Kate So
banner
drsoandsoresearch.bsky.social
Kate So
@drsoandsoresearch.bsky.social
Above all, pluviophile 🌧️ 📙Freelance book detective 🕵️‍♀️Health and Heritage ♥️ 👩‍🏫Cataloguing enthusiast 📚Medical humanities nerd 💊Away with the faeries🧚‍♀️ https://drsoandso.co.uk/
Pinned
Books….the answer is always books!
Reposted by Kate So
Well this is rather marvellous.
208. 'As if their atomic shampoos weren't sufficient, these girls prepare to make their hair stand on end by reading the most lurid space age tales'. A space age hair salon in 1962!
#TabClosed2026 #SciFi
SPACE AGE HAIR FASHIONS
Hair+fashions+are+out+of+this+world+in+Wokingham.
www.britishpathe.com
January 4, 2026 at 12:00 PM
Reposted by Kate So
Your reminder that in Hot Fuzz a bloke was blown up for less than this.
For connoisseurs of utterly mental extensions on mundane houses (via reddit)
www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/1...
January 3, 2026 at 1:49 PM
Reposted by Kate So
We've been focused on childhood vaccination lately due to RFK Jr.'s crusade against them, but vaccines given in adulthood are crucial too. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/03/h...
Vaccines Are Helping Older People More Than We Knew
www.nytimes.com
January 4, 2026 at 11:03 AM
Reposted by Kate So
Shortcuts.
A Willerby Story.
Stay on the road. Stick to the paths you know. Don't get lost.
willerby.substack.com/p/shortcuts
January 4, 2026 at 7:43 AM
Trying to gather feedback from my freelance jobs to use on a website and I've just come across an old piece of feedback:

'You kicked this in the dick!!'

Which....will probably not make it on the carousel...but I am still very proud of it. 😂
December 22, 2025 at 3:32 PM
sometimes if you look all melancholic and dejected your husband will invite you to extract his blackheads to make you feel better.
a cartoon of grinch with a very angry look on his face
ALT: a cartoon of grinch with a very angry look on his face
media.tenor.com
December 14, 2025 at 10:21 PM
Reposted by Kate So
In the 17th Century #DarkNights at Bart's Hospital were brightened with candles, and they were needed in large amounts! This entry from 1672 notes the hospital buying nearly 2000 candles for the year 🕯️

#ArchiveAdventCalendar #Archives #LondonHistory #Candles
December 11, 2025 at 3:37 PM
Reposted by Kate So
The e-codices December 2025 update is live, with 31 manuscripts! Enjoy them all! www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/all/...
December 11, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Reposted by Kate So
An exciting new postdoctoral position focusing on Old English epistolary materials
December 11, 2025 at 2:52 PM
I got 'Professor Higgins'd at The London Archives by the nicest lady who spotted my accent. A lovely chat about libraries and archives, the North, accents and trains. I love @thelondonarchives.bsky.social 's Visitor Room so much. Affordable coffee, lots of tables, the potential for good chats!
December 11, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Every year my husband and I buy a Christmas ornament to represent the year gone. I bought a sketchbook so we can draw them and write down our memories. I’ve just got to ‘The Great Pharaoh Ant Invasion of 2021’
December 10, 2025 at 5:53 PM
The phrase "Died without issue" is so funny to me. I know it means died without having any living descendants, but I can't help imagine someone who sees the Grim Reaper approaching and just shrugs and says "Oh well. I had a good innings. Let's go."
an elderly woman is sitting in a chair holding a cup and says oh well
ALT: an elderly woman is sitting in a chair holding a cup and says oh well
media.tenor.com
December 7, 2025 at 8:24 PM
Researching someone and wondering why there's an engagement announcement (to someone she never ended up married to) 3 years before she got actually married... then working out she had a fiancé who died in WW2 a week after their engagement was announced.
a black and white cat is crying and covering its face with its paws .
ALT: a black and white cat is crying and covering its face with its paws .
media.tenor.com
December 5, 2025 at 4:54 PM
As a former guide, who was lucky enough to represent UK girl guiding in Iceland when I was 16, I am so heartbroken by the organisation’s decision to exclude trans women and girls. Those 10 days abroad I secured through fundraising changed my life forever. All girls deserve those opportunities.
December 4, 2025 at 11:37 AM
Reposted by Kate So
Hi, this is a slow-moving thread of library stamps being present in old books.

To celebrate the start of the #LibraryStampMadness series, let's enjoy this Bull's eye moment of a Vatican library stamp being stamped with full librarian joy into the empty space left over for a miniature. #skystorians
April 17, 2025 at 8:12 AM
Reposted by Kate So
Great culture can save lives. Literally.

Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard
December 2, 2025 at 8:48 AM
Reposted by Kate So
#StainedGlassSunday 🪟

🌸🌷🌻🌼🌺

📍St Materiana's Church • Tintagel ⛪️

#Cornwall #History
November 30, 2025 at 8:41 PM
Reposted by Kate So
I'm writing a textbook for the study of medieval manuscripts in the 21st century & am developing a framework that will be referenced throughout the book: ten touchpoints for medieval book history in Europe with six drivers of change. Here's how it will play out... (image: Codex Amiatinus) 🧵
November 30, 2025 at 5:46 PM
Reposted by Kate So
Gavin McCann visited @swminerslibrary.bsky.social to research his book on libraries, trade unions and education with the help of an SSLH bursary. Read his report and find out more about our research bursaries here 👇
sslh.org.uk/2025/11/28/g...
Gavin McCann on the libraries of the South Wales miners
Gavin McCann is researching a book on libraries, trade unions and education. Here he writes about his visit to the South Wales Miners’ Library in search of a lost culture of socialist educati…
sslh.org.uk
November 28, 2025 at 9:23 AM
Go on, say the term ‘Dark Ages’ in heritage interpretation one more time.
a group of people standing next to each other with a netflix logo on the bottom right
ALT: a group of people standing next to each other with a netflix logo on the bottom right
media.tenor.com
November 28, 2025 at 12:07 PM
Reposted by Kate So
🏺 I look at this gorgeous piece of materiality and performance, and think that we don't consider eccentricity enough as a motivator for unique, beautiful things in prehistory...
November 27, 2025 at 9:49 AM
Finding out a historical house I’m researching was saved from a fire by a cat alerting its owners to smouldering wires.
a man in a suit and tie is making a sad face in front of a window .
ALT: a man in a suit and tie is making a sad face in front of a window .
media.tenor.com
November 27, 2025 at 2:01 PM
Reposted by Kate So
*small embarrassed voice*
A little plug for my article on Devon book sales c. 1700, which has gone online open access. tl;dr book auctions weren't just a London/Oxbridge thing: a flourishing second-hand book market centred on Exeter included auctions from the 1680s.
doi.org/10.1093/libr...
A Provincial Market in Second-Hand Books: Book Sales in Devon, 1688–1725
Abstract. Comparatively little is known about England’s early book-auction trade outside of London and the university towns, with few catalogues surviving
doi.org
November 27, 2025 at 9:31 AM
Reposted by Kate So
today on the book farm: Cree Syllabics (Stations of the Cross, 1856)
November 27, 2025 at 9:10 AM