Tilly Guthrie

The organisers of the UKDHHH outdid themselves today - what a brilliant day of talks, and a masterclass in accessibility

Join us on Wednesday for a day filled with #DisHist!

New experiences at their fingertips — Harvard Gazette Course on tactile reading shows students “Why Braille Matters.”

A #blind student and her professor at @harvard.edu created "Why #Braille Matters," a first-of-its-kind course to explore the history, theory and practice of tactile writing systems used by #VisuallyImpaired people. #BlindNewWorld

(Story via Harvard Gazette ⬇️)

The presentation at the Disability Collections Forum today was from Tilly… | Philip Milnes-Smith (archivist, educator, advocate) The presentation at the Disability Collections Forum today was from Tilly Guthrie, a doctoral student at Sheffield who is looking at the British history of embossed scripts for blind readers and write...

Great discussion this morning with the Disability Collections Forum on preserving embossed texts. A timely reminder of the importance of Braille heritage in the face of cuts to transcription (more on the campaign against it here: saveourbraille.wordpress.com) #DisHist #Braille200

Over a thousand people have signed an open letter asking the RNIB to #SaveOurBraille! Please consider signing and sharing. We shouldn't even have to ask the UK's leading blindness charity to prioritise braille, but here we are.

History UK Disability and History Project The History UK Disability and History Project was launched in November 2023 in response to the History UK EDI report which identified disability as an important aspect of EDI work worthy of further…

📣Call for participants: History UK is continuing its focus groups on disability and history in HE in April. Any students/staff with experience in teaching disability history OR studying history with a disability, come and talk to us! #DisabilityHistory #DisHist
www.history-uk.ac.uk/projects/his...

Stop disability benefit cuts

You can email your MP using our template to tell them how you feel about these changes here: action.sense.org.uk/page/167765/...

We're a signatory to a letter to the Chancellor published today which urges her to think again about cuts to disability benefits.

Read the full letter here organised by our friends at Scope: rnib.in/cost-of-cuts 1/4

UK Disability History and Heritage Hub on Strikingly

If you're new to the Hub, then you can find out more about us and sign up to our mailing lists on our website: #DisHist

ukdishisthub.mystrikingly.com

This Tuesday! I will be chatting to the one and only Dave Williams about tactile literacy over at the Braillists Foundation. Sounds like your perfect Tuesday evening? Me too. #Braille200

www.braillists.org/uncategorise...

We had a lovely visit to the Mitchell Library today, as part of our Braille and Beyond tour to celebrate #Braille200!

We'd love to thank Glasgow Libraries for their support in organising the event!

For more information about the Braille and Beyond Tour, visit our website: bit.ly/3E7Ro7c

Dave Williams, RNIB’s Inclusive Design Ambassador, wearing an RNIB T-shirt presenting at a podium with a laptop and a microphone in a classroom setting

View of Mitchell Library in Glasgow, featuring its prominent green dome, captured from across the street with passing vehicles

Mitchell Library in Glasgow will host a special event next week celebrating the importance of braille and tactile literacy.

@rnib.bsky.social @rnibscotland.bsky.social

#sightloss #glasgow #networking

👉 bit.ly/3CcGahl

View of Mitchell Library in Glasgow, featuring its prominent green dome, captured from across the street with passing vehicles.

We're at the Mitchell Library on Tuesday to celebrate 200 years of braille!

The event has been organised in partnership with Glasgow Libraries and is open to all, and promises a day of engaging activities and informative talks!

More info can be found here: bit.ly/3E7Ro7c

Braille 200: Braille and Beyond — Glasgow Life Find out how braille has evolved.

Next stop on the #Braille200 tour: the Mitchell Library. Glasgow pals, come and get your Braille fix with me on Tuesday next week! @rnib.bsky.social @rnibscotland.bsky.social
www.glasgowlife.org.uk/event/1/brai...

Blind Writing Before Braille - Cultures of Disability Through the letters of Charles Cook, Tilly Guthrie explores what early forms of braille can tell us about the experience of blindness in the Victorian era.

That moment when you find exactly what you were hoping for in the archive...
Here's a blog post I wrote on The Most Exciting letter in Liverpool Record Office (I'm not at all biased). Thanks to Cultures of Disability for hosting this. culturesofdisability.mmu.ac.uk/blind-writin... #DisabilityHistory

Table displaying heritage braille equipment, including a Hall Braille Writer, Stainsby, and various hand frames

Happy #WorldBrailleDay one and all! Delighted to be celebrating at the Braillists conference in Worcester today, and hearing about #Braille200 on the radio as we drove down!

So many interesting events on 4 Jan for #WorldBrailleDay The Braillists Foundation have added a few ♿️
➡️The Braille You Need, When You Need It: 7:30PM
➡️ Braille & Breakfast from Sight & Sound 9:30 AM
➡️ UKAAF event 1:00 PM
➡️ Braille Matters Extravaganza 6:00 PM GMT
https://www.braillists.org

"Who is Louis Braille?" in text with a visual representation of the braille above, separated by a pink line. The text "Remember - braille is read by touch, this is just a visual representation" and the Braille 200 logo is in the corner, with a visual representation of braille, and RNIB and EBU logos.

🧵“Braille is knowledge, and knowledge is power” – Louis Braille

Ahead of #WorldBrailleDay, which marks the anniversary of Louis Braille’s birthday, here’s a snapshot of the pioneer behind the tactile code.

‘We’d be stuck’: alarm as UK’s last braille typewriter repairer ponders retirement Alan Thorpe is Britain’s last certified fixer of the Perkins, a machine vital for teaching blind children to read and write

Alan's house is the actual real life Brailler Wonderland. Anyone looking for a mechanical apprenticeship would be lucky to work with him and carry on this (extremely!) important work. #Braille #WorldBrailleDay
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Never mind Christmas - it's almost World Braille Day!
Excited to be kicking off the new year with the Braillists Foundation down in Worcester #Braille200
www.braillists.org/uncategorise...

Crowded room in the British Library Knowledge Centre. A row of tables along the left wall display braille Lego and historical braille artifices. People chat about the items in front of them. This was part of the drinks reception before a panel discussion.

Panel of speakers sitting on a stage at the front of an auditorium. Speakers left to right are as follows: Dave Williams, Betsy Griffin, Jane Constance, Emma Tracey, Lord David Blunkett.

Table display of artefacts from the RNIB archive, as part of the drinks reception. Items include a Hughes Typograph, manuscript books of minutes and the text of Progress magazine, an embossed book on Gall type, a Braille copy of the Daily Mail, and a selection is writing tools and games. These sit on a pink table cloth, with captions printed in the RNIB font.

I was lucky enough to be invited to the @rnib.bsky.social #Braille200 launch event at the @britishlibrary.bsky.social this week. Huge congratulations to Dave Williams and the team for putting together such a lovely event, and giving Braille the celebration it deserves.

A newspaper clipping: Blind Men Strike. Minimum Wage of £1 A Week Demanded. About forty blind workers are on strike at Bristol Blind Asylum, the men asking for £1 a week and the women for 13s. The strikers declare that while the officials are well paid the blind workers, for whom the institution is maintained, are so badly remunerated that outworkers have often to obtain parish relief to eke out their miserable doles." A date is written at the top in smudged ink: 13/3/12.

This year's #UKDHM theme is Disability Livelihood and Employment & that includes... strikes! Here are workers at the Bristol Blind Asylum going on strike to demand a pay increase in 1912. Here, blind workers did jobs like weaving baskets and mats to sell. It ran from the late 18thC to the 1960s.

A screenshot of Bluesky's alt text reminder options. At the top of the page it says "Accessibility" then underneath there are two options for "Alt text" which are "Require alt text before posting" and "Display larger alt text badges." The first of these is toggled to "on." There's also a "Media" option which is "Disable autoplay for videos and GIFs."

19 million @bsky.app users? Better make sure they all know about the handy alt text reminder! 🫡

Go to Settings > Accessibility and make sure "Require alt text before posting" is toggled on.

We love that accessibility is such a priority here.

Tilly Guthrie (white woman, short dark hair, very cosy green cardigan) is gesticulating, mid talk, in front of an audience in Harrogate library. Co-speaker Alan is sitting next to her, behind a table covered in his collection of vintage braillers

Hello everyone over here!🦋 For anyone who isn’t already celebrating wildly, this year marks (approx) 200 years since the invention of Braille. Catch me around the UK being enthusiastic about it with @rnib.bsky.social #Braille200 (pictured is an event in Harrogate last month)