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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 51m

I can check when I’m home after work! What an interesting observation!

sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 1h

It’s true there are some post-1501 editions in ISTC and GW—I assume usually because they were once thought to be incunabula but have been re-dated. But you wouldn’t expect to find 16th-century books there…

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 1h

Just got hit with a triple whammy: “post-incunable not in ISTC or GW” (Because it’s not an incunable?????)

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 3h

I wrote the entry for her artists book with Kim Anno, The Mirror of Simple Souls (based on the work of medieval mystic Marguerite Porete) in the Getty Research Institute artists book catalog.

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 3h

The hold Anne Carson’s work has had over me since my teen years cannot be overstated. Much deserved!

Signed title page of Anne Carson’s Red Doc> with the note “odi et amo ergo sum”

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Lincoln Michel @thelincoln.bsky.social · 3h

A good one

O Small Sad Ecstasy of Love

Anne Carson
1950 –
I like being with you all night with closed eyes.
What luck—here you are
coming
along the stars!
I did a road trip
all over my mind and heart
and
there you were
kneeling by the roadside
with your little toolkit
fixing something.

Give me a world, you have taken the world I was.

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eileen chengyin chow @chowleen.bsky.social · 22/01/2018

“Now by far the strangest thing that humans do — he is firm on this — is history. This asking.” Herodotus, Anne Carson, Nox

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James McLeod @jamespmcleod.ca · 4h

Ingrid Carlberg, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, said the author was in Iceland “listening to the wind” when the academy reached her to notify her of the win. apnews.com/article/nobe...

apnews.com

Canadian poet and essayist Anne Carson wins Nobel Prize in literature

Anne Carson, a Canadian poet and essayist, has won the Nobel Prize in literature. The Swedish Academy recognized her for her bold and inventive work that engages with classical traditions to create ne...

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Alice Wickenden @awickenden.bsky.social · 5h

yeeeeeessssss

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cara giaimo @cjgiaimo.bsky.social · 17h

i was fortunate enough to profile Margaret Hamilton in 2019. A really kind and curious person. This was my favorite story she told me:

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 12h

Every time I write anything I think about how convenient it would be if we had Latin style ablative absolutes in English. I feel like after I learned about them my brain just adopted it.

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 14h

The only “Ancient Greek value” worth anything is hospitality to strangers and its the one that the current US government would get merked by Zeus for violating rn if we were in a myth

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 15h

Seems like that would be a good ethos for library/museum marketing as well!

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 15h

I TAed for a professor in grad school who told me once that the real point of a gen ed class isn’t to make sure they all know the cursus honorum or whatever—but to hopefully teach them why classics is important and ought to be taught in a university, so they still know that 20 years later

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 16h

I think of this whenever I see people complaining that most museums don’t have every single item they own on public display, as if they ONLY exist as a gallery for the public rather than as a site of scholarship and conservation.

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 16h

Notably not something scientific labs seem to feel the need to do so much… I think there is probably an ideal middle ground for inviting people in and making clear the work that happens in such places!

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 16h

ngl I am not into space exploration but when we did the anniversary space sale I suggested we make this video and I got to go help film it with Hamilton and it was a career highlight m.youtube.com/watch?v=k1Tu...

m.youtube.com

Software Pioneer Margaret Hamilton on Apollo 11 | Christie's

YouTube video by Christie's

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 16h

Oh no! I got to meet her when I worked at Christie’s and she was soooooooo cool.

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 16h

If the place actually IS used by the general public or even students that’s one thing! It’s the niche specialist places leaning into the whole cozy-core thing I just find bit odd lol

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 16h

That’s cool! The place I am referring does not have such a place. In fact it is somewhat unwelcoming IRL lol

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 17h

Of course one wants to encourage students to go in the library. But to USE the resources, surely? At my grad school the libraries were all full of sleeping undergraduates 😅 they should have opened a nap room

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 17h

Am I going to “curl up with a book on a rainy day” at a major government library where I have to order things in advance and use a formal reading room? It just seems like a weird choice to me! But I’d dig it if they added beanbag chairs to the reading room ngl

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 17h

I don’t want to call anybody out but this summer I saw an independent research library with a very narrow technical focus advertise a summer reading program with stickers and prizes ??

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 17h

University libraries are sort of a combo IMO because they are both research libraries and essentially the “local” library of the students (at least that’s how I treated mine)

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 17h

I really don’t mean advertising that’s silly or unserious—I’m talking about presenting the library as a place where completely different activities are happening than I think occur IRL lol.

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 17h

Interesting! I’m not even talking about “fun” or silly advertising (and I think a university library is more multi-functional anyway). I mean a presentation that does not reflect the way the libraries are actually used at all lol

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 20h

There are some other minor details that make me slightly afraid of the horror movie scenario (she “doesn’t do well after dark” so I’m coming in the morning, she repeatedly and strangely mentioned her house is “the one behind the big hedge”…)

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 21h

She also is basically my neighbor…

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 21h

A local woman just called the office about a 19th-century book we wouldn’t buy, but it turns out to be formerly owned by the Bryn Mawr classicist who mentored Phyllis Gordan that I’m trying NOT to start collecting… anyway I’m going to her house tomorrow 😅

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 22h

They leave behind their life of crime to start a business 😉

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 22h

This novel has the interesting feature of a happy ending, in which Rufina the picara meets her own opposite number, a rogue in disguise trying to scam her while she’s in disguise trying to scam someone else. They fall in love and get married.

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 22h

I’m cataloging a picara novel called The Weasel of Seville and if I were rich, I would commission an opera of this. I love my scammer queen Rufina!!!!

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Dan Rosen @danrosen.xyz · 03/10/2026

Wouldst thou like to learn vicariously

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Unscientific, but I feel like books in paintings and art for a long time signified “learning” and “knowledge” in a general way—something perhaps now lost? Or strangely combined with novel reading?

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Thinking of the old saw about asking people how many of the books in their house that they’ve read… the idea of the reference/working library seems highly obscured these days

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

It reminds me of how a tell for basic AI-generated stuff on rare books is that it just wants to talk about “literary gems” and “stories.” Even as we supposedly are in a “post-literate” era, books = fiction in the popular imagination.

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

An interesting phenomenon, to me, is social media/marketing teams at major research libraries who approach their jobs as if they work at a local public library. Both are very important but I think they are quite different!

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Especially because I noticed it yesterday after lunch in an Italian auction that started today at 4am 😭😭😭

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

It’s from Italy so who knows when I will actually get it. You may be lucky to see it in time for the NYABF 🥲

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

The bibliographic equivalent of an adult baby

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Discussing the larger writings of the author as if they are the contents of the book when the two are quite different!

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

We should all be citing Catalogus Translationum more often!

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I posted this after reading one too many descriptions but now I can’t come up with any more, so I feel a bit less peevish. Of course I have been guilty of some of these. That’s why it’s good to have a rule. “Famous [really obscure thing]” is one I have to stop myself from doing all the time!

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

I feel like “foxing” is somehow a post-hand-press era phenomenon and when it’s earlier books, it’s just plain old spotting 😅

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

(Some of you may want me to say “first [absurdly specific thing]” but sorry, we need to keep that)

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

19th-century First [something was invented in Ancient Greece]

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sibyllacumae.bsky.social @sibyllacumae.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

“Rare in private hands” you can’t know that!!!!!

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