Very excited to be co-organizing this event with Adam Smith @elementaladam.bsky.social & Sarah Griffin @uoylibrary.bsky.social

Here's our now-annual reminder that you're safe from April Fools hilarity from this particular account!

When the world is like it is, no one needs to be tricked into feeling joy about the library fitting slides between floors or whatever, only to have it snatched away...

<<< We’ll cover sources of early news on databases such as EEBO, as well as more modern and contemporary newspaper collections, including Nexis and British Library Newspapers. We'll also delve into some of our newsreel and magazine collections.

Open to students, researchers, & academics at York. 🎉

New workshop next week!

📰 Navigating our Newspaper Collections
🕙 24 March, 10:00-11:00
📍 LFA/204 & 205 (Harry Fairhurst Building)
🔗 Book a place below

Run by our Humanities Faculty Librarians, this is aimed at anyone wanting to learn how to use the library's news and magazine collections.

>>>

Collage of photos of the space, showing bookshelves, comfortable chairs, coffee table, desks, and signage explaining the space

...on Inclusivity and Belonging in the Library. This is a celebratory showcase and a brilliant collection, so do feel free to browse, borrow, or just work in the space.

Finally if you're one of the many, many staff / students who last year chose the books that form this collection, thank you!

... using the self-issue machine in the usual way.

We'd like the collection to grow over time, so you can also suggest additions to it via our form here: forms.gle/EM6tmwddHNpt...

We're indebted to the brilliant Raj Mann, who proposed this idea as part of a recent project...

(4 of 5)

A shelf from the collection, including titles by bel hooks, Marjane Satrapi, and James Baldwin

...that the collection can exist as a discrete entity, and items on Reading Lists exist elsewhere on our shelves. You're welcome to read items from the collection in the room itself (which has some nice furniture in, and whiteboard if you want to share your thoughts) or you can borrow...

(3 of 5)

... including fiction and non-fiction works.

You can browse in-person of course, & also online via YorSearch using the (lengthy...) URL below.

It contains many new additions to our collections but we also bought additional copies of recommendations we already stocked. This means...

(2 of 5)

Ethnically minoritised author showcase space This collection was created to showcase and celebrate the works of ethnically minoritised authors. Every book has been personally recommended by our students and staff.

We are launching our new Showcase space for Ethnically Minoritised authors, and would encourage any @york.ac.uk students and staff to go and browse!

The room (LFA201 in the Fairhurst) contains over 500 books all specifically recommended by students & staff at York...

(1 of 5 >>)

Tell us what you need If the Library does not hold the resource you need for your studies or research, you can ask us to obtain it for you.

We supplied move than 7,800 articles via Rapid in 2025. So please use it whenever you need it.

You'll find the form on our Tell Us What You Need page.

www.york.ac.uk/library/reso...

<< than paying by the request.

We say all this because if you've not used Interlending in a few years, you may be used to a system where articles took days to arrive, or you may worry about requesting too many things because of the staff time to source them etc. But Rapid has changed all that. >>

Poster. It's called Rapid for a Reason. If you need an article we don't have access to, request it via Rapid Interlending. Most often we'll get a PDF to you within an hour.

Hello York researchers. Did you know Rapid ILL can supply articles to which we don't already have access, and most often the PDF arrives within an hour?

Also, it's a largely automated system, so you're not taking up staff resource when you use it.

And we pay a flat-fee for the service, rather >>
🧵

I collect perfume and have quite a number of library and librarian themed perfumes. Books are a very popular note.

My favorite is probably library ghost by Poesie, which is a nice twist on just straight up books smell.

What a missed opportunity!

Freshly sharpened pencil.
Well-worn leather bookmark.
Beeswax-polished carved wood bookshelf.

I love it. Cedar, leather, beeswax, old books, with a hint of ozone from a heated copier that's been going for a while.

I'd wear it.

If we DID make a library perfume (which, full disclosure, we're unlikely to prioritise at the current time) what should it smell of?

Obviously 'old books' would probably quite popular, but anything else?

A hand holding a bottle of 'UoYLibrary - for them; perfume. The tagline is Three Buildings, One Library, One Scent.

It's weird that this never really took off.

Academia.edu - Find Research Papers, Topics, Researchers Academia.edu is the platform to share, find, and explore 50 Million research papers. Join us to accelerate your research needs & academic interests.

FYI, Academia.edu has changed its terms of service to give an irrevocable worldwide license for anything uploaded to its site to be used for generative AI. I do not consent to this and have pulled all my papers.

Were you to make a Venn diagram of places which both the Uni of York Library, and Fibber's live music venue, have inhabited, Micklegate House would probably be the only place appearing in the overlapping circles...

Our collections began life here, while they awaited the building of the Morrell.

Honestly, this whole thing was dreadful and we feel unclean.

a woman with glasses says i 'm so sorry on peacock Alt: Liz Lemon saying 'I'm so sorry'

Roses are red
Violets are blue
But we're not working on Valentine's Day
(And neither should you)

But we understand Researchers don't work regular hours
Though you won't find weekend posts on accounts like ours
So we celebrate today, there's no need to worry
The gif below completes the couplet
⤵️

Welcome!

You're in!

Are YOU a member of staff / department / School / service at the Uni of York who doesn't appear in the Starter Pack below?

Just let us know via reply or DM and we'll add you - we have room for just over 30 more before it gets full!

Screenshot: Throughout this guide I’ve quoted various York academics, and it seems appropriate to start with this advice from Dr Richard Carter (School of ACT): Don’t be afraid of starting out again. If you have a sizeable following on Twitter-X, the prospect of shifting to a significantly smaller audience on BlueSky might appear very discouraging. Nevertheless… rebuilding on a fresher, far less toxic platform offers us a chance to reconnect with the core audience of professionals that we always intended to reach and be in dialogue with. Here, then, are ten top tips for those ready to rebuild.

And while we're on, many of the people in the Uni of York Starter Pack contributed to our Researcher's Guide to Bluesky, which you can read here:

blogs.york.ac.uk/library/2024...

We often get tagged in posts on here by people thinking this is the Uni of York account (whereas we are of course the Uni of York *Library* account) but the good news is, the Uni itself is now here!

>> @york.ac.uk

They are in our York starter pack along with 115 other ace people / departments. ⤵️

Many of us University staff love this water tower, near the library, and there's some lovely detail about it on the site below.

Sadly the the idea it was built as a decoy to lure the bombers away from @yorkminster.bsky.social in WWII is a myth, albeit an excellent one...

Such is the immutable marching on of time, what was once tomorrow is now TODAY - yes today, in the Morrell, 10am-1pm, drop in for all things digital accessibility.

Pomeranian dog wearing a massive pair of glasses, apparently working at an ipad at a desk

UoY teaching staff, join us for an online accessibility session tomorrow Tues 3 Feb, 11-12 noon. We'll be there with colleagues from the VLE and @uoylibrary.bsky.social reading lists teams to answer all your queries. Book a place via the DET training page vle-support.york.ac.uk/training/#si...