iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Jesse Sheidlower @jessesword.com · 01/10/2026

Attention everyone I know! Perfectly accurate, no notes. (Forwarded to me; ultimate source unclear.)

Image headlined "WHAT YOUR FAVORITE OBSOLETE ENGLISH LETTER SAYS ABOUT YOU", with thumbnails of MSS focusing on thorn, eth, wynn, yogh, ash, insular G, and long S; each one has the label "You are a nerd."

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Suzanne Karr Schmidt @drkarrschmidt.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

ImPRESSed Yet? I am thrilled to announce that Impressive Textiles: Premodern Printing on Fabric will be published October 27 in print and Open Access with @acmrs.bsky.social, thanks to 30 textile and print scholars, and 1 groundbreaking exhibition @newberrylibrary.bsky.social! #CoverReveal 1/5

Cover art for Impressive Textiles: Premodern Printing on Fabric!

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Finally, my article on Java banknotes and 4 anti-counterfeiting scripts, especially Chinese font, has been published. "Printing Capital: Knowledge Networks, Typographic Innovation, and the Languages of Colonialism in the Dutch East Indies" in Philology in Europe before and after 1800 (2026).

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

New acquisition: Geschiedenis van Baron Sakèndhèr een Javanese verhaal, by Cohen Stuart. 1850, Batavia. With the stamps of Batavian Genootschap and Natuurkundig Vereniging, and signature of Gerret Pieter Rouffaer（1860–1928), an expert of Javanese culture.

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

The Kloster Walkenried museum won my heart with their children books!

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Gustave Schlegel did not mind how much trouble he made for his type cutter….. Uranographie Chinoise by Gustave Schlegel, 1875, Leiden

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

I have been dreaming of this book for years, finally, I got one! Proeven van Oostersche Schriften der Lettergieterij Amsterdam N Tetterode. 1910.

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

I am a stockholder of Deli railway company, 1000 gulden! If the firm still existed. Deli was founded in 1883 in Amsterdam, running railway near e-coast of Sumatra. This stock features the signature anti-coun symbol of printer Enschede: music note. Acquired the 1917 stock on book market in Deventer.

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Recently acquired: Historie et Fabrication de la Porcelaine Chinoise (景德镇陶录), trans by Stanislas Julien 儒莲, Paris, 1856.

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

A ca. 100 years old moth/mosquito. Found in my new acquired LuFeng dialect dictionary 1897.

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

New acquired: Suffer the Little Children to Come unto Me. (Rong Hai Jin Wo) 容孩近我. 1917. Printed by the printing press at the Sacred Heart Cathedral ( 张庄天主教堂，or 胜世堂) in Xian county献县, Zhili直隶, printing approved by Bishop Henri Maquet马泽轩 (1843-1919).

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Just acquired: Verslag der Viering van het Honderdjarig Bestaan van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen. Printed by Landsdrukkerij Batavia, 1878.

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Today I have been to a 17c city library, Librije, in Enkhuizen. The book collection and the wooden furnitures are largely remained at their original location. Librije is housed in a charge but accessible to all citizens since the beginning. A real public library.

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

New purchase: a rare trilingual dictionary: Malay, English and Chinese, printed in soerakarta, by press Siang Hak in Kwan, rond 1910.

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

New purchase: Honderd Jaren Lettergieterij in Amsterdam (Tetterode 1851-1951).

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Dr Liam Sims @liamsims.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

An impression from a piece of fallen type - an error in the printing process captured forever. In a copy of Constantius Applanus’s ‘Soliloquiorum’, printed at Cremona in 1496 and given to @theulspeccoll.bsky.social by Stephen Gaselee in 1934. CUL Inc.5.B.20.5[4036]. #fallentype #incunabula

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

napinillos.substack.com/p/the-honest... This article recently went viral. "You will, at some point, need to advocate for your child at her school. You will need to read a teacher’s email carefully enough to notice what it is and is not saying, and write…

napinillos.substack.com

The Honest Case for the Humanities

Or: Why I’m Tired of My Colleagues Making Arguments That Only Work on Us

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

Human’s dream of machine composition. 1912.

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 22/06/2026

Isaac Titsingh’s journey worldwide. From Frank Lequin’s Isaac Titsingh (1745-1812)

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

New purchase: The Sacred Edict 圣谕广训. Translated and edited by missionary F W Baller 鲍康宁, printed by China Inland Mission and Presbyterian mission press in Shanghai, 4th edition. 1917. With the signature and notes by missionary John Steele.

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Stewart J. Brookes @stewartbrookes.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

We’re rewriting Archetype[1] and one of the joys of that is introducing new developers to palaeography. Today’s fun was: the first *p* is actually a *wynn* and not a *p* — only the second *p* is a *p* 😏 [1] the framework that powers Models of Authority, DigiPal & at least 30 other projects.

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

New purchase: Het Kongsiwezen van Borneo. By J J M de Groot. 1885. With the signature of the author!

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Yuta Hashimoto @yuta1984.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

Japanese studies folks, I’m pleased to introduce Minna de Honkoku OCR, a new AI system for recognizing kuzushiji. yuta1984.github.io/honkoku-ocr-... It is an AI-OCR system trained on 57 million characters of input data from the crowdsourced transcription platform Minna de Honkoku.

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

New purchase: 要理问答，北京救世堂印刷所 (北堂, Noordkerk, Lazaristen Drukkerij), by Peking Bishop Stanislas Jarlin C M 林懋德 (林準) missionary from France, in Beijing in 1921. Typography with Chinese page style and binding.

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Medieval Military Medicine @medmilmedicine.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

Nothing angered Dave more than being referred to as a ‘lucky duck’. It wasn’t luck at all. He’d worked hard to get to where he was. He paid his own bills, and even managed to create a nest egg for himself - 15th century, Oxford University, St John's College MS 82, f. 148r

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

New purchase: Het Chineesch Taaleigen Inleiding tot de gesprokene taal (Noord -Pekineesch dialekt), by Jos Mullie 闵宣化 (1886-1976, Belgian missionary from Congregatio Immaculati Cordis Mariae. Printed in Beijing in 1931, Dutch and Chinese. PeiTang (Noordkerk) Drukkerij 北堂印刷所。

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

New purchase: LES LIVRES SACRÉS DE L'ORIENT, by G Pauthier, in 1852, with divisible Chinese types which were made by M Legrand.

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Markus Samuel Haselbeck 趙澤煊 @ciaota.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

This noon, I attended @yunxie.bsky.social’s lecture on the materiality of printed Chinese script in 19th-century Netherlands. The talk addressed challenges, networks, reasons, and innovations related to printing Chinese in Europe. Thanks for this new angle on printing culture! #ChinaBooks #Sinology

Print from 1893 combining Latin and Chinese script (printed in Hong Kong)

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 19/05/2026

“preferably in that order” Found a funny footnote in a Sinology paper: “The notion of transcriptional variety even took root in sinological folklore, as the unwritten rites de passage of early European sinology were said to include marrying a Chinese partner, conceiving a transcription for

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

New purchase: Het Chineesche Zakenleven in Bederlandsch-Indië, door Belasting-Accountantsdienst onder Leiding van J L Vleming Jr. 1926

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Dutch man smoking opium served by a slave. (from a Japanese book by anonymous?)

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

The layout of a Ming-era dibao邸报 prop (fig 1, looks handwritten) in 2024 C-drama Blossom九重紫 actually resembles a real Ming dibao (fig 2)! Although this preserved real dibao is a print, historically speaking, Dibao could also be a handwritten copy. So no need to be too harsh on the production team.

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

East VS West? NPC (National People's Congress of China) deputy and Shanghai TV host Yin Hairong (印海蓉) has proposed making Songti 宋体 the default font for screens in China. Her reason: sans-serif fonts like Heiti 黑体 “come from the West” and reflect “Western aesthetics and civilizational symbols.” 1

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

Just found out: the post about a 2024 Chinese spy drama (pre-1949) includes a historical telegraph character-number chart. Well done!

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 15/04/2026

Great presentation Over language and feminism by Coraline Jortay @qiaoj.bsky.social In Leiden.

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 05/04/2026

“What am I to make of Roorda van Eisinga? Such half scholar and half fool are almost impossible to deal with. How are the natives supposed to respect them? How are the admin and the plantations to be managed by them?” -1846 Letter from Dutch East Indies Governor Rochussen to Minister of Colony Baud

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weird medieval guys @weirdmedieval.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

gambling monk, germany, 15th century

a drawing of a monk wearing dark glasses and rolling dice at a table

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 04/03/2026

Just found out, “bami” this Dutch/Indonesian word comes from minnanyu baiduyin 闽南语白读音 ‘Bah mī’ (pork noodles)🍜😱…….

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 27/02/2026

Juan de Borba, a Portuguese, his ship sank in a storm, he and 8 crew members drifted in a boat for 9 days before reaching Aceh in East Indies in 1521. During the time, without eating and drinking anything😱, each of them only took a tiny piece of opium, size of a pepper, which were carried by a Moor.

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

Unkind = 爱情🤔？The 19th c missionary who compiled this dictionary perhaps wanted to send some messages to the secular world…. English-Japanese dictionary, by W H Medhurst, 1830, printed in Batavia.

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 15/02/2026

Karl Gützlaff's Chinese handwriting. Letter From Karl Friedrich August Gützlaff (1803-1851) to Nicolaas Beets (1814-1903); 1849.

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

Robert Morrison’s Chinese teacher always took poison with him so that he could kill himself in case he was caught teaching Morrison Chinese ….😱

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 05/02/2026

Reading about Karl Gützlaff.

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Hettyt @hettyt.bsky.social · 18/01/2026

In de supermarkt opletten app

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Heather Froehlich @heatherfro.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

University of Arizona Libraries is hiring for a RARE BOOK LIBRARIAN! 1st review of applications February 9, 2026. arizona.csod.com/ux/ats/caree... We have great collections and great people here. Not on the committee, happy to chat.

arizona.csod.com

Librarian, Rare Books (Assistant or Associate)

CHARACTERISTIC DUTIESAcquire, appraise, and preserve collections of primary and significant research value, especially rare books.In partnership with ...

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

I know in the beginning of a new year I am supposed to be positive but the words of this man in Dejima (a Japanese translator) from 170 years ago really struck me: “what I like, is doing nothing just lying down”. 我想做的就是啥也不干躺平！😩 (Waar ik van houd, …is niets te doen en op mijn zij te liggen.”)

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 12/01/2026

Tables in a bookstore. Scheltema Amsterdam.

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Yun Xie @yunxie.bsky.social · 10/01/2026

1933 reconstruction of Moxon’s wood press (described in 1683-84), photo taken before 1975. London University College. I wonder if the graffiti on it still exists 🤓….

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