Rare Books & Ancestral Machines is out soon from Carnegie Mellon University Press. It features one hundred books & early calculating machines from the collection alongside eight interpretive essays. Thrilled to see this out in the world!
More here: press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

A generous and thorough review of The Four Shakespeare Folios in PBSA this month

Inspired by the two WWII Enigma machines in our Special Collections, @cmu.edu Electrical & Computer Engineering students designed a working, modernized model. 🔐

Their open-source device runs on a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), featuring a custom Printed Circuit Board (PCB) for input/output.

The recording of Fine & Rare V is now available. 📽️

In this special event, Curator of Special Collections @samlemley.bsky.social discusses areas of collection strength, ongoing research, and instructional programs in @cmu.edu's Special Collections.

💻 Watch it here: youtu.be/EBBeiuGRpJU?...

Medieval Tales of Merlin and Arthur, Hidden for Centuries, Return to Light www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/w...

Join us for an inside look at new and unique highlights from our Special Collections, presented by Curator of Special Collections @samlemley.bsky.social.

Fine and Rare V
Thursday, March 20 at 6:30 p.m. ET

This is a virtual event. Please register to receive the link to attend: cmu.is/Fine-Rare-V

We’re excited to announce an $8m gift to support special collections at @cmulibraries.bsky.social - I’m especially grateful to our curator @samlemley.bsky.social for his partnership and our advancement & marketing teams, and my leadership colleagues at @cmu.edu www.library.cmu.edu/about/news/2...

Thrilled to share that the Posner Center
@cmulibraries.bsky.social will be reimagined as a dynamic & accessible space for research, teaching, and public engagement with Special Collections — thanks to a generous gift from the Posner Foundation of Pittsburgh and the Posner Family. bit.ly/4j1MQyj

Shakespeare: 1
Infinite Monkeys: 0

Could Monkeys Really Type All of Shakespeare? www.nytimes.com/2025/01/03/s...

A favorite acquisition last year is this very meta portrait of Jacquard woven in silk on a jacquard loom. It’s scarce: only three copies listed in OCLC. The @cmulibraries.bsky.social copy is also massive: LoC’s copy measures only 59cm in height, ours 84! cmu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/perma…

Showing The Stephen Greenblatt
@cmulibraries.bsky.social Shakespeare Folios a year ago this week — read more about the Libraries' wildly successful 2023 Shakespeare Folio exhibitions & programs here www.library.cmu.edu/exhibits/sha...

A centuries-rich buffet of computational devices, mathematical instruments, and rare books this semester with @carnegiemellon.bsky.social students @cmulibraries.bsky.social Special Collections: Napier’s rods, the Leibniz calculator, a set of Japanese nine-nine cards, and the ever popular Enigma M3.

We're inviting applications for our open science primer training program. Closing date for applications 3 Jan 2025. Events will run across the country during 2025 - details at guides.library.cmu.edu/opensciencep...
As always grateful thanks to our friends at IMLS inc @james3neal.bsky.social

The Search for van Gogh’s Lost Masterpiece www.nytimes.com/2024/12/17/a...

I dig the inbuilt optimism of the name 'Bluesky' — a blue-sky future for knowledge exchange in social media's dumpster-fire era? One can only hope. I'm here now, if infrequently. Working to archive my Xitter feed meanwhile.

Cataloged some oddities, like this triode vacuum tube packed in horsehair — one obsolete technology nestled in the debris of another. MARC and RDA are blunt instruments for describing artifacts, but a keyword search for "triode" now returns delightful results on the Libraries' catalog!