Beth DeBold
@elizaaudacis.bsky.social
History PGR at Newcastle University | apprenticeship, women, and gender in the long 18c English book trade | previous librarian | New Englander in Old England | no terfs | she/her
Reposted by Beth DeBold
Nice one, Zadie Smith.
November 12, 2025 at 9:34 AM
Nice one, Zadie Smith.
Can’t emphasize how much I want to go back in time and ask everyone doing anything I care about to not do anything important like dying or being elected to the Stationers’ Court of Assistants between January and 26 March so I don’t have to deal with calendar reconciliation
November 13, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Can’t emphasize how much I want to go back in time and ask everyone doing anything I care about to not do anything important like dying or being elected to the Stationers’ Court of Assistants between January and 26 March so I don’t have to deal with calendar reconciliation
“Lest we forget,” everyone says, actively and violently forgetting
November 11, 2025 at 11:48 AM
“Lest we forget,” everyone says, actively and violently forgetting
I often bring knitting with me to conferences; this project came together almost entirely during the Women & the Household conference I just attended, and is finally complete. Meet Harold Fatmus:
November 10, 2025 at 11:35 PM
I often bring knitting with me to conferences; this project came together almost entirely during the Women & the Household conference I just attended, and is finally complete. Meet Harold Fatmus:
Reposted by Beth DeBold
Great look into the comprehensiveness of EEBO and EEBO-TCP and what that means for using those tools. Highly recommend for all computational bibliographers and early modernists doing large-scale work with EEBO
November 9, 2025 at 5:04 PM
Great look into the comprehensiveness of EEBO and EEBO-TCP and what that means for using those tools. Highly recommend for all computational bibliographers and early modernists doing large-scale work with EEBO
The fact that the UK is continuing to ban bringing back cheese from the EU should be considered a hate crime
November 8, 2025 at 8:03 PM
The fact that the UK is continuing to ban bringing back cheese from the EU should be considered a hate crime
More sights from Antwerp: the cathedral, Bakkerij Goossens, and Elfde Geboed
November 8, 2025 at 5:24 PM
More sights from Antwerp: the cathedral, Bakkerij Goossens, and Elfde Geboed
Spending a dreamy morning at the Hendrik Conscience library with the conference group and @svanimpe.bsky.social, who is a walking encyclopedia
November 8, 2025 at 10:29 AM
Spending a dreamy morning at the Hendrik Conscience library with the conference group and @svanimpe.bsky.social, who is a walking encyclopedia
Belgium will fry anything except bicycles
November 7, 2025 at 10:41 PM
Belgium will fry anything except bicycles
Ready for day 1 to talk about women, households, and books!
November 6, 2025 at 7:54 AM
Ready for day 1 to talk about women, households, and books!
So Antwerp is incredible; obsessed with Jeanne Rivière, matriarch of the Plantins
November 5, 2025 at 10:10 PM
So Antwerp is incredible; obsessed with Jeanne Rivière, matriarch of the Plantins
I am in Antwerp for the Women & the Household in the Early Modern Book Trade conference (I’m very excited) and I have to say, in terms of hotel art, I really won the lottery
November 4, 2025 at 6:41 PM
I am in Antwerp for the Women & the Household in the Early Modern Book Trade conference (I’m very excited) and I have to say, in terms of hotel art, I really won the lottery
Thinking of my family, friends, and loves on this US election day. Go vote, please. It IS worthwhile; it DOES matter, even if it’s “just” for your school board and local officials.
November 4, 2025 at 1:28 PM
Thinking of my family, friends, and loves on this US election day. Go vote, please. It IS worthwhile; it DOES matter, even if it’s “just” for your school board and local officials.
Brits: so is NYC next to California
My American mother: I saw the Cambridge train attack on the news and was scared you might be involved despite living in Newcastle and not traveling
My American mother: I saw the Cambridge train attack on the news and was scared you might be involved despite living in Newcastle and not traveling
November 4, 2025 at 11:21 AM
Brits: so is NYC next to California
My American mother: I saw the Cambridge train attack on the news and was scared you might be involved despite living in Newcastle and not traveling
My American mother: I saw the Cambridge train attack on the news and was scared you might be involved despite living in Newcastle and not traveling
Happy Halloween! 🎃
October 31, 2025 at 5:53 PM
Happy Halloween! 🎃
Apparently this is a new policy for CUL; instead of charging £75 for the new digitisation of theses, it’s a flat rate of £35 for all theses requests now.
The fact that Cambridge University is out here charging £35 to a current student to get a copy of an already-digitized thesis is wild to me.
Unrelated, if anyone knows Dr Jennifer D Melville or has a copy of her 1999 thesis they'd be willing to send on gender and space in 17c England...
Unrelated, if anyone knows Dr Jennifer D Melville or has a copy of her 1999 thesis they'd be willing to send on gender and space in 17c England...
October 30, 2025 at 8:04 PM
Apparently this is a new policy for CUL; instead of charging £75 for the new digitisation of theses, it’s a flat rate of £35 for all theses requests now.
Reposted by Beth DeBold
I think a lot about the chance we had at the start of COVID to finally become a more compassionate, collectivist nation, and how profoundly we were failed not only by the sociopathic greed of the ruling class but by each other.
It doesn’t mean we won’t get there, but the lost opportunity haunts me.
It doesn’t mean we won’t get there, but the lost opportunity haunts me.
Remember how just a few years ago during the worst of the pandemic when we saw how the govt can actually do big things and saw that our collective health & well-being are intertwined, and then corporations got mad that they lost a modicum of power and helped fund a backlash of amnesia and fascism?
October 30, 2025 at 4:02 AM
I think a lot about the chance we had at the start of COVID to finally become a more compassionate, collectivist nation, and how profoundly we were failed not only by the sociopathic greed of the ruling class but by each other.
It doesn’t mean we won’t get there, but the lost opportunity haunts me.
It doesn’t mean we won’t get there, but the lost opportunity haunts me.
The fact that Cambridge University is out here charging £35 to a current student to get a copy of an already-digitized thesis is wild to me.
Unrelated, if anyone knows Dr Jennifer D Melville or has a copy of her 1999 thesis they'd be willing to send on gender and space in 17c England...
Unrelated, if anyone knows Dr Jennifer D Melville or has a copy of her 1999 thesis they'd be willing to send on gender and space in 17c England...
October 30, 2025 at 10:18 AM
The fact that Cambridge University is out here charging £35 to a current student to get a copy of an already-digitized thesis is wild to me.
Unrelated, if anyone knows Dr Jennifer D Melville or has a copy of her 1999 thesis they'd be willing to send on gender and space in 17c England...
Unrelated, if anyone knows Dr Jennifer D Melville or has a copy of her 1999 thesis they'd be willing to send on gender and space in 17c England...
Question for people who work with British records offices/collections: what might "Fac Office" be? I have a note from a researcher (no longer with us) who cites a record of a marriage allegation in "Fac Off." I've looked around and am generally just puzzled as to where I'd find the original.
October 29, 2025 at 6:35 PM
Question for people who work with British records offices/collections: what might "Fac Office" be? I have a note from a researcher (no longer with us) who cites a record of a marriage allegation in "Fac Off." I've looked around and am generally just puzzled as to where I'd find the original.
9:23am is the perfect sunshine spot time in the front room
October 27, 2025 at 9:24 AM
9:23am is the perfect sunshine spot time in the front room
Reposted by Beth DeBold
There's a magnificent passage in "The Dispossessed" about this.
March 20, 2025 at 3:54 PM
There's a magnificent passage in "The Dispossessed" about this.
Reposted by Beth DeBold
This is one of our biggest arguments: that OpenAI is vampirizing universities for the cachet and legitimacy that affiliation with higher education affords
October 26, 2025 at 4:12 PM
This is one of our biggest arguments: that OpenAI is vampirizing universities for the cachet and legitimacy that affiliation with higher education affords
A lovely walk yesterday through the Gosforth nature reserve; saw 3 grey herons, a red kite, a kestrel, a young roe buck, and of course a thousand wood pigeons
October 26, 2025 at 5:08 PM
A lovely walk yesterday through the Gosforth nature reserve; saw 3 grey herons, a red kite, a kestrel, a young roe buck, and of course a thousand wood pigeons
As a once (& future?) library worker and current @ucu.org.uk member, I stand with striking BL staff. Library, and especially special collections, workers are often told they should accept low wages because they get “a dream job:” but any job needs to put food on the table & pay rent.
The risible wages are well-known in the wider field of the library, museum, gallery and archive world. I’d like to think public opinion is with the people who make the place click day-in-day-out; they deserve better.
Knowledge may be free but labour isn’t: spread the wealth and pay the workers!
Knowledge may be free but labour isn’t: spread the wealth and pay the workers!
October 26, 2025 at 11:22 AM
As a once (& future?) library worker and current @ucu.org.uk member, I stand with striking BL staff. Library, and especially special collections, workers are often told they should accept low wages because they get “a dream job:” but any job needs to put food on the table & pay rent.
Reposted by Beth DeBold
British Library staff are out on strike from Monday 27 October until Sunday 9 November over pay: please do not undermine their action by attending this exhibition (or any other events at the BL) during that time. www.museumsassociation.org/museums-jour...
October 25, 2025 at 6:10 PM
British Library staff are out on strike from Monday 27 October until Sunday 9 November over pay: please do not undermine their action by attending this exhibition (or any other events at the BL) during that time. www.museumsassociation.org/museums-jour...