Bob MacLean
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bobmaclean.bsky.social
Bob MacLean
@bobmaclean.bsky.social
Assistant Librarian (rare books), University of Glasgow Library Archives and Special Collections
Reposted by Bob MacLean
A wonderfully elaborate binding for Mrs Elizabeth Colles, from the early seventeenth century. It contains three linguistic works, including Thomas Thomas’s Dictionary (Cambridge, 1610). @theulspeccoll.bsky.social Rel.d.61.2. #herbook
November 14, 2025 at 12:58 PM
Reposted by Bob MacLean
Holy shit, just learned about the typewriter art of Montserrat Alberich Escardívol, a Catalan typist. Using an extra wide typewriter and 180 color ribbons, she built up elaborate images from simple characters like 'm' and '.' and ';'. Here is her typewritten painting of the Cathedral of Barcelona.
November 12, 2025 at 4:19 PM
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Meanwhile, on Zoopla: one of Sir Walter Scott’s former properties is on the market…

www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/det...
November 8, 2025 at 12:04 PM
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This talk will be recorded! It will be posted on our YouTube page once we have a chance to caption it. That can take a few weeks.
Join us on Thursday, October 23 from 3-5 pm for a talk by Scheide Librarian Emeritus Paul S. Needham (Princeton University), titled "Gutenberg's Second Invention: The 1460 Mainz Catholicon."

All are welcome to attend. Refreshments will be served.
October 15, 2025 at 3:14 PM
Reposted by Bob MacLean
Zachary Boyd (1585–1653) was a minister, poet &
@uofglasgow.bsky.social academic who lived through one of Scotland’s most turbulent times.

Now his library has been brought together for the 1st time in more than 370 years by UofG's Prof Adrian Streete

📸Martin Shields

gla.ac.uk/news/headlin...
October 15, 2025 at 2:45 PM
Reposted by Bob MacLean
MLGB is back!! Delighted that Medieval Libraries of Great Britain @bodleian.ox.ac.uk is now back online. We are also working had on plans for the next phase of the resource, enhancing & adding data & functionality. HUGE thanks to my colleagues for their hard & clever work mlgb.bodleian.ox.ac.uk
October 7, 2025 at 10:19 AM
Reposted by Bob MacLean
Want to learn more about what a bibliographical approach might be for working with hand-press books? Come think with me about how to notice, ask questions, and maybe even discover new things about the material features of old books! 📜📚 #BookHistory
We're accepting applications for our fall online course, A Bibliographical Introduction to the Hand-Press Period. The course, taught by @wynkenhimself.bsky.social, runs Sundays, 10/19-12/14. Application deadline is Fri 10/10. More at rarebookschool.org/fall-online-course-thinking-bibliographically
September 26, 2025 at 4:38 PM
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'Diasporic documents from the Gaelic Atlantic' - a one-day, in-person workshop at the University of Edinburgh on 5 September. Tuilleadh fiosrachaidh | More information 👇
August 7, 2025 at 11:23 AM
Reposted by Bob MacLean
We're very excited to announce that our wonderful exhibition 'Celebrating the Scottish Poet, Robert Fergusson (1750-1774)' with the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, has been turned into an online exhibition!

Check it out at the link below: robert-fergusson.glasgow.ac.uk/online-exhib...
September 2, 2025 at 2:20 PM
Reposted by Bob MacLean
Any early modern Protestantism people know anything about the preacher William Holbrook? He preached at Paul's Cross in 1609 and a couple of his sermons (that one, published as Love's Complaint; one to the Blacksmiths and one at St Botolph's without Aldersgate) made it into print.
September 1, 2025 at 7:59 PM
Reposted by Bob MacLean
Although how a 17th century noblewoman shelved her books shouldn't have any bearing on how an individual chooses to arrange their personal library, it IS satisfying to see all the anti-shelving-by-colour snobs have to eat this
August 26, 2025 at 2:38 PM
Reposted by Bob MacLean
The new Scottish Literary Review is out on Project Muse! A Special Issue, guest edited by Gioia Angeletti and Marina Dossena, it features articles on Early Modern ScotLit, Mary, Queen of Scots, Scottish Picturebooks, migration writings and drama. You can access it here: muse.jhu.edu/issue/55288
August 8, 2025 at 11:38 AM
Reposted by Bob MacLean
Very exciting to see @physiciansgallery.bsky.social's The People's Dispensary published online! I loved working on this project a few years ago — sometimes I can still see Dr Andrew Duncan's handwriting when I close my eyes...

www.rcpe.ac.uk/peoplesdispe...
The People's Dispensary
www.rcpe.ac.uk
July 28, 2025 at 11:47 AM
Reposted by Bob MacLean
This is so niche I can't believe I am asking, but does anyone know anyone who might be an expert in Protestantism in Italy during the Reformation? (Stranger things have happened). RTs welcome.
July 22, 2025 at 5:10 PM
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DR LIGHTFOOTSOOO
OOWORKESOO
VOL. 1
OOOOO

Spotted this week @queenslibcam.bsky.social
June 28, 2025 at 3:58 PM
Reposted by Bob MacLean
When You Love Something, Hide It Underwater?

Ireland’s Oldest Book Shrine, Found Buried in a Lake, Reemerges share.google/SwLDzqhgDTMd...
Ireland's Oldest Book Shrine Makes Its Museum Debut | Artnet News
After a 39-year conservation process, the Lough Kinale Book Shrine is on view at the National Museum of Ireland.
share.google
June 23, 2025 at 12:23 PM
Reposted by Bob MacLean
Virgin of the Immaculate Copperplate?

This glowing 17th c. Spanish painting of the Virgin Mary on loan from the Hispanic Society of America to a wonderful Milwaukee Museum of Art exhibition is painted on one side and gloriously engraved on the other....
June 22, 2025 at 3:01 PM
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Hurrah! My next book is instantiated, and in-the-world! Library Catalogues As Data: Research, Practice, Usage. Edited with Paul Gooding and @semames.bsky.social. Proud of this one! Official publication date soon… www.facetpublishing.co.uk/page/detail/...
June 21, 2025 at 5:01 PM
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Relief sculpture of the 19th Century temperance campaigner William Collins on Glasgow Green, to which someone has added the remains of a hand-rolled 'cigarette'.

Cont./

#glasgow #keepglasgowweird #statue #publicart #peoplemakeglasgow
June 21, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Reposted by Bob MacLean
Having your dissertation done up into a painting surrounded by the angels of arts and sciences is really a baller move.
June 18, 2025 at 8:21 PM
Reposted by Bob MacLean
*Confused historians of early modern medicine wake up to find themselves experts on current affairs*
npr.org NPR @npr.org · Jun 15
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. apparently embraces the outdated "miasma theory" of disease instead of the widely accept "germ theory" of disease, which may help explain some of the actions he's been taking.
Ancient miasma theory may help explain Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s vaccine moves
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. apparently embraces the outdated "miasma theory" of disease instead of the widely accept "germ theory" of disease, which may help explain some of the actions he's been taking.
n.pr
June 15, 2025 at 10:34 PM
Reposted by Bob MacLean
A Tudor manuscript of a medieval poem collected by 18th antiquaries which ended up in a medieval university - a thrilling tale of medieval culture & its reception 😃

Thanks to @bobmaclean.bsky.social & the ASC team for facilitating 💫

/fin 🧵
June 15, 2025 at 6:49 PM
Reposted by Bob MacLean
It was the the elaborate initials (famously hiding an acrostic revealing the author's name, John Clerk of Whalley) and marginalia from later readers which occupied my attention this week 📝

2/3 🧵
June 15, 2025 at 6:49 PM
Reposted by Bob MacLean
A delight this week to make the aquaintance of this 1540s ms (Glasgow UL Hunter 388), the single surviving witness to the ME alliterative Romance, The Destruction of Troy (c. 1400), as part of my visiting fellowship at the University of Glasgow Library 📚

1/3 🧵
June 15, 2025 at 6:49 PM