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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I am so excited to have received an honorable mention in this year’s Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize for my collection “The Book as Art and Commodity: Design Reform and Commercial Publishing, 1890-1915.” It’s an honor to be among such distinguished collecting company!

themillions.com

Meet the Winners of the 2026 Honey & Wax Book Collecting Prize - The Millions

In 2017, Honey & Wax Booksellers established an annual prize for American women book collectors, aged 30 years and younger. Our goal, at the time, was to expand the popular perception of who book coll...

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

We have been discussing private ownership of cultural heritage materials with students and when they argue that history shouldn’t be in private hands (though I may agree, for some materials, in theory) I show them examples like this to demo why we cannot always trust institutional stewardship.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

I pulled our copy of this recently as part of my project moving decorative covers from circulating into special collections!

A (more battered than the below example) copy of Dreams and Ghosts (1897).

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

Morning timeline cleanse—the Ohio State Marching Band, “The Best Damn Band in the Land” playing the university Alma mater “Carmen Ohio” drifting into my living room, accompanied by the crickets and other fauna of central Ohio in late summer.

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Shannon McSheffrey @medievalmcsheff.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

JOB!! The Department of History at the University of Ottawa invites applications for a position in medieval and/or transregional history, 7th-16th centuries. French or English, bilingualism an asset. universityaffairs.ca/search-jobs/...

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Zanna Van Loon @zannavanloon.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

A glimpse into the sixteenth-century printing office. This 16th-century Bible sheet became a printer’s copy: a gathering from an earlier edition, marked in red by compositors and used as copy for a new setting, placed on the visorium above the type cases. #earlymodern #bookhistory #rarebooks 📚💙📜

First gathering of the edition with the unfolded pages visible, including the title page on the bottom left. The paper sheet contains printed text, red markings, and ink stains.

Detail of the ink stains on the sheet of paper

Details of the red markings added by hand

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

This is such a cool typographical cover!

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Anna Holmes @annabookwriter.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

Hey, guys, when the librarians get pissed about the destruction of books, it’s time to put those listening ears on. Because we are very comfortable with the idea that books are tools that can be retired. What’s happening right now is not that.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Me trying to mentally reverse engineer how Kate moved the combs through the marbling tray in order to achieve this pattern on the right

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Mateusz Fafinski @calthalas.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Half the planet is having a massive fight about how to correctly interpret an Ancient Greek poem but go ahead, close some more humanities departments.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

And because it’s out, a timeline cleanse. Still one of the most beautiful examples of typography ever, IMO!

The opening to Genesis in the Doves Press Bible (1905).

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Staining in the magnificent 1905 Doves Press Bible—these stains, which appeared in pages of vol. 1 as a result of too little hanging space (and thus attempting to dry too many stacked sheets after printing, causing the sheets to stay damp overlong and discolor). Lamented by the printer.

An opening of the 1905 Doves Press Bible, with stains resulting from staying wet too long after printing.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

Plates of William Morris’ designs for Morris & Co., and other parts of his career, reproduced in “The Art of William Morris” (1897—one year after Morris’ death), printed at the Chiswick Press.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Inventorying historical architecture books means lots of lovely 2nd half of 18th-early 19th century decorated book papers.

Early-mid 18th-century French curl marbled paper

A late 18th-century paste paper. Tbh I am a paste paper hater but it’s HISTORICAL

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

Shout-out to our department’s Cold Nose Illuminator (“Old”) which some random person made in their garage in the 1990s and we ended up with. No company-produced cold nose illuminator can live up to it. It is eternal and weighs about 30 pounds. Also includes ancient tic tac box with spare parts.

The old cold nose illuminator in all its old tech glory. It’s enormous.

A tic tac box with spare parts the purpose of which I really couldn’t tell you.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

This morning: the lovely italic of Robert Estienne, one of the most important 16th-c. French printers. This book is a 1543 copy of Cato’s De Re Rustica.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

Admiring the tangled glory that is this fifteenth-century binding. Sadly detached. One of the usual suspects.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 25/06/2026

Three gigantic fine press bibles today—Nonesuch (1924), Pennyroyal Caxton (1999), and Arion (2000) Presses. Pennyroyal and Arion are particularly interesting as they were published and produced within a year of one another.

A metal plate engraving to the Nonesuch New Testament (1924-1927).

The opening to Genesis in the Pennyroyal Caxton Bible designed by Barry Moser in 1999.

The opening to the book of Matthew in the Arion Bible (2000), with burnished gold illuminated initial.

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

For perspective, this is equivalent to what I earned as an assistant professor fresh out of grad school 25 years ago in a rust belt city where large houses in nice neighborhoods near the university cost $150k.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Letterpress friends! Would anyone be able/willing to sell me a photopolymer plate to incorporate into my teaching collection? I’m hoping for text but dot screen images would also be of interest.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

This is the opposite of what Hartmann argued for. This is allowing the machine to literally rewrite history, asking the manifestation of the structures of power that created the gaps in the archive to then fill them. Critical fabulation, not to be undertaken lightly, requires a human moral compass.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

Woodcuts/wood engravings I saw at work this week.

Ornaments designed by William Morris for the Kelmscott Press and reproduced in an Elston Press volume on Morris’ printing.

A wood engraving of the Albion Press used by the Kelmscott Press, by John DePol.

Illustration to the Golden Cockerel Mabingion (1948), by Dorothea Braby.

Two woodcut prints in a set of mail art dating from ca. 1980.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 01/06/2026

The Dance Magazine, July 1926. Pulled for a group of high schoolers doing a dance intensive summer program in OSU’s Dance dept. visiting us on Wednesday!

A magazine cover with a colorful illustration of a woman in a dance pose.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

For your viewing pleasure, this beautiful “liber” in one of OSU’s newest manuscript fragments, copied in gorgeous Montecassino-style Beneventan script.

A close up of a manuscript leaf written in Beneventan script.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

Unexpected encounter with an old friend today: looking at copies of William Morris’ works published by Longmans and printed at the Chiswick Press, 1901-2 and stumbled upon another major fine printer… in the circulating collection, no less. (Deep breaths)

Ex Libris of T. J. Cobden-Sanderson, founder of the Doves Press.

Colophon of “The Roots of the Mountains”.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Was delighted today to receive North Yorkshire-based @nepenthepress.bsky.social’s new “The Domain of the Pale Queen” by Benjamin Tweddell—absolutely gorgeous!

A half-cloth bound book with green paper boards printed in a black design, with gold stamped typography.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

Summer project: finding things in the circulating collections that should be in special collections, and transferring them… aka searching “decorative cloth publishers’ binding” in the catalog and having fun :)

Gold floral decorative cover of “Lyrics from Elizabethan Song Books,” Scribner’s, 1896.

Art Nouveau decorative cover to Laurence Housman’s “The House of Joy,” K. Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1895. Cover also by LH.

Gold decorative Art Nouveau cover to Richard Le Gallienne’s “The Romance of Zion Chapel,” The Bodley Head, 1898. Cover by Will H. Bradley.

Simple gold Art Nouveau decorative cover to “Vespertilia and Other Verses,” The Bodley Head, 1895.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

I’ve been thinking a lot about the influence of William Morris’ book design aesthetic on lower cost, commercial printing, and nothing sums this up so literally like the title spread from J. M. Dent’s initial run of the Everyman’s Library series, 1905-1910 (right. Left: Morris’ Kelmscott Chaucer.)

The title opening of William Morris’ design, The Work of Chaucer, published by the Kelmscott Press in 1896.

The title opening from the edition of Sir Walter Scott’s “The Fortunes of Nigel” published in J. M. Dent’s Everyman’s Library Series, 1906.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

A few highlights from the NY Antiquarian Book Fair a few weekends ago…

Christina Rossetti’s “Goblin Market” in a binding designed by Laurence Housman

A Chivers “velluscent” binding with flowers

An 18th-c. Japanese book about fish/whales with hand painted illustrations

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Now that term is over, there is more time for collections research, which this week has meant Will H. Bradley’s weird and wonderful “Bradley, His Book”—a periodical from 1896-7 discussing typography, printing, publishing, etc. with many art nouveau illustrations by Bradley and his contemporaries.

A drawing of a horsed knight with a leafy border printed in red

A list of publications available from the Bodley Head publishing company with a decorative border

The cover of the November 1896 issue with an art nouveau illustration

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

A few of the sights from the Akron Antiquarian Book & Paper Show, not including the Nonesuch edition of William Morris’ selected writings that I walked away with.

A green Morocco bound book with a lovely floral border stamped in red and gold by Rivière

A mid-century advertising pamphlet for “Low Cost Homes” in Akron, Ohio with an illustration of two women outside a house

The endpapers of “The Happy Prince and Other Stories” by Oscar Wilde, illustrated by Charles Robinson

The cover of “Manual of Weeds” by Ada Georgia (1919) with a cover design of dandelions stamped in orange and green on blue (?) cloth

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

OSU’s leaf of this Maghrebi Qur’an manuscript, formerly owned by the Lima Public Library (one of the primary recipients of Ege’s leaves).

The recto side of a Qur’an in North African Maghrebi script.

The verso side of a Qur’an in North African Maghrebi script.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

The prospectus from the Grabhorn Press’ 1925 edition of Richard de Bury’s “Philobiblon” (a medieval text all about books) includes chapter 17, “Of handling books in a cleanly manner, and keeping them in order” with ironically, intentionally added fingerprints, laid in flowers, marginalia, etc.

The opening of the prospectus with the text about “handling books in a cleanly manner” with a circular stain from the bottom of a bottle/glass on the facing page.

An opening of the prospectus with the text about “handling books in a cleanly manner” with inky fingerprints and a dripping stain in the bottom margins.

An opening of the prospectus with the text about “handling books in a cleanly manner” with a dog ear, a laid in flower, a portion of a page cut away, and handwritten marginal notes in Italian.

An opening of the prospectus with the text about “handling books in a cleanly manner” with inky/greasy fingerprints in the bottom margin.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 28/02/2026

The most interesting archival object of the week: this gorgeously printed silk propaganda cartoon aimed at Italian Americans, glorifying the US’s role in WW1. Presented by a student and discussed in the grad seminar on decolonization embedded in our department this semester.

A colorful printed silk square with a cartoon depicting US and Allied leaders carrying Kaiser Wilhelm II to a fiery grave. Uncle Sam looks on with a shovel. The caption reads “Uncle Sam is ready to bury the chief of the barbarians/Uncle Sam e pronto a seppellire il capo dei barbari”

A close up of the gravestone, which reads “To the Violator of Belgium; To the Murder of Defenseless Women and Children; To the Executioner of the Innocent Victims on the Lusitania; To the Slaughterer of Unarmed Civilians; To the Arch Foe of Democracy, Rapacious Robber of all Nations’ Liberty; To the Champion Barbarian of all the Ages, Soaked with the Blood of Innocents crushed by Brutality; This stone of everlasting disgrace is dedicated; by the free people fighting for justice, liberty, and lasting peace on behalf of all humanity.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 25/02/2026

Blood Phlegm Yellow bile Black bile

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Erin L. Thompson @artcrimeprof.bsky.social · 22/02/2026

In 1900, German colonial authorities hanged Mangi Molelia for resisting their expansion into what is now Tanzania. A few days ago, his great-grandson Tony Molelia visited German to pray with Mangi Molelia's bones, held in one museum, and to wrap himself in the cloak his murders also stole.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 12/02/2026

So little is online, AND digital surrogates are not capable of reproducing the physical experience of handling cultural heritage/historical objects in real life. The crackle of the turning pages, the smell of the glue or the parchment/paper, the nuances of the binding structure, and on and on and on

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Finch Collins @finchinthestacks.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Has anyone studied how researchers and academics use library catalogues? I'm struggling to find any literature on researcher (not student) information needs and information seeking behavior. Any leads? My focus is rare books/archives/special collections, but I'm looking broadly right now.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 11/02/2026

Plant shopping in c. 1830s Japan! Woodcuts by Hasagawa Settan (長谷川雪旦, 1778-1843). In 江戶名所圖會, a collection of plates and description of the important places in Edo. In the Herman J. Albrecht Library of Historical Architecture, on deposit at OSU libraries.

A woodcut by Hasagawa Settan showing people shopping for plants in c. 1830s Edo.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

Absolutely DEVASTATED and yet enthralled by this past librarian’s “conservation effort” which resulted in the marring of this most famous of cover designs and yet also yielded a very interesting book object

Hugh Thomson’s famous 1894 “peacock” edition of Pride & Prejudice, marred by reinforced book cloth spine and corners that cover the design.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 07/02/2026

Every Opening Ceremony, but this one in particular, has Eurovision levels of camp/wtf is happening and I love it.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

Notgeld—local currency made in Germany during the Weimar Republic.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

Got our Audubon facsimile out for class as a reminder that size matters!

A table with a full-size facsimile of Audubon’s Birds of America and a smaller reproduction, both open to the flamingo plate. The flamingo was so big that Audubon had to depict it with its neck bent at a low angle in order to fit it, at a 1:1 ratio, on the page.

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 31/01/2026

Books + postcard + fabulous bookplate design I saw at work recently! book historians, chime in on printing technique of the postcard—would this be multicolor halftone? Traditional lithography? Also, descriptors for the style of the plaid bookbinding? Decorative paper boards…? Details in alt

A hardcover book from 1937 with a plaid design. It’s a paper-wrapped case binding? With book board covers… what is the name of this?

The engraved title page of an English Bible printed in 1616. It’s a folio-sized Geneva Bible, one of the most significantly Early Modern English translations of the Bible, printed by Robert Barker.

A postcard depicting Cleveland’s Terminal Tower (which we called Tower City growing up) dating ca. 1905. There are streetcars in front of the skyscraper, which was built 1926-7.

A woodcut bookplate design by Rockwell Kent in 1930, depicting a woman posing in an ornate touched ca. 1880s (?) style dress. The name printed below miss lady is “Nana.”

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Kat Abughazaleh @katmabu.bsky.social · 24/01/2026

It’s not enough to say Abolish ICE. It’s not enough to vote no on ICE funding. It’s not enough to confront Kristi Noem or Greg Bovino with Stern Words. If you are a leader, what are you doing to protect your community? How are you using your power, privilege, and position to confront this threat?

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Josh Shepperd @joshshepperd.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

Bill Siemering, founding program director of NPR, author of its mission statement, has asked me to inquire if any profs might be interested in a Zoom class visit? No honorarium necessary. Bill founded All Things Considered, Fresh Air, won a MacArthur, etc.

nytimes.com

A Founding Father of NPR Worries About Its Fate

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 07/01/2026

The semester starts in a week and we already have 85 class sessions scheduled in Special Collections. Departments from Biology to Landscape Architecture to Spanish to Theatre, all coming to use rare books and archives! Huzzah!

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Rose A. McCandless @rosemccandless.bsky.social · 05/01/2026

First day back in office—mid-century printing and type catalogs. Could be worse!

A photo of a folder with advertisements and catalogs for printing supplies.

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