Dr Michelle Johansen

Two typewritten paragraphs from The Librarian and Book World, Vol. III, No.1, August 1912.

Of interest to Belle da Costa Greene fans!!! In 1912, Greene was celebrated as “the most up-to-date” librarian type. The US media gleefully hailed the Morgan library manager as the antithesis of the longstanding cliche of a “dried-up” old male librarian 💙📚

The front page of the Daily Graphic newspaper published Saturday 25 August, 1917, featuring portraits of 'Women in the Order of the British Empire', including Lady Byron, the honourable Mrs Alfred Lyttelton, Her Majesty the Queen.

Apply for our PhD placement scheme to get involved in extraordinary research at the Library. There are eight available placements exploring a variety of themes including war poetry, 21st-century digital tools, illustrated newspapers and decarbonisation.

Find out more: link.bl.uk/PhDPlacements

A brief typeset announcement for an essay prize scheme, aimed at librarians, under the heading ‘Library Bindings’. Prizes include ‘FOUR GUINEAS for the best article on Library Bindings’.

Can anyone get me a job in the editorial offices of the ‘The Librarian and Book World’ in 1913? Imagine reading through the submissions for this prize scheme for librarians. Glossary! Machine-set Catalogue!! Bookbinding!!!! Pure library heaven #PubLibs 💙📚

Line drawing of a group of book cases. Each case is comprised of six shelves lined with bound volumes. The shelves are attached to a metal, gridded ceiling using ingenious fixings. These fixings act as runners to allow the shelves to be moved easily, using the handles shown.

19C librarians devised all manner of ingenious apparatus to make their institutions more efficient. Here’s a pioneering form of rolling stack to streamline storage systems at the British Museum, now the British Library. From the Library Chronicle, Vol. III (1886)
#AlphabetChallenge #BforBooks 💙📚

If only there was a recent book about what Seven Dials was like in the first part of the twentieth century.

Oh, hang on...

manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526181954/

Everyone needs a Northumbrian mini-break. The porpoises should clinch it…

i tried my best but they wouldn’t allow me access on account of the butter all over my fingers…

A sumptuously-furnished, private library in a Northumberland stately home. Bookshelves line the walls. Three highly-polished round wooden tables have easy chairs placed beside them upholstered in ivory or turquoise fabrics. At the far end of the vast room, a real fire blazes in a marble fireplace. The ceiling is a riot of expertly-carved plasterwork.

It’s another bitterly cold day. You’ll find me in the library at Alnwick Castle, flicking through a heap of literary journals in a desultory manner, occasionally gazing up at that STUNNING ceiling - planning to demolish a plateful of buttered toast & tea any minute now 💙📚

Exactly, the irony!

‘It was not in his nature to do anything by halves:’ Mary Booth on her husband’s work. No lie detected. I run a course that demystifies Charles Booth’s massive Life & Labour survey and the accompanying Poverty Map.
Starts Tue 13 Jan at the Mary Ward Centre, nr Stratford High St DLR short.do/wLa3Vc

Wooden tables and chairs in a large reading room, sparsely furnished. There are bookshelves behind a library issue desk on the right. The table in the foreground is empty. Others are occupied by readers, all white men, in suits. Everyone is hunched over a book - and wearing a hat.

New Year’s Resolution. Always wear a hat to visit the library. Homburg, bowler, flat cap, no matter. As seen here in the new reading room at the Kensington branch building in Liverpool c.1900 #NYE #PubLibs 💙📚

I’m researching those librarians who were employed in public libraries. Yes, they were called up or volunteered. Many librarians survived WW1, returning to their jobs after the conflict. Roles were kept open for them - & their institutions made much of their heroism in fighting for king & country.

A plastered wall with lengths of looped metal chains hanging vertically from a horizontal rod.

Salisbury Cathedral Library, founded in 1445. The library collections date back to the 1100s. The chains originally used to secure the precious medieval manuscripts to the shelves now form an eye-catching display beside the librarian’s desk 💙📚 #chainedlibrary

A white man in a suit sits at a writing desk. He has thick, wavy hair swept back from his face. One hand is held up to his chin. The other holds a pen with which he writes on a sheet of paper. There are books in a pile beside and in front of him. A caption reads: George Gissing, May 1901.

In the 1870s, George Gissing & his brother William were furious at the ‘scandalous condition’ of #PubLibs in England, contrasting progress unfavourably with the USA - where every town had ‘its excellent Free Library’. From Letters of George Gissing to Members of his Family (1927). 💙📚

Photo of a stone tablet with five columns listing the names & institutional affiliations of approx 130 British librarians killed in WW1. The tablet border is inscribed “IN MEMORY OF THE BRITISH LIBRARIANS FALLEN IN THE WAR MCMXIV-MCMXVIII”.

Thinking about the 130 or so British librarians killed in WW1. Their colleagues raised funds to create a lasting memorial to their sacrifice. Sadly, the tablet they commissioned is now displayed behind the scenes at the British Library, visible only to staff.
#fwwhist #PubLibs 💙📚

Close-up photo of painted red door showing a weathered wooden sign stating CLOSED in faded black letters on a white background.

CLOSED. My second failed attempt to visit the Morrab Library in Penzance last month. Founded in the early 19C, the library is one of only around 60 independent libraries still in existence in the UK (& the only one in the whole of Cornwall). I did admire this cute sign on the front door though.

Here I am, caught on camera at #HistDay25 getting over-excited about the fact that a 1960s folk-rock band named themselves after a medieval legal document!! I was at the event with my fab @antiquaries.bsky.social colleagues & we chatted to over 100 students & history-lovers. A truly inspiring day.

Manchester, Norwich & Winchester were pioneers - but many other regions had to really battle to get the act adopted esp in London. Once the libraries opened though they were universally well received & almost always over-subscribed from the off. Crowd control was often needed!

A creepy portrait of a child with a rattle.

Do you dare stare into the eyes of spooky child this Halloween? Take your chance today at our Haunted by the Past event until 3.30pm today! www.sal.org.uk/event/haunte...

1 week to go until History Day - don't forget to sign up! Read about why History Day is such a fantastic event in this blog by Claire Langhamer: buff.ly/ySfBuWR

#HistDay25 @senatehouselib.bsky.social

😤

A typed hand bill, printed c.1900. Under the title “FREE PUBLIC LIBRARIES” SCHEME IN ST PANCRAS, opponents of free libraries in this central London region set out four reasons for their opposition.

1850. The Public Libraries Act means councils in England & Wales can now spend local taxes on libraries. Some London regions are VERY slow to adopt the act. St Pancras rate-payers object to “wasting” money on “showy luxuries”. Fifty years pass before a free library opens in the district #PubLibs 💙📚

Stunning!!

Matt, you spoke beautifully last night! I’m part way through my copy of Songs of Seven Dials and really gripped by the stories & characters. East End history, West End backdrop.

Utterly fascinating talk. Exciting new book about 1920s and 1930s London (and beyond). I’ll never refer to ‘interwar’ again. Sadly no #PubLibs featured at the event but we were surrounded by beautiful art books & you can’t have everything ha ha.

I left school at 15 without qualifications but educated myself via the Harold Hill library and ended up with three university degrees.

A book cover shows a man in profile. He is white with curly dark hair and his eyes appear closed. Is he singing or performing?

I’ve been discovering David Ackles via Mark Brend’s beautifully-written biography. Down River (2025) details the curious recording career of a relatively unknown US singer songwriter in the late 60s & early 70s. Elton John was a fan. Sadly, no #PubLibs are featured in the biog. Excellent otherwise.

First page of new TRHS article: 'Us and Them: Disability Ethics, Oral History and Inclusive Praxis in the Reuse of Asylum Photography' Abstract in full ‘Us and Them’ is a community history project and artistic collaboration exploring physical and intellectual disability and mental illness, in the past and present. It is part of a broader initiative to open out wider conversations about the history of psychiatric care in Epsom (Surrey, UK) and to explore ways in which medical histories, creative engagement strategies and oral history praxis can illuminate the instability of contemporary understandings of ‘healthy minds’ and ‘normative bodies’. This article charts our recent reuse of asylum photography and the restaging of wet-plate collodion portrait making, opening out key ethical questions about our complicity as consumers of historical sources, the role of re-enactment and empathy, and the place of the haptic and the ludic in exposing the porous and precarious boundaries between ableism and disability. Exploring our own vulnerabilities and solidarities in co-producing a public history project with our disabled artist collaborators, it offers insight into our evolving ‘micro ethics’, foregrounds lived experience perspectives, and offers some initial thoughts on ways to rethink critically some core tenets of oral history methodology.

Also published this week in 'Transactions of the Royal Historical Society'

"Us and Them: Disability Ethics, Oral History and Inclusive Praxis in the Reuse of Asylum Photography", by Alana Harris & Laura Mitchison bit.ly/4gH9e0f

What are the ethics of historical research using asylum photography?

Can’t wait to read this Matt - and I’ll be at the event too. Look forward to seeing you then!

Any excuse! It’s so wonderful isn’t it?