Isabel Holowaty

#histmed

A photograph of some accessibility equiptment, including earplugs, a magnifying glass, coloured acetate sheets, reading rulers, and a bookstand

A is for Accessibility!

The Humanities Library has:
🛗 Step-free access
🪑 Ergonomic chairs & height-adjustable desks
✍️ 6 study rooms
📖 Bookstands
🎨 Coloured acetate sheets
🤫 Earplugs
🔎 Magnifiers

And more! Speak to a member of staff or see our webstie for more information: tinyurl.com/3sekr7am

Photo of the Great Hall, Schwarzman Centre

Next up: the amazing Schwarzman Centre to talk about libraries & resources for history of science, medicine & technology. Super keen students! 🥳 looking forward to supporting them. 👍

#travellinglibrarian

A photograph of a feedback wall. The sign reads 'Welcome to the Humanities Library! Tell us what you think', with space for post-it notes and colourful dot voting.

Got something to say? We want to hear it! 📣

We've put up a feedback wall to gather your thoughts on our new library. We want to hear from you, whether you have compliments or constructive criticism!

Feel free to express yourself with handwritten notes or dot voting 🚥✍️💚

Today I am a travelling librarian, giving new @oxhistoryfaculty.bsky.social graduate students a 'Welcome to @bodleian.ox.ac.uk' talks. This morning it was @nuffieldcollege.bsky.social 😍 to talk about Oxford's excellent resources for economic & social history.

Post-mortem kit — Worcester Medical Museums

New #HistPsych webpages now online supported through National Lottery by @artscouncilengland.bsky.social

The Annual Reports for the Asylum show post mortem examinations were undertaken in order to observe differences in the brain that might explain mental conditions.

Huge congratulations to the @bodhumslib.bsky.social team for such a successful opening of the New Humanities Library at the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities this week! Wonderful feedback for readers and such happy staff!

We've updated our three BlueSky starter packs for historians.

Our principal list now includes details of 130+ societies and networks, based in the UK and Ireland, that advance the study, research and promotion of history go.bsky.app/AZaYQDd

Please let us know if there are gaps.
#Skystorians 1/2

Humanities Library Information for the Bodleian Humanities Library, part of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities

Good news - we've extended our opening hours! 🔔

For all readers, we're open: Monday - Friday, 9am-8pm

Further hours (including weekends!) are available for the Humanities Division, the Oxford Internet Institute, and Joint Schools in Philosophy. Full details: www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/libraries/hu...

A photograph of the entrance to the Bodleian Humanities Library. The entrance is a wood-pannelled interior door with chairs arranged outside

A photograph of a central chamber in the Bodleian Humanities Library. There is soft lighting, wooden panelling, and chairs and tables.

A photograph of the second floor reading room in the Bodleian Humanities Library: you can see an array of seating, tables, and a view of a nearby college

We've been delighted that so many of you have come to see the new library! If you haven't had a chance to make it yet, here's a little sneak peek of our new library for you ✨📚✨

Royal Historical Society Book and Article Prizes, 2026: submissions now invited - RHS The Royal Historical Society invites applications for its First Book Prize, 2026 and Early Career Article Prize, 2026. The call for submissions opens on Monday 29 September 2025 and runs to Monday 15 ...

RHS First Book and Early Career Article Prizes, 2026.

We invite submissions for the Society's book and article prizes: for eligible titles published in 2025. Further details and how to apply: bit.ly/3KnR47v

Submissions are by self-nomination by an author. Closing date: 15 December #Skystorians

Great news!
JSTOR now have a free account with an Independent Researcher category. You can access 100 documents per month

www.jstor.org/action/showL...

Vaccination and the price of forgetting History shows how dangerous anti-vax sentiment can prove

Eighteenth-century precedents and 21st-century threats.

And finally:
Lara Putnam, The Transnational and the Text-Searchable: Digitized Sources and the Shadows They Cast, The American Historical Review, Volume 121, Issue 2, April 2016, Pages 377–402, doi.org/10.1093/ahr/...

Also: Gerben Zaagsma, Digital History and the Politics of Digitization, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, Volume 38, Issue 2, June 2023, Pages 830–851, doi.org/10.1093/llc/...

Thylstrup, Nanna Bonde. The Politics of Mass Digitization. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2019.

How about:

Mateusz Fafinski, Facsimile narratives: Researching the past in the age of digital reproduction, Digital Scholarship in the Humanities, Volume 37, Issue 1, April 2022, Pages 94–108, doi.org/10.1093/llc/...

Very much this. The IHR really is open to everyone and this includes our common room and our library as well as our wonderful seminars. All free, all welcome!

They are also tax payers who contribute to the running of services, even if they don't always use them.

Welcome IHR @tudorstuartseminar.bsky.social! You can find them and our other projects, seminars and people in our starter pack go.bsky.app/2AUxmcA Let me know if we've missed anyone.

And check any LinkedIn terms also which are also changing. 🙄

The RSL today marks the 200th anniversary of its incorporation with a Royal Charter ✒️

In celebration, Cambridge University Library @theul.bsky.social has digitised a selection of archive materials which they are making public today for the first time: cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/...

Copy that Floppy Cafe 💾
📅Thursday 9 October, 2-5pm
Come have your floppy disk data transferred to a modern format at Cambridge University Library!
For more info and to book: https://loom.ly/FRjMsM8

Vacancy for Head of Research, Archives and Libraries - British Museum. Deadline 29 September 2025. bmrecruit.ciphr-irecruit.com//templates/C... #MuseumJobs

Academia.edu is changing its Terms and Conditions, and they're so outrageous (AI training; signing over ownership to them etc) I closed my account today.

A thread with some practical tips if you want to delete your account (5 steps):

Very modest starter pack for accounts that post mainly about medieval manuscripts and libraries - let me know how many I missed and I'll be happy to add you / your suggestions

#MedievalMSS

go.bsky.app/7EkwHVJ

UCLA Library funds 34 international cultural preservation projects. This year’s cohort includes digitization efforts representing Angola, Bulgaria and Ethiopia. Top: Contact sheet by Angolan photographer Paulino Damião. Bottom: Photos capturing Bulgarian police preventing Macedonians from commemorating poet Anton Popov (Petrich, Bulgaria) c. 1992 - 1993.

The UCLA Library Modern Endangered Archives Program (MEAP), which funds projects to document and digitize at-risk archival collections from around the world, has awarded 34 grants to its seventh annual cohort — its largest yet —to support archival work in 26 countries: ucla.in/4mhOkFW

COVID-19 Five years on You will hear three speakers share their research and findings from this extraordinary time, using Mass Observation methods and diaries

Our next webinar is this Wednesday! 'Covid-19 Five Years On' will look at the ways that Covid has been researched and written about and how Mass Observation material and methods have been used to do this. You can book your free space here: www.eventbrite.com/e/1311475210...

Guest Post - Society Publishers at a Crossroads: New Evidence of an Accelerating Crisis - The Scholarly Kitchen A recent survey of 66 learned societies (primarily in the UK) revealed a revenue crisis which threatens the very existence of community-driven publishing, and by extension learned societies themselves...

Guest Post — Society Publishers at a Crossroads: New Evidence of an Accelerating Crisis scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/07/30/g...

I hope the university press sector as a whole figures out how to handle AI better than this.

Photo of a blue scarf wrapped around a digital thermometer showing 29.2C.

Hurrah for cooling towels during Scorchio☀️. I’d otherwise be melting in my office.