/2025

What distracted me this week at work. #SpecialCollections #Bookbinding #Endpapers #NaturalHistoryMuseum #tickets #Bookplates #BlueSkyBooks

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Dr Grace Touzel @boundtobeused.bsky.social · 23/07/2025

One day, I'll be able to walk through the stacks without getting distracted. One day. #bookbinding #tradebindings

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Dr Grace Touzel @boundtobeused.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

So many lovely books in @nhmlibraryarchives.bsky.social‬, so little time to spend with each... #Cataloguing #RareBooks #Provenance #Endpapers

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Dr Grace Touzel @boundtobeused.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

Beautiful AND informative. That's how we like 'em here @nhmlibraryarchives.bsky.social (London: Penguin, 1943 & 1945) #Bookbindings #Fungi #NaturalHistoryMuseum

A hand holding two books on fungi with covers of decorative paper. Title at left is 'Edible Fungi', at right is 'Poisonous Fungi'.

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Dr Grace Touzel @boundtobeused.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

Cataloguing ‪@nhmlibraryarchives.bsky.social‬ collections brings all sorts of surprises -- I settled for "Two boxes of glass microscopic slides as reproduced in serial 'Studies in microscopical science' (1882-1887)". No eye of newt, but close! #cataloguing #SpecialCollections #NaturalHistoryMuseum

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