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community weblog
What's New in Old Books
Some highlights from special collections libraries' blogs this week.
Kittintypes: Nineteenth-Century Cats in the Daniel Carter Beard Collection
Philadelphia's Radical Revolution Highlights from a new American Revolution exhibition at the Library Company of Philadelphia
Geomythology and Weather Lore Epic stories of stormy weather.
A Spring Spent in the STC Collection An internship immersed in early English books.
posted by Horace Rumpole on Jun 07, 2026 at 12:28 PM
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If I may be permitted a relevant link to my own institution's material: Your Presence Is Requested: An archive of party invitations from the Bay Area sex-radical scene, from gay liberation to the AIDS crisis. (NSFW line art)
posted by Horace Rumpole at 12:33 PM
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Horace Rumpole, I have been enjoying your What's New in Old Books posts SO MUCH. You find such great things to highlight, so interesting and so varied.
Reading about the early English books internship was wonderful:
This practicum both romanticized and rattled my concept of rare book librarianship. The existing inventory, created by a previous librarian, proved holistic... until it wasn't.
It reminded me of my own days spend happily poking around in archives (as a completely untrained hobbyist), uncovering things that surprised me - not just new information I didn't have before, but learning about things that existed that I'd had no idea existed (Sanborn maps!) and just seeing different ways people used to do things, like Howlett's description of how the alphabet has changed usage over time and what that meant for the work.
Your party invitations were even more delightful in so many different ways.
I love archives, I love online archives, I love physical archives, I love archivists and the work they do, and I love all the great glimpses you've been giving us into the thousands of places where people care for and catalog these pieces of the ways we have been.
Thank you so much for sharing these with us here, and for helping us lovingly hold our histories.
posted by kristi at 1:12 PM
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For a moment there I though the "new American Revolution" was going to be something about the hunger strike to get the current mayor to spend the surplus in a way that could save people's lives, get some folks house, etc.
posted by johnabbe at 9:09 PM
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