Ian Gadd

Gavlebocken stands proudly in the center of wooden fencing.

Gavlebocken being assembled with a large crane lowering horns on to its head

The head and body of Gavlebocken lie on a truck waiting to be assembled.

Parts of Gavlebocken lie on a truck waiting to be assembled.

“ Det doftar halm i luften och julkänslan gör entré. Movember ut, bockember in! ✨🐐

You can smell the straw in the air and the christmas spirit makes its entrance. Movember out, bockember in! ✨🐐” #gavlebocken #gavle

Adam Smyth · Slice It Up: Gutenberg’s Great Invention Gutenberg remains unknowable: an implied but not a felt presence. This is true for all but a small number of 15th-...

‘Centuries of printing preceded Gutenberg. As White is careful to describe, Gutenberg was born nine hundred years after printed texts were first produced in China by rubbing paper onto inked, carved woodblocks.’

Adam Smyth (@adamwithbooks.bsky.social):

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Opening the black box of EEBO Abstract. Digital archives that cover extended historical periods can create a misleading impression of comprehensiveness while in truth providing access t

New, and very interesting, #OpenAccess article on Early English Books Online:

Opening the black box of EEBO

academic.oup.com/dsh/advance-...

#History 🗃️

The British library is in crisis: why does nobody care? The widespread indifference to the British Library's crippling cyberattack demonstrates a perilous failure to value the knowledge infrastructure vital for national prosperity

I’ve written a piece on the curious lack of media and political interest in the issues faced by our national @britishlibrary.bsky.social. This is strange given we live in a world where ideas, knowledge and research are a long-term source of innovation and insight
www.cityam.com/the-british-...

Adam Smyth · Slice It Up: Gutenberg’s Great Invention Gutenberg remains unknowable: an implied but not a felt presence. This is true for all but a small number of 15th-...

‘In focusing on the connection between print and preservation, we miss the culture of ephemeral texts that Gutenberg’s innovation unleashed.’

Adam Smyth on Gutenberg’s books

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Great to see this! Do you know if there’ll be a UK distributor? Very keen to get my hands on a copy once it’s published ☺️

A turquoise book cover with a orange-red design on the front, Illuminating Media: Transmitting the Renaissance in England, 1400-1550.

Hey hey, it’s now official on Concordia UP’s website, 20% discount code KENNEDY2026 at CUP (CAN) or Chicago (USD, link in next post) for Illuminating Media: Transmitting the Renaissance in England, 1400-1550! concordia.ca/press/illumi...

🎄✨ BRLSI Christmas Market 2025! ✨🎄
📍16–18 Queen Sq, Bath
🗓️ 27 Nov–14 Dec / 🕒 Mon–Wed 10–4 / Thu–Sun 10–6

Discover unique gifts from rotating local makers in BRLSI’s beautiful Georgian building 🎁 Plus, craft your own Christmas bauble with @lovemakerscafe! 💫
👉 brlsi.org/xmas/

Jann Haworth- My life with Sergeant Pepper! Renowned pop artist Jann Haworth reflects on her extraordinary life & co-designing the "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" cover with Peter Blake!

Delighted to help make this happen! I studied Jann Haworth and Peter Blake’s Looking Glass School when I was an art student. Jann and I shared a friendship with Sir Ken Robinson and later we ended up working together on various experimental arts education projects. www.brlsi.org/whatson/jann...

Interested in #books and the history of #printing? Looking for something great to do this week? Explore historical objects –including the oldest letterpress book in #BRLSI collections in an #exhibition curated by #students from #BathSpaUni #MakingYourMark. #Bath #Somerset

🎨👕BRLSI’s Academy of Imagination Becky is thrilled to share the two winning designs of our T-shirt design competition.
A huge thank you to all participants! Keep an eye on the Academy of Imagination page for upcoming events! www.brlsi.org/aoi/

You are related bodily to a solid block of metal letters, to the weight of the trays, to the adroitness of spacing, to the tempo and temper of the machine. You acquire some of the weight and solidity of the metal, the strength and power of the machine. Each triumph is a conquest by the body, fingers, muscles. You live with your hands, in acts of physical deftness. Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anais Nin, January 1942.

AnaÏs Nin ran a treadle-press in the 40s and there's this wonderful quotation of hers I printed recently.

🐴 Black Beauty in Bath 📖
Discover how Anna Sewell’s life in Bath inspired Black Beauty. Join Dr Celia Brayfield to explore the story behind the beloved novel.
🗓 5 Nov 🕢 7:30–9pm📍 BRLSI & Zoom 💷 £3–£6
👉 brlsi.org/whatson/bl...

Guilds and Companies in London, 1200–1700: Contexts and Comparisons Published in The London Journal: A Review of Metropolitan Society Past and Present (Ahead of Print, 2025)

Our latest Viewpoint article is out: 'Guilds and Companies in London, 1200–1700: Contexts and Comparisons' by @mpdavies.bsky.social.

A 🧵 on the insights provided by this article into the history and historiography of these key metropolitan institutions in the medieval and early modern periods.

📜Bath History Festival 2025 comes to BRLSI on Sat 1 Nov! A full day of talks uncovering Bath’s past, from Richard III to the secrets beneath Bath Abbey. ☕Tickets include lunch, tea & coffee.
www.brlsi.org/bathhi...
#BathHistoryFestival #BathHistory #HistoryTalks

👀 @tracelarkhall.bsky.social @shgregg.bsky.social @bathspauni.bsky.social

Join Dr Tim Moore, @nationaltrust.org.uk curator, to hear the vibrant, often overlooked histories of people of colour in Georgian-era Bath

🎟️ www.brlsi.org/whatson/peop...

💡 Ahead of the talk, read our “Five Questions With…” interview: www.brlsi.org/dr-tim-moore...

#BlackHistoryMonth #GeorgianBath

Two BRLSI speakers have been nominated for the Wolfson History Prize! 🏆

📖 Dr Eleanor Barraclough – past talk on hidden lives of Viking Age women
🌍 Kieran Connell – upcoming talk on Britain’s multicultural history

#WolfsonPrize #HistoryMatters

📷A dolphin wrapped around an anchor - the logo by #Renaissance scholar #AldusManuitius, #BRLSIarchive.

This spirit of invention links Manutius to Gutenberg, whose revolutionary press is explored by Dr Kristian Jensen in Gutenberg & the European Invention of Printing

www.brlsi.org/whatso...

Printing presses kept their letters in cases.

Capital letters went in the upper case.
Smaller letters went in the lower case.

This is why we say ‘UPPER CASE’ and ‘lower case.’

Ok, but what did we call them before the invention of the printing press?

MAJUSCULE and minuscule.

‘Almost unheard of’: experts find more music by English composer Henry Purcell Printed score and keyboard manuscript by Purcell, who died in 1695, unearthed in Worcestershire and Norfolk

GOOD NEWS !
"A team of musicologists has unearthed the printed score of a previously unknown Purcell song, as well as the original manuscript for various keyboard compositions."
#baroque #music
www.theguardian.com/music/2025/o...

Yes, only for it to be increased the following year! We have now increased the excess, which seems to have brought the monthly amount back down to roughly the same level. But I fear it's a losing battle...

Celebrating Renaissance London – Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution Contrary to its reputation as a hotbed of dour anti-fun Puritans, the early modern City of London was a place of lively and extravagant performance traditions. This talk will explore a range of civic ...

Long way off but hey. Come to @brlsi.bsky.social in November!

www.brlsi.org/whatson/cele...

THIS.

Melvyn Bragg decides to step down from presenting In Our Time After 26 years on the programme, the legendary presenter bids farewell to the series

A huge moment -- Melvyn Bragg steps down from In Our Time after over a quarter of a century. What a programme and what a legacy! Just a model for how to make great, clever, engaging radio, and a twenty-seven-year experiment that proves there's a huge global audience for smart, scholarly programming.

Sisyphus’s Inbox “And I saw Sisyphus in agonizing torment, drafting a reply to Kayleigh’s ten urgent UX questions. He hit ‘send,’ and immediately received an autore...

“There, Sisyphus toils—straining to zero the inbox, only for Nathan to smite him with that cruelest of follow-ups: ‘Just checking if you saw this?’”
— Virgil, Aeneid

Welcome to Day 2 of Swedish Church on a Skateboard!

It should arrive at 5pm Swedish time (GMT+2), greeted by a gospel choir.
Will be amazing to see how they get it off the skateboard.

Live feed here: lkab.com/kalender/kyr...

Very exciting: the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography published a cluster of new entries on women stationers. See the intro by Valerie Wayne: www.oxforddnb.com/newsitem/906...

ODNB entries are so helpful in identifying women from traces on printed material. So happy to see this work ❤️

I love Terry Gross she is a top ten person

I seem to remember that Terence Hawkes made the same parallel in a 1990s TV documentary on Shakespeare/early modern theatre… @tracelarkhall.bsky.social may remember??