This is not a drill. There is a DOGGO in the reading room!

Happy Dog Smiling at Camera

ALT: Happy Dog Smiling at Camera

static.klipy.com

Some wonderful side-eye from both Virgin and Child in this fifteenth-century woodcut. In the ‘De spiritualibus ascensionibus’ (Cologne, c. 1498), a work of mystical philosophy by the Dutch writer Gerard Zerbolt of Zutphen. Zerbold taught Thomas à Kempis. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social SSS.47.1[3].

4 Aug 1604: James I confirms #otd the broad powers conferred by Elizabeth I on William Camden in order to reform the College of Arms

How I plan to do my August reading, in the shadows, with an owl on my hat, feeling good.

The first journal number from #QueerBibliography 2025 is available online, guest edited with the utterly brilliant @ewatson.bsky.social. Thanks to @jilld17.bsky.social and Nadine Kozak for making space so quickly, to anonymous reviewers, our authors, and for Fran Affleck's meticulous copy editing.

My copy of Manuscript Studies arrived today 🎉 It contains an essay on how medieval manuscripts ended up in @marshslibrary.bsky.social to accompany our new catalogue. Also available online: muse.jhu.edu/issue/56871

Enjoying the 1984 BBC adaptation of Noel Coward’s ‘Hay Fever’, with the great & much lamented Penelope Keith, Paul Eddington, Patricia Hodge, Benjamin Whitrow (Mr Bennet in the 1995 P&P) & the great Joan Sims as the maid.

Have you heard of William Stukeley? William Stukeley (1687–1765) joined the Society of Antiquaries in 1717. The following year he was elected the Society’s first Secretary.

Yesterday revisited the wonderful Kedermister Library, founded in the 1630s by Sir John Kedermister (seen here in his memorial) in St Mary’s, Langley Marish (Berkshire). Last time I was there must have been 15 years ago with @katiedflanagan.bsky.social! Also rang on their lovely bells 🔔

Early materials cataloguers! What's good on early material metadata since Bair and Steuer (2013)? I've been trawling but I haven't turned up much--I know there's been ongoing discussion, but perhaps it hasn't reached print? Or I've just not found it?

I assume that ‘Mr Donce’ is in fact Mr Douce 👀 A typo in the 1824 sale catalogue of the ‘choice, curious, & extensive library’ of George Nassau of Suffolk (1756-1823). @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Munby.c.87.

A delicate Lammas dress from 1902 by Gustav Beer, richly decorated with silken wheat stalks, for drinking chouchen and telling fortunes in an old country garden, as a great golden moon rises in the dark Breton sky.

One of the great pictures @antiquaries.bsky.social.

Dr. Peter Paul Rubens@peterpaulrubens.bsky.social · 4d ago

3/3 Jan van Scorel. Painter, traveler, curator of papal collections. Here portrayed by Antonis Mor in 1560.

A wistful but golden sun! From a binding made in Bologna in the 1530s by the so-called ‘Pflug & Ebeleben Binder’ (named after two of his customers, Damian Pflug & Nikolaus von Ebeleben). On a copy of Celsus ‘De Medicina’, printed at #Venice (Aldus) in 1528. Now @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Rel.c.52.6.

A notice from The Heraldry Society concerning William Cowley the UK's last commercial parchment and vellum maker.

The crest of Jesus College Cambridge, with the rebus (a cockerel) of its founder Bishop Alcock of Ely, in John Scott’s ‘Foundation of the Universitie of Cambridge’, written in the 1620s and based in part on John Caius’s printed history of the University (1574). @theulspeccoll.bsky.social MS Gg.5.21.

📣New exhibition alert!! 👀 We are excited to announce new exhibition 'Patient voices: power, truth, understanding' will be opening on 14 September 2026 at the RCP - exploring the lived experience of healthcare. 👉 history.rcp.ac.uk/exhibitions/... @rcphysicians.bsky.social #PatientVoices

really torn between whether I'm bookse;;er or booseller

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks.bsky.social · 5d ago

Friday afternoon catalogue data wrangling -- personally, I'm fond of "bookse;;er."

Medieval bat in stained glass at King’s College Chapel, Cambridge

LADY BUOY 🫡

People still think of Sweden as this sexually liberated place, but the reality is you're not even allowed to fuck inside the giant taxidermied Blue Whale anymore. Place has really changed.

jordan@jordantyranny.bsky.social · 7d ago

The only taxidermied blue whale in the world, 1865 CE, now housed at the Natural History Museum in Sweden. The public was allowed to enter the whale up until a couple was found having sex inside it. Now the whale’s jaws are opened only for special occasions, such as Swedish election days.

The gilt arms of Thomas Morton (1564-1659), latterly Bishop of Durham. He gave £600 for a new but never realised new University Library in 1638 & gave nearly 500 books to St John’s Cambridge. This copy of the ‘Talmudis Babylonici codex Middoth’ (Leiden, 1630) is @theulspeccoll.bsky.social K*.6.16(D)

Pretty sky!

Ooh I've just bought John of John...

The Booker Prizes@thebookerprizes.com · last wk.

From humour to history to heartbreak, and from satire to sci-fi to surreality, here’s everything you need to know about the Booker Prize 2026 longlist. thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-l...

Woodcut device of a bird of prey with a small bird in its talons, flying over a castle with the sun blazing. Used by the London printer Thomas Scarlet, in his 1592 edition of Henry Smith’s sermon ‘Satans compassing the earth’. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Syn.8.59.60.

I think we're all ready for The Muppet Odyssey.

An engraved vignette showing a scholar in his study: books lining the walls & busts looking down. From the title page to Charles de Rochefort’s ‘Histoire naturelle des îles Antilles de l’Amérique’ (Lyon, 1667), on the geography & natural history of the Caribbean. @theulspeccoll.bsky.social S.5.65-66

Wow

Dr James Alexander Cameron@drjacameron.stainedglassattitudes.com · last wk.

St Peter, Barton-Upon-Humber, Lincolnshire. The surviving tower and baptistery block of rendered rubble with sandstone dressing which pre-date (... obviously) the Early Norman belfry of coursed limestone. Likely built as a cemetery chapel inside the manorial enclosure c. 1010-5.