Our new album is out today! A sincere request to help spread the word!

Crime and the London Rare Book Trade 1890-1930 Join an evening talk by Dr Laura Cleaver - exploring London life, book trade workings, and views on rare books through crime stories.

There's still time to register for this talk by @laurajcleaver.bsky.social on crime and the London rare book trade 🕵️

29 April at 5.30pm

Get tickets here 👇

www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/crime-and-...

U.S. Poet Laureate Arthur Sze Appointed for a Second Term This National Poetry Month, the Library of Congress has appointed Arthur Sze to serve a second term as the nation’s 25th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry for 2026-2027, the Library announced today.

NEWS: This National Poetry Month, the Library of Congress has appointed Arthur Sze to serve a second term as the nation’s 25th Poet Laureate for 2026-2027. newsroom.loc.gov/news/u.s.-poet-laureate-...

#BookHistory people, we gotta join forces with #DHmakes to take care of paper, parchment, and vellum making!

Announcing the 2026 Guggenheim Fellows — Guggenheim Fellowships: Supporting Artists, Scholars, & Scientists Since 1925, the Guggenheim Foundation has given Fellowships to exceptional artists, writers, scholars, and scientists, empowering them to pursue meaningful work under the freest possible conditions.

Good to see John J. Lennon awarded in general nonfiction. has an incarcerated person ever before won a Guggenheim?

www.gf.org/stories/anno...

St. Jerome sitting with a halo, and his lion is near him. This is a woodcut from the 1480s.

"No, I am working! And it is my halo, not yours."

It was likely a working day in the 1480s, and St. Jerome was battling with his books, and an attention seeking feline.
#skystorians #catcontent

Brought not-quite-broken-in but gorgeous heels and appropriate cute flats today. I lasted 90 minutes in the heels. :sighs in middle aged lazy high femme:

Observing Collections a Micron at a Time: A Tools of the Trade Post | Guardians of Memory Ever wonder what all those intriguing looking instruments in science labs actually do? This first reimagined installment of our “Tools of the Trade” series takes an up-close look at microscopy. Learn ...

Observing Collections a Micron at a Time: A Tools of the Trade Post by Megan Zins, Library of Congress 📜
blogs.loc.gov/preservation...

There's nothing an archivist likes more than getting to help with the weirdest, most specific questions. We had someone email about the height of kerbs in Milton Keynes and guess what?? We've got documents about that!!

That XKCD meme of how the internet works being held up by precarious blocks, edited so the total is 'All knowledge about Buckinghamshire' and the one supporting block is 'An archivist who has worked here since the 1990s with decent Latin skills'.

Relevant to recent discussions:

Fragment of ancient Greek papyrus with handwritten text, featuring overlaid captions: "Hidden stories: gravedigger families from 1,800 years ago" and "Using digitised items to find hidden stories in Greek papyri.

Newly digitised Greek papyri from the Bodleian reveal the lives of ancient Egyptian gravediggers, including working as carers and taking part in legal affairs. 📜

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Devastating: Hampshire College is permanently closing following the Fall 2026 Semester. A beautiful institution & community that has done so much for so many. My child is a current Hampshire senior. Hampshire's approach to education is so unique, humane, & exciting—I've seen it first hand. Tragic

Heart preservation technique increases pool of organs available for transplant Vanderbilt Health has pioneered a safe and effective technique for recovering hearts for heart transplantation.

Scientists triple the time we can preserve human hearts. Donated hearts usually can survive outside the body for a maximum of four hours. A team at Vanderbilt University developed a preservative fluid that could triple the time the heart can survive outside the body buff.ly/fnwUtnZ
#ShareGoodNewsToo

"Microscopy in PRTD allows us to investigate materiality on a new scale, shifting our perspective so that we can continue to check our assumptions, help preserve the collections, and answer questions about materiality."

If you find yourself in Champaign, @illinoisrbml.bsky.social also holds one!

The digital library here on campus: metadata.library.illinois.edu/collections?...

309: The Infinite Loop: Archives and Time Travel in the Popular Imagination, with Lynn M. Thomas and Katy Rawdon Steve chats with Lynn M. Thomas and Katy Rawdon, editors of The Infinite Loop: Archives and Time Travel in the Popular Imagination, about how they each got into the profession, why archives can nev…

Circulating Ideas 309: The Infinite Loop: Archives and Time Travel in the Popular Imagination, by @lynnemthomas.com and
@katy-katy.bsky.social circulatingideas.com/2026/04/13/3...

Hey @lynnemthomas.com and I were on a podcast!! ❤️

Congratulations to all the Locus Awards Finalists!!

@katy-katy.bsky.social and I were on a podcast!

309: The Infinite Loop: Archives and Time Travel in the Popular Imagination, with Lynne M. Thomas and Katy Rawdon Steve chats with Lynne M. Thomas and Katy Rawdon, editors of The Infinite Loop: Archives and Time Travel in the Popular Imagination, about how they each got into the profession, why archives can ne…

@katy-katy.bsky.social and I were on the Circulating Ideas podcast, talking about The Infinite Loop! circulatingideas.com/2026/04/13/3...

Books as Luxury Items - Smart Bitches, Trashy Books Smart Bitches, Trashy Books

I wrote about books as luxury items, specifically that books are being adopted by luxury brands at an increasing rate - Dior, especially, also Prada, MiuMiu, and now Coach book charms, in partnership with PRH.

IMO, books as a luxury aesthetic reveal cultural anxieties about reading and access.

I am so sorry.

(Rest and self-care looked a lot like making headway in S3 of TNG while knitting.)

I rested and did self-care as much as I possibly could this weekend, because this week is not only busy, it culminates in needing to hold it together all day for a job candidate on the 2nd anniversary of Caitlin’s passing.

Me: *washes all the bedding down to the mattress pad*
Hugo the cat: *immediately lays on and rolls around every layer as I reassemble the clean linens on bed, shedding as much as possible in the process*

#LifeWithCats

A deep purple velvet long sleeved jacket with deep revers that are covered with three dimensional embroidery consisting of raised pads covered with pink metallic strips appliquéd over the top and the same at the cuffs

Detail of the jacket revers of Schiaparelli’s 1937 evening jacket made from purple velvet. It shows the pink metallic appliqué and the single moulded button in the shape of a swan

Guess where I am heading tomorrow morning! I shall be soaking up the #Schiaparelli exhibition and no doubt marvelling at her artistry and collaborative endeavours. Jacket, 1937 #V&A #FashionHistory 🗃️🪡

In general, (re)orienting education wholly or chiefly to specific perceived market needs is always going to produce disaster once the near term passes. It also eviscerates institutions that might otherwise help people weather change, intellectually and in other ways

Even better: I double-checked the pattern of the 15 year shawl and I was wrong, it’s all knit, AND I still have a bunch more to go than I thought. But I can still learn to crochet at any point now!

Well, I didn’t double-check the pattern first, so there’s an even chance I didn’t purchase the correct size of crochet hook despite snagging a variety. 😅