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Fancy getting up close and personal with textiles from both our collection at the William Morris Society and Emery Walker's House? 👀 Book onto one of our upcoming textile tours of these 2 historic Arts and Crafts houses🧵 Next tours: 5th March & 9th April 📅 Go to the link in our bio to book now!

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

LABOUR OVERCOMES ALL THINGS. Intended to be inspiring to the crowds of artisans & working people who visited the library daily, this motto appears at the entrance to Erith Public Library, situated in an industrial suburb of South-east London. The library opened in 1906. #MosaicMonday #PubLibs 💙📚

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Wow, pretty small! But are we talking 'Bryce's Smallest English Dictionary' small?

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

To West Norwood Cemetery in search of the headstone of David Chalmers, a library assistant who suffered a tragic early death in the 1880s. I didn’t find the headstone - but did discover a falling angel, a mosaic flag, a #WW1 casualty, & an American who helped children with disabilities.

submitted 5 days ago • 2 comments

William Haggerston was the first chief librarian of Newcastle public library (1879-1894). He was famously supportive of younger colleagues. Many of his well-drilled assistants went on to manage the new generation of #PubLibs in late-Victorian London. #AlphabetChallenge #WeekHForHeroes 💙📚

submitted 11 days ago • 0 comments

“Hey Mr DJ put a record on…” In the 1930s British #PubLibs worried that the rise of cinema would mean fewer visitors. They sought to stay relevant by hosting e.g. gramophone recitals, as seen here at the Leytonstone library in east London. I would definitely have gone along, in my best blouse!! 💙📚

submitted 25 days ago • 1 comment

2 June 1904. The foundation stone is laid at the Manor Park Library in East London (now an arts centre). Construction work isn’t yet finished so a temporary marquee has gone up for the ceremony. The weather is vile - but the headwear truly fabulous. #PubLibs 💙📚 #WeekEForEvent #AlphabetChallenge

submitted 33 days ago • 2 comments

STRICTLY FORBIDDEN Do not ride in the service lifts at Senate House Library in London. Or else. #SignsOnSunday

submitted 33 days ago • 1 comment

The ingenious “vacuum fumigator” - regularly deployed in the 1930s at the Huntington Library in California to prevent insect infestations. #WeekDforDanger #AlphabetChallenge

submitted 39 days ago • 0 comments

Britain’s first public librarians were trained on-the-job. They moved from one #PubLib location to another to gain experience & upward promotion. I’m plotting their routes, using some extremely pretty late-nineteenth-century railway maps @britishlibrary.bsky.social 💙📚 🚂

submitted 42 days ago • 3 comments

In 2025 we are celebrating 600 years since the founding of the original Guildhall Library! We'll be hosting lots of fun events around this. To see what's happening at the start of the year check out our new events brochure for January-April 2025! www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/assets/Thing...

submitted 74 days ago • 1 comment

In 1912, a south coast town pioneered an automated reading room. Bognor’s “novel” penny-in-the-slot entry system did away with the need to pay staff salaries or bother with tiresome membership paperwork. It didn’t catch on. #PubLibs 💙📚

submitted 54 days ago • 0 comments

"London is like a newspaper - everything is there and everything is disconnected": Walter Bagehot, 1858. Agree? Disagree? Come and turn the pages with me on my 6-week course 'Unreal City? London in Literature c1800 to Today', Mary Ward Centre, Stratford, East London. Starts Tue 14 Jan rb.gy/l06mxs

submitted 56 days ago • 0 comments

The back stacks at the London Library 💙📚 #WeekAforAngles #AlphabetChallenge

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I’m still desperately trying to wangle an invitation to the Liverpool & District Assistant Librarians’ annual New Years Eve dance!! Here’s the group on 31 December 1913, pausing the party for a group photo to create a memento of a fab night in postcard form. #PubLibs 💙📚

submitted 435 days ago • 0 comments

Here's a starter pack for organisations relating to local history and heritage in the Greater London area. Please advise if you know of potential additions, or if you are included but wish to be removed. go.bsky.app/6ZX5gxf

submitted 61 days ago • 0 comments

“you only need to know how to sit gracefully in a comfortable armchair…” Sarcastic advice for would-be librarians from Rip Rap magazine, 8 June 1894. Produced by staff at Manchester central library, this gossipy, hand-drawn magazine ran for a brief period in the 1890s. #PubLibs 💙📚

submitted 61 days ago • 0 comments

Don't miss the chance to benefit from our early bird promotion for the London Rare Books Summer School securing your booking before January 10, 2025! Use the promo code LRBS10 to enjoy a 10% reduction on course fees. Find out more and book here:

submitted 74 days ago • 1 comment

The original oak bookshelves in the atmospheric library at Westminster College, Cambridge. Designed c.1900 by the prolific Henry Hare. Hare also designed a number of first-generation #PubLibs in London about this time, incl. at Hackney, Fulham, & Hammersmith 💙📚

submitted 82 days ago • 0 comments

The CFP for the Victorian Studies Association of Western Canada's 2025 conference, EXHIBITING THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, May 23-24 in Regina, Saskatchewan is live! Please circulate and send abstracts by Jan. 5. Travel grants available for students + underemployed/contingent faculty 👇 vsawc.org/events/

submitted 91 days ago • 0 comments

…the sheer splendour of Birmingham reference library in the 1880s!! At this time, 12,000 readers made use of the library each day. Newspapers were a big draw, particularly for those in search of work who crowded into the building bright & early to consult the “jobs vacant” columns. #PubLibs 💙📚

submitted 90 days ago • 0 comments

Louis Stanley Jast retired as Manchester chief librarian in 1934. Local kids presented Jast with an album of art to thank him for supporting their reading journeys. Albert Barrett contributed a #Tiny painting of a pink-cheeked lad “stoking his Brain with KNOWLEDGE”. #EYA #ExploreYourArchives 💙📚

submitted 97 days ago • 0 comments

Almost certainly the smallest things in our archive are these microdots from the Portland Spy Ring. #EYAtiny #EYA #ExploreYourArchive

submitted 98 days ago • 0 comments

Under the archway leading to Dwight Chapel & Hall, which at this time housed the Yale University Library. #WeekUforUnder #AlphabetChallenge

submitted 99 days ago • 0 comments

Exciting PhD Opportunity! Come join @memsunikent.bsky.social for a CHASE-funded collaborative doctoral award with Westminster Abbey to investigate the manuscript fragments held in the Abbey’s Archives. Learn more at the link below, deadline to apply 17 Feb 2025 📜🎉 research.kent.ac.uk/medieval-ear...

submitted 101 days ago • 1 comment

Is your #PubLib struggling financially? Have you thought about getting up an evening concert in the local Town Hall to raise some cash?? Here is Wandsworth Free Library doing just that in south London. The 1888 event features “It Girl” Lilian Greville and the talented Mr Templar Saxe 💙📚

submitted 103 days ago • 0 comments

If you are in the Manchester area then join me and the Co-operative Heritage Trust on Thursday December 5th for an evening of films and discussion at Home cinema in Manchester. homemcr.org/film/co-oper...

submitted 108 days ago • 0 comments

DOWN TO HISTORY Behind the scenes in the back stacks at the London Library 💙📚

submitted 106 days ago • 1 comment

To boost #PubLib use in remote districts, municipal libraries introduced “motor book cars” in the 1920s - like this one, which was used to transport books to readers in Perthshire, Scotland. #AlphabetChallenge #TforTransport 💙📚

submitted 110 days ago • 0 comments