And so Baby Ramsay joins the ranks of Baby Willie and Baby Betty in the @innerpeffray.bsky.social visitors' books! 😊

There's now ever so slightly more information in my Return to Work powerpoint - and I can't avoid seeing the document when I return to this laptop in a year! Wish me luck 🤞

Photographic excerpt from Innerpeffray Library Visitors' Book Volume 1, f.186v (21 & 22/07/1897), highlighting two 'baby' visitors: Baby Willie George Herbinson and Baby Betty Dunlop.

I am officially on maternity leave from today! Next time I visit @innerpeffray.bsky.social, I'll be emulating the Herbinsons and Dunlop families from July 1897 by signing the visitors' book with 'Baby' in tow! 👶

Hi! If anyone has a spare 15 minutes to fill out a short survey about their opinions on museums it would be very much appreciated.

Just click this link: forms.gle/LgCSvTSYTjRK...

Please repost or share with anyone you feel would also like to take part!

#UKmuseums #culturalheritage

A detail from an early modern print showing a young boy jumping over a skull while blowing soap bubbles. The scene is framed with a memento mori theme: Alles vergeht Gottes Wort besteht". The publication "Zwölff Geistliche Andachten" was published in 1693 (VD17 23:704497Y).

Why not start your week with blowing the perfect soap bubbles while running naked and jumping over a skull?

We're looking forward to our Summer Fayre next Friday and Saturday!
Local craftspeople, refreshments and lots of secondhand #books

Very exciting to see @physiciansgallery.bsky.social's The People's Dispensary published online! I loved working on this project a few years ago — sometimes I can still see Dr Andrew Duncan's handwriting when I close my eyes...

www.rcpe.ac.uk/peoplesdispe...

Beatrix Potter at Innerpeffray - Innerpeffray Library As it is the 155th anniversary of Beatrix Potter’s birth on the 28th July 2021, we are celebrating by exploring some of the links between Beatrix Potter and the Library of Innerpeffray. Helen Beatrix ...

John Everett Millais was a friend of Rupert Potter, father of Beatrix, and they both enjoyed visiting Scotland. The Potters visited Innerpeffray in 1868 and you can read more in @bibliophisla.bsky.social blog innerpeffraylibrary.co.uk/beatrix-pott...

A powerpoint slide with colourful clouds as a background, entitled 'Returning from Maternity Leave'. Text includes: "Hi future-Isla, it's 2025-Isla here to say, you can do this!" and "Hi baby!!"

This is what I have so far for my handover notes, hoping to help myself hit the ground running when I return to the PhD after maternity leave. I think it'll be really helpful. 🙃

Neurodivergent experiences of archives – call for workshop participants Are you a (UK-based) neurodivergent researcher who has used archives in your work? Or an archive, library, or collections professional who would like to inform discussions on neurodivergent user access? Or a neurodivergent archive, library, or collections professional who can offer insights into accessibility? As part of the EDI Caucus funded project ‘Divergent Minds in the Archive’ , we, a group of neurodivergent humanities academics, will be running a series of research and knowledge exchange workshops at archives around the UK, and online, in summer 2025. These workshops will bring together archive users and professionals to share archive experiences, identify potential barriers for neurodivergent users, and creatively ‘re-imagine’ archival spaces through zine-making. We can fund limited travel expenses for participants to workshops, including support worker travel and overnight accommodation where necessary. Please apply for one workshop only. We are currently recruiting participants for the following workshops, to be hosted by: ● ● Glamorgan Archives, Cardiff, Tuesday 29 July, 10am-4.15pm. Liverpool Records Office, Liverpool, Thursday 14 August, 10am-4.15pm. Please apply by Monday 21st July, or as soon as possible if you need travel support. If you cannot make these events, but would like to hear more about the project, sign up to our mailing list for more information in due course. Please feel free to get in touch with further questions at divergentmindsarchive@gmail.com. All the very best, Ria, Lucie, and Ann-Marie The project is led by Dr Ria Cheyne, Liverpool John Moores University; Dr Ann-Marie Foster, Robert Gordon University/Imperial War Museums; and Dr Lucinda Matthews-Jones, Liverpool John Moores University. Our partners are Glamorgan Archives, Gwent Archives, History UK, Imperial War Museums, Liverpool Record Office, Scottish Council on Archives,

#skyhistorians We are looking forward to our Divergent Minds in the Archive workshops in Cardiff (29 July) & Liverpool (14 Aug). There’s still time to sign up & we are looking for a broad group of archive users! We have travel bursaries & can if needed help with hotel accommodation. More details👇

Congratulations!! Not long to go before you'll be Dr Cleo 🤩

Photo showing the spines of 9 editions of Murray's Handbook for Scotland travel guides: 1867, 1868, 1873, 1875, 1883, 1894, 1898, 1903, 1913.

Great fun the last couple of days at @natlibscot.bsky.social comparing nine editions of Murray's Handbook for Scotland (1867-1913), looking at how the descriptions of @innerpeffray.bsky.social as a visitor attraction/tourist destination have changed throughout time. #librarytourism

Petition: Raise statutory maternity/paternity pay to match the National Living Wage Statutory maternity and paternity pay is £4.99 per hour for a full-time worker on 37.5 hours per week - approximately 59% less than the 2024 National Living Wage of £12.21 per hour for workers aged 21...

The government response to this petition is infuriating.
“Maternity and other types of Parental Pay are intended to provide a measure of financial security to support parents whilst they are away from the workplace; they are not a replacement of earnings” except they literally are??? Please sign:

Rock on! For #ManiculeMonday here’s a handy example of a reader highlighting text passages that I spotted in @bodleianlibraries.bsky.social MS. Laud Misc. 651 📜🤘

Screenshot of the Brooks Falls livestream, showing 128 Grazer standing in the river and her very fluffy yearling cub 128jr looking at the camera.

Look how incredibly fluffy 128jr is!!

Bear Cam - live from Brooks Falls in Katmai National Park | Explore.org Watch LIVE as hundreds of Alaskan Brown Bears descend on a mile-long stretch of the Brooks River to feast on the largest Sockeye Salmon run in the world.

Very important announcement - the bears are back! It's time to watch these beautiful brown bears get super fat over the summer 🐻 explore.org/livecams/bro...

Stop it!

Screenshot of an email from Academia with the subject line "An AI wrote a review of your paper"

Absolutely not! I do not consent, I don't like it, make it stop.

Section of p.54 from Nelson's 'An Essay on the Government of Children' (1753), covering "Hunger, Fatigue, and Fretting" during breastfeeding.

I must never be allowed to go hungry while breastfeeding! Snacks at all hours!

Title page of Dr James Nelson's 'An Essay on the Government of Children' (1753)

I've got some reading to do before baby arrives, courtesy of @innerpeffray.bsky.social!

I have witnessed two separate people being SO RUDE to @natlibscot.bsky.social staff today and the NLS staff being unfailingly polite in return. It's not that hard to treat people with common decency - especially when they are just trying to help you!

That's a very good point that I should have considered! Further investigation required...

No email has ever found me well.

Extract from Innerpeffray Library Visitors' Book Volume 1, f.22v, showing the signatures of The Revd. A. M. Gibson, Minister of Portsoy, and "Mrs" Gibson.

Edited clipping from the Greenock Advertiser, 25 May 1872, showing the Marriage Announcement of Rev. Andrew Miller Gibson to Helen Anderson Gardiner, married on the 21st May 1872.

I love a little drama on a Wednesday morning! 💒 On 4 May 1872, the Revd and (allegedly) Mrs A. M. Gibson visited @innerpeffray.bsky.social together and signed the visitors' book - but they weren't actually married until the 21st of May, almost three weeks later!

Section of a visitors' book page from Innerpeffray Library, showing the signatures of E. F. Harvey, Constance Bardsley, and Doris Bardsley, all from Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. (Library of Innerpeffray Visitors' Book Volume 4, f.106v)

Excerpt from a newspaper article published in The Central Queensland Herald, Queensland, 04/11/1937, titled "Miss C. Bardsley | Impressions of World Tour"

Further extract from newspaper article, "Miss C. Bardsley | Impressions of World Tour", The Central Queensland Herald, 04/11/1937. This section mentions that Bardsley visited Innerpeffray, "the oldest free library in the world."

I just stumbled across an old article in The Central Queensland Herald, Australia, by an international visitor to @innerpeffray.bsky.social - Miss Constance Bardsley visited Innerpeffray with 2 others on 1st July, 1937. On her return home, she wrote about her 6-month world tour in her local paper.

It's been a busy year for the Books and Borrowing Team - even though the project technically ended a year ago! Highlights include winning the @bsecs.bsky.social Digital Prize for 2025, a doctorate for @smithjj.bsky.social, and many new publications on the way...

'A Year of Books and Borrowing'- read Katie Halsey's round-up here: borrowing.stir.ac.uk/a-year-of-bo... 😃📖📚

Photo of a library display titled 'Mental Wellbeing', with all shelves totally empty.

Clearly this display at my local library was a work in progress but also... pretty apt!

Genuine question - how does anyone get anything done while pregnant?? I've just hit the 3rd trimester and I am e x h a u s t e d 😴

I'm so excited! 🥰 but also who knows what state I'll be in for returning to the last year of my PhD after mat leave...