Matt Shaw
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matthewshaw.bsky.social
Matt Shaw
@matthewshaw.bsky.social
1.5K followers 2.4K following 1.1K posts
In a library. Most likely just off Queen's Lane. #PrintHistory #Time #Newspapers

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/an-inky-business-a-history-of-newspapers-from-the-english-civil-wars-to-the-american-civil-war-matthew-j-shaw/5911999?ean=9781789143867
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matthewshaw.bsky.social
Fraying at the edges
Liberator magazine with dove of peace on the cover November 1918. The edges are frayed.
November 11, 2025 at 9:28 AM
matthewshaw.bsky.social
Sensible Christmas gifting from the FT HTSI deputy editor (the calendar, not the shirt)
British Library medieval manuscripts calendar
November 10, 2025 at 8:25 PM
matthewshaw.bsky.social
BL & GDP in FT
Plea for intervention in British Library pay dispute May I make a plea for the government to come to the aid of staff at the British Library. At present the library is being subjected to strike action that is hamstringing its daily operations and leading to the closure of reading rooms. This comes on top of the computer hack it suffered some two years ago from which it is only just recovering (Report, November 22, 2023). The task of serving the complex needs of scholars who study there and draw on its extraordinary resources is far from easy. If only for this, the staff deserve to be heard. The resource over which they hold custody is of great worth to the country and the intellectual work that is generated there contributes to our national GDP. Would Karl Marx and Virginia Woolf, Mahatma Gandhi and George Orwell, all erstwhile users of the British Library, have produced their masterpieces, without this resource? Nicholas Kochan British Library User, London N8, UK
November 5, 2025 at 9:25 AM
matthewshaw.bsky.social
The FT explains what flying in economy is like
Together with noise-cancelling head-phones, the modern version has become a fixture of long-haul economy class flights. The neck-supporting products offer a degree of comfort - and the promise of sleep - to passengers confronted with limited leg room and barely reclining seats.
November 4, 2025 at 9:26 AM
matthewshaw.bsky.social
MS 304 is now live on Digital Bodleian, Glastonbury fans

digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/a0ca...
Digitised medieval manuscript, showing initial containing a monk surrounded by manuscripts
November 3, 2025 at 11:14 AM
matthewshaw.bsky.social
Half-term Interrail starts with a corner Thalys vestibule.
Child in jumpseat while father sits in the footwell of a train hopefully going to Amsterdam
October 26, 2025 at 8:49 PM
matthewshaw.bsky.social
Urban living assessed in Country Life apple.news/A7Bndl9ymRUy...
Hostel, House and Chambers: Accommodating the Victorian and Edwardian Working Woman Emily Gee (Liverpool University Press, £40) EVERY now and then there is a book on an architectural subject about which I previously knew nothing. This is one. It tells the story of a new type of building that came into existence from the 1870s to accommodate single, working women in British cities. Between 1861 and 1911, the number of women working as teachers, shop assistants, nurses and clerks in England and Wales multiplied four-fold to 800,000. Many were young and unmarried and, if they worked away from home, they needed safe and comfortable housing
October 22, 2025 at 9:39 PM
matthewshaw.bsky.social
Bike polo with zombie army player doing a wheelie
October 21, 2025 at 10:53 AM
matthewshaw.bsky.social
I wonder who the Oxford Supernovas were (and why was this 18 years ago)
Hackney bike polo bracket board
October 21, 2025 at 10:44 AM
matthewshaw.bsky.social
top notch podcast on the first comprehensive study of the campaigns to house a new generation of working women, the specialised design of the buildings and the women whose lives were changed by this architectural movement newbooksnetwork.com/hostel-house... @newbooksnetwork.bsky.social
book cover for Hostel, House and Chambers, showing bed, chair and window
October 15, 2025 at 8:28 AM
matthewshaw.bsky.social
Manchester celebrating public libraries - 175 years since the Public Library Act
Public library anniversary exhibition
October 9, 2025 at 9:51 AM
matthewshaw.bsky.social
1915 found it tricky, too.
Count Slain...but does not know which count
October 7, 2025 at 2:28 PM
matthewshaw.bsky.social
and on living in an aristocratic country
Where Americans Lose Caste
October 7, 2025 at 2:24 PM
matthewshaw.bsky.social
Big razor seems to be behind it all.
No more beards says hesgwtg
October 1, 2025 at 9:56 AM
matthewshaw.bsky.social
Was seeing new views even last night
Charing Cross Station
September 29, 2025 at 6:02 PM
matthewshaw.bsky.social
I’d forgotten this tidbit.

Data security, huh

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....
The Government's interest in identity cards was confirmed in January 1995 when confidential Cabinet papers on plans for these cards were identified in a London junk shop and subseqently passed to The Guardian newspaper. " Official papers which discussed the need for maintaining the confidential integrity of identity cards were found in a government surplus filing cabinet bought for £35! The 17-page
September 25, 2025 at 8:20 PM
matthewshaw.bsky.social
HNY
Calendar showing 1 vendémiaire 234
September 22, 2025 at 10:12 AM
matthewshaw.bsky.social
Day of the panier. And a pannier is due for the Workcycke today
French calendar showing a panier
September 16, 2025 at 9:44 AM
matthewshaw.bsky.social
Just been to a collation. And not of a codex.
Cs Lewis window
September 15, 2025 at 8:07 PM
matthewshaw.bsky.social
Thank you Swarttouw!
Speaking up for cyclists everywhere On behalf of all law-abiding cyclists in London, the UK and beyond, I must strongly object to your choice to publish a letter by Alex May of Manchester, England (Letters, September 11), who suggested that your photograph of cyclists waiting at a traffic light was fake and who states that "everyone knows that cyclists always go through red lights". It is a tendentious, bigoted and misleading statement for which the FT should not have provided a platform. Henk Swarttouw President, European Cyclists' Federation Domsten, Sweden
September 15, 2025 at 8:12 AM
matthewshaw.bsky.social
Robert!
Penny farthing Robert!
September 13, 2025 at 8:14 PM
matthewshaw.bsky.social
Cebeme conference tomorrow, details of www.cebeme.manchester.ac.uk
September 10, 2025 at 3:23 PM
matthewshaw.bsky.social
Cat for scale
Slide of library shelves with cat figure
September 10, 2025 at 1:15 PM
matthewshaw.bsky.social
Library (slide) of Julian Harrison 2020. Mostly scotch.
September 10, 2025 at 9:24 AM
matthewshaw.bsky.social
always interesting to see how rolls get digitized and presented www.library.upenn.edu/exhibits/chr...
screenshot of digitized Edward IV roll
September 4, 2025 at 9:32 AM