iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Briony Neilson

Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 12h

Volkswagen might be on the skids today, but back in 1959 they were manufacturing Volkswagen Beetles fitted with dashboard-mounted coffee machines 🗃️

b&w news clipping with photo of a car dashboard with a metal coffee machine attached and a ceramic cup beneath

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 12h

Volkswagen might be on the skids today, but back in 1959 they were manufacturing Volkswagen Beetles fitted with dashboard-mounted coffee machines 🗃️

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Keep scrolling, nothing to see here – just a completely practical interior decorating tip: "Bringing a piece of furniture, like this secretary desk and chair, into a bathroom warms up the space" 🙃

colour photo of an antique secretary desk in a bathroom

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Pedestrians at the intersection of the Boulevard Saint-Michel and Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, photograph taken by André Zucca in the early 1940s (Bibliothèque historique de la Ville de Paris) The restaurant on the corner is 'Pam-Pam,' an American-style bar and fast food chain 🗃️

colour photograph of pedestrians at an intersection in Paris

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

This vibrant still life of lab equipment from c. 1906 – Pinatype, photographer unknown (Albertina Museum, Vienna) 🗃️

photograph of laboratory equipment in vibrant colours

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

'More than 400 people, most of them children, have been detained in France on Tuesday after teenagers across the country blockaded their schools in protest at class sizes, teacher shortages and long timetables.'

theguardian.com

Hundreds detained as student protests across France turn violent

More than 400 detained as police and students clash over class sizes, exhausting timetables and staff shortages

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

This exhibition at the BnF tracing 80 years of Japanese photography looks brilliant (the works by Shoji Ueda alone would be enough of a drawcard for me). Opens today.

bnf.fr

Photographies japonaises de la Bibliothèque nationale de France

BnF - Site institutionnel

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

This vibrant still life of lab equipment from c. 1906 – Pinatype, photographer unknown (Albertina Museum, Vienna) 🗃️

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Microfiche catalogue system at Sydney University's Fisher Library in 1985 – the state-of-the-art microfiche catalogue superseded the library's card catalogue for all items acquired after 1983 (University of Sydney Archives) 🗃️

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The golden age of Soviet air travel... An Aeroflot-branded folding knife, fork, and bottle opener 🗃️

colour photo of a folding knife, fork and bottle opener with "Aeroflot" written in Cyrillic on the handle

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Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

'An exhibition highlighting how news of the atrocity reached Britain much earlier than is commonly understood will tour the country after being viewed privately by MPs at Portcullis House on the parliamentary estate at Westminster in September.'

theguardian.com

Britain knew about the Holocaust as it happened. A new exhibition reckons with that truth

Research draws upon reporting and witness testimony, while a permanent memorial is planned for London

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The golden age of Soviet air travel... An Aeroflot-branded folding knife, fork, and bottle opener 🗃️

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Tree enveloped in ivy – photograph from the 1860s attributed to James Mudd (Yale Center for British Art) 🗃️

b&w photo of a tree with bare branches engulfed with ivy; a low fence is around the trunk of the tree and cut branches are in the foreground

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

"Francis Lance, 5 years old, 41 inches high. Sells regularly on Grand Avenue. He jumps on and off moving cars at risk of life" – photographed in St Louis in 1910 by Lewis Hine, who was born on this day (26 September) in Wisconsin in 1874. His photos helped bring about child labour reform in the US 🗃️

b&w photo of a small child standing on the edge of a tram holding newspapers under his arm and smiling broadly at the photographer

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Developing microfilm in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., in June 1942 (photo by Royden Dixon, Library of Congress) 🗃️

b&w photo of a man standing side-on to camera, wearing a long apron and touching a large frame from which long strips of film negatives are hanging

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Jeff Sparrow @jeffsparrow1.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

This passage from Anna Akhmatova during the Great Terror, in which she describes waiting outside a Stalinist prison alongside the desperate people seeking word of their relatives (most of whom were already dead).

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Developing microfilm in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., in June 1942 (photo by Royden Dixon, Library of Congress) 🗃️

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The AGA Prisma 4368 television set – designed in Sweden c.1964, its sharp triangular-shaped wooden back allowed it to fit snugly into the corner of a room 🗃️

colour photo taken front on of a wooden-framed TV

colour photo of a wooden-framed TV taken from side on, showing the triangular-shaped back

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

CfP: 'Island Empires and Pacific Power, 1688–1995' symposium taking place in Adelaide in June 2027 🗃️

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

"Gallica is taking too long to respond" – why, dear Gallica, whyyyyy?

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I guess this is what you call cutting STEM research at the root. Appalling.

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

The AGA Prisma 4368 television set – designed in Sweden c.1964, its sharp triangular-shaped wooden back allowed it to fit snugly into the corner of a room 🗃️

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Here's hoping these lonely creatures were eventually reunited with their little friends – toys in the lost and found office of the Paris police in March 1968 (Keystone France) 🗃️

b&w photo of a man viewed from side on holding a toy in his left hand, with other toys sitting on a shelf to the right and behind him shelves filled with objects with paper tags attached

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Here's hoping these lonely creatures were eventually reunited with their little friends – toys in the lost and found office of the Paris police in March 1968 (Keystone France) 🗃️

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

You know that TV you mislaid in Paris in 1981? Got an update for you… (Lost and Found office in the Paris police HQ) 🗃️

Colour photo of a room filled with cathode ray tube TV sets stacked on top of each other

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Leaping forward in time to 1981: vinyl suitcases get in on the lost property action at the Lost and Found office of the Paris police HQ (photo by Jean-Marc Loubat/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

colour photograph of a lost property office with umbrellas and various bags on a table and staff members behind

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

People searching for their lost keys among the hundreds held in the Lost and Found office of the Paris police HQ in 1930 (Keystone) 🗃️

b&w photo of people huddled around the corner of a room with lots of keys hanging from pegs. A calendar for the year 1930 is attached to the back of the door to the left.

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

People searching for their lost keys among the hundreds held in the Lost and Found office of the Paris police HQ in 1930 (Keystone) 🗃️

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

This tightly-packed mass of umbrellas, parasols, and canes in the Lost and Found office of the Paris police HQ in 1930 (Keystone) 🗃️

B&w photo of hundreds of umbrellas and canes packed tightly together

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

This tightly-packed mass of umbrellas, parasols, and canes in the Lost and Found office of the Paris police HQ in 1930 (Keystone) 🗃️

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Emile Chabal @emile-chabal.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The programme I run - the MSc in Contemporary History - will be axed, amongst so many others. We've also been told our undergrad courses will need to have a minimum of 20 students over a 3 year period. The bonfire of the universities has truly come for Edinburgh.

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

A portrait of a woman, a large floral arrangement, a bottle of red, a basket, a boater and a pair of boots – fascinating assemblage of items in the Lost and Found office at the police headquarters in central Paris in 1930 (Gamma-Keystone) 🗃️

b&w photo of items on a table: a floral arrangement and a portrait of a woman next to it; in front of these: a bottle of red wine, a pair of boots, a boater hat, and a basket

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Lots of umbrellas and walking canes and a couple of dusty military helmets – objects in the Lost and Found office at the police headquarters in central Paris in 1930 (Gamma-Keystone) 🗃️

b&w photo of a trestle table with military helmets on top, and behind an open cabinet with various umbrellas and walking canes, and an upper shelf with cardboard tags hanging from strings

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Florian Louis @florianlouis.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Manon Pignot revisite l’histoire de la France contemporaine à hauteur d’enfant dans une formidable somme appelée à faire date. Le livre est publié aux éditions Tallandier et paraît le 17 septembre.

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Staff in the office at Barking station of the London tube – this photograph was taken in September 1930, ten days after three young men with guns had ambushed the office late one evening, tying up the clerks and getting away with the station's cash (Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images) 🗃️

b&w photo of an office with four men working at desks of different heights

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Rock-cut royal tomb at Persepolis, Iran, photographed by Italian colonel Luigi Pesce in 1858 (The Met) 🗃️

monochrome photograph of rock face with monumental carvings

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Evan @evansmithhist.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Digital archives/collections are hosted in many ways and those without institutional support (like all the historical documents uploaded to the Internet Archive) could disappear at any moment. There’s too much to download to somewhere more secure if all starts going wrong. This keeps me up at night.

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

(Channeling Ed Sheeran's support acts)

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

This posse of railway workers on strike at the Gare Saint-Lazare in Paris on 28 February 1920 (Bibliothèque nationale de France) 🗃️

b&w photo of three men, all of them with moustaches, hats and armbands, standing on a railway platform

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Rock-cut royal tomb at Persepolis, Iran, photographed by Italian colonel Luigi Pesce in 1858 (The Met) 🗃️

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Your anagram of the name of a famous person born on this day (15 September) in Devon in 1890 is: Agatha Christie => Gatecrash Haiti 🗃️

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Free exhibition soon to open in Paris about the final years of the women's prison of Saint-Lazare – held at the Mediathèque Françoise-Sagan on the former site of the Saint-Lazare complex 🗃️

paris.fr

Prisonnières - Les dernières années de la prison Saint-Lazare (1919-1932)

Exposition du 17 septembre au 13 décembre 2026

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Your anagram of the name of a famous person born on this day (15 September) in Devon in 1890 is: Agatha Christie => Gatecrash Haiti 🗃️

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Thousands of mothers declare Arnott's milk arrowroot biscuits "the children's health food" in this ad printed in a Sydney newspaper in 1905. Just wait til they see the benefits of feeding their children Tim Tams 🗃️

b&w screenshot of a page from a newspaper with lists of names and drawn portraits of children in Victorian-era clothing

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Briony Neilson @brionyneilson.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

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