The new Book & Paper Conservation programme at @glasgow.ac.uk's Kelvin Centre has got off to a great start. As it's the first year there are just 4 students, numbers will increase in future years. Here's a blog from them about their first semester.
iconscotland.wordpress.com/2026/02/24/b...
Blogging is painful but essential for preserving my work beyond my lifetime. I discuss the steps I take, from metadata to digital preservation, and why it's worth it.
eve.gd/2026/04/19/the-necessary...
Please don't use speaker phone while in library. Ask for headphones at the front desk.
Only a fallen society needs this sign
Green "poison" book cake
Edible Books!
I don't have any real books to share today, so here is the glorious lineup of faux-folios from April 1! Most photos were by Ben Greer, and featured on @newberrylibrary.bsky.social instagram. First up, The Poison Princess, by Conservation, a Swedish Princess cake with a dire twist! 1/?
“During a time when most people have a search engine in their pocket, one might think boxes of records are now irrelevant. But, an internet search or chatbot prompt cannot replace making a trip to the archives, simply because not everything is digitized” #cdnHist
thediscourse.ca/cowichan-val...
True trickle down economics.
Eh. Every corpus is another hub in our global LOCKSS system. Just wait until you can buy one up in bankruptcy court.
Sometimes I think that the true neoliberal solution is just to have insurance companies accurately price in the costs of hurricanes, forest fires, underpaid labor, and social unrest.
big day today, the Baltimore Seed Commons project I am part of has officially opened Baltimore's first seed bank providing free seeds to any and all! Find the stocked seed cabinet inside St Luke's Church in Hampden whenever they are open and take what you'll use 💚 seed donations welcome too xoxox
Appropriate since snakes do not have arms.
This is always the argument against "either a paywall or it remains inaccessible"
Tumblr post from user dykeselfcest: I fear a lot of people learned to take good care of library books as children and instead of internalizing “leave shared community items as you found them as much as possible, because other people will use them too" they internalized "printing and binding a book imbues it with sacred energy and if you dog-ear a mass-market paperback you're desecrating the entire concept of written language"
Couldn’t have said it better.
Waffle House is also one of the biggest employers of ex-felons so the staff don’t take shit from unruly customers.
There is an additional factor at Waffle House (and some old school railcar diners) that the kitchen staff is right behind the counter. So there is no divide between front of house drama and back of house drama.
Never closes for Hurricanes.
A really good thing. At the US National Archives, the (signed, parchment copy of the) Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights now joined in the permanent exhibit in the main rotunda by the Emancipation Proclamation and the 19th amendment. 🎁 www.nytimes.com/2026/03/31/a...
A cat completely tangled up in tape from a cassette.
♫ psycho killer, cat cassette ♫
📣 New historical data visualization! "How Fast Was the Mail?" is an interactive map showing how long information took to travel across the US between 1882-1908: cblevins.github.io/mail-time/ +
On the anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, John Sloan's searing March 1911 illustration for the New York Call, a Socialist newspaper, responding to the tragic event
Education happens everywhere.
Screenshot of an Instagram video capturing pope Leo with his mouth open in astonishment
Pop Leo asked if he should put on gloves to turn pages in the gorgeous Renaissance Bible and the librarian explained why it’s better to do so with bare hands. Glorious reaction.
Every rare books librarian & archivist feeling very seen, I gather. www.instagram.com/reel/DUcpEBY... #BookHistory
To watch the full video of the professional examination, the initial prep, cleaning and digital scanning of the 16mm films by the specialists at R3Store Studios, visit:
filmisfabulous.org.uk/preserving-d...
For all of the professional theory and practice of preserving archives, from environmental set points to housing standards to disaster plans, the biggest risk of loss comes from institutional decision-making.
Sometime in the mid-1980s, when Larry Tisch owned CBS, he ordered a New Jersey warehouse holding the CBS corporate archives to be cleaned out to save money.
Those files were largely destroyed.
They likely could've resolved several mysteries in U.S. media history.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...
I worked on this on the Library of Congress project for about five years, and CBS was not interested in preserving their history!
One battle after another for exhibits staff.
Heritage organizations will either reduce what they choose to preserve or select less permanent material. Either option increases risks to permanent collections.
Libraries, archives, and museums could be impacted by increased prices or limited supply of key preservation supplies, including Tyvek, Marvel Seal, Volara, Ethafoam, Colibri book covers, poly strapping, Coroplast, and ziploc bags.