Molly Brown
@mollybrrown.bsky.social
Reference & Outreach Archivist (the ‘grammer behind the curtain for @NU_Archives) | empathy through history | opinions & exclamation points are my own | she/hers
Folks in the Boston area: save the date for the week of November 3rd through 8th to take in some great events and exhibits highlighting archival labor and autumnal themes in area archives! Register for updates here:
bit.ly/ArchivesCrawl2025
📜
bit.ly/ArchivesCrawl2025
📜
October 1, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Folks in the Boston area: save the date for the week of November 3rd through 8th to take in some great events and exhibits highlighting archival labor and autumnal themes in area archives! Register for updates here:
bit.ly/ArchivesCrawl2025
📜
bit.ly/ArchivesCrawl2025
📜
Work with me and I will make collection prep for high volume digitization fun
June 12, 2025 at 6:34 PM
Work with me and I will make collection prep for high volume digitization fun
Did you know that the MBTA's Orange Line is a Gemini?! On this day (June 10th) in 1901 the Orange Line began service. How I learned this? Jim Vrabel's newly launched Boston history database "When and Where in Boston"! whenandwhereinboston.org
June 10, 2025 at 7:39 PM
Did you know that the MBTA's Orange Line is a Gemini?! On this day (June 10th) in 1901 the Orange Line began service. How I learned this? Jim Vrabel's newly launched Boston history database "When and Where in Boston"! whenandwhereinboston.org
Happy National Library Workers Day to all my fellow information laborers! It is always a great day to support those who enable equitable access to information and and to demand just systems that adequately fund and support that work as loud as we can!
April 8, 2025 at 8:58 PM
Happy National Library Workers Day to all my fellow information laborers! It is always a great day to support those who enable equitable access to information and and to demand just systems that adequately fund and support that work as loud as we can!
There are so many ways to collect anecdotal feedback on archives class sessions for youth: connections made, trust built, etc. A new tier of feedback for me is a student drawing you and at the end showing you along with their full page of notes 🥹 📜
March 15, 2025 at 4:29 PM
There are so many ways to collect anecdotal feedback on archives class sessions for youth: connections made, trust built, etc. A new tier of feedback for me is a student drawing you and at the end showing you along with their full page of notes 🥹 📜
Some exciting news! A new edition of Dorothy Canfield Fisher's The Home-Maker will be published April 7 by Quite Literally Books featuring a foreword and afterword by @cejacobson.bsky.social and myself! You can preorder it here: quiteliterallybooks.com/product/the-...
February 27, 2025 at 5:04 PM
Some exciting news! A new edition of Dorothy Canfield Fisher's The Home-Maker will be published April 7 by Quite Literally Books featuring a foreword and afterword by @cejacobson.bsky.social and myself! You can preorder it here: quiteliterallybooks.com/product/the-...
Please enjoy my visualization of the work my employee and I have done to provide access to our collections while the majority of our collections remain off-site. Trying to goofily but urgently illustrate how clutch a functional HVAC in our new storage space would be.
February 26, 2025 at 8:10 PM
Please enjoy my visualization of the work my employee and I have done to provide access to our collections while the majority of our collections remain off-site. Trying to goofily but urgently illustrate how clutch a functional HVAC in our new storage space would be.
A sneak preview of social media prep for Valentine's Day, but I really love this message to Elma Lewis from friend and fellow artist Tom Feelings, in her personal correspondence papers:
"to Elma who loves—and knows and then passes it on —like it was passed on to her"
"to Elma who loves—and knows and then passes it on —like it was passed on to her"
February 12, 2025 at 9:12 PM
A sneak preview of social media prep for Valentine's Day, but I really love this message to Elma Lewis from friend and fellow artist Tom Feelings, in her personal correspondence papers:
"to Elma who loves—and knows and then passes it on —like it was passed on to her"
"to Elma who loves—and knows and then passes it on —like it was passed on to her"
Severance Season 2 Episode 1:
January 17, 2025 at 4:08 AM
Severance Season 2 Episode 1:
Yesterday's instruction sessions surfaced a "Gay Community News" final exam for their 10th anniversary. Favorite questions included:
"Who could be counted upon to bring the most glamorous dishes to pot-lucks"
"At which chic nightspot could many GCNers be found after Thursday Night layout" 📜
"Who could be counted upon to bring the most glamorous dishes to pot-lucks"
"At which chic nightspot could many GCNers be found after Thursday Night layout" 📜
January 16, 2025 at 4:48 PM
Yesterday's instruction sessions surfaced a "Gay Community News" final exam for their 10th anniversary. Favorite questions included:
"Who could be counted upon to bring the most glamorous dishes to pot-lucks"
"At which chic nightspot could many GCNers be found after Thursday Night layout" 📜
"Who could be counted upon to bring the most glamorous dishes to pot-lucks"
"At which chic nightspot could many GCNers be found after Thursday Night layout" 📜
*walks out of building as if it’s the closing scene of the breakfast club except the song goes “forget about me”*
December 13, 2024 at 10:17 PM
*walks out of building as if it’s the closing scene of the breakfast club except the song goes “forget about me”*
An all-time career high today
hosting the first annual (though it may become seasonal) great archival bake-off where colleagues brought recipes from ancestral and archival sources including tomato soup cake and cranberry jello candles.
hosting the first annual (though it may become seasonal) great archival bake-off where colleagues brought recipes from ancestral and archival sources including tomato soup cake and cranberry jello candles.
December 11, 2024 at 8:35 PM
An all-time career high today
hosting the first annual (though it may become seasonal) great archival bake-off where colleagues brought recipes from ancestral and archival sources including tomato soup cake and cranberry jello candles.
hosting the first annual (though it may become seasonal) great archival bake-off where colleagues brought recipes from ancestral and archival sources including tomato soup cake and cranberry jello candles.
Closed this semester's archives class sessions with a sweet celebration of archival deposits from students who kept field journals documenting Boston climate and environment in weekly entries this fall. I almost wanted to play pomp and circumstance as they laid their journals to rest in our box! 📜
December 2, 2024 at 5:46 PM
Closed this semester's archives class sessions with a sweet celebration of archival deposits from students who kept field journals documenting Boston climate and environment in weekly entries this fall. I almost wanted to play pomp and circumstance as they laid their journals to rest in our box! 📜
A taste of day to day archival glamour for you 📜
November 21, 2024 at 5:59 PM
A taste of day to day archival glamour for you 📜
I fret for whoever is woefully mislead by Amazon Prime to watch Terms of Endearment when they are seeking a "feel-good love story" on par with Leap Year, they will enjoy a fine film, but they may not have enough tissues or a therapy appointment booked soon enough
October 16, 2024 at 12:02 AM
I fret for whoever is woefully mislead by Amazon Prime to watch Terms of Endearment when they are seeking a "feel-good love story" on par with Leap Year, they will enjoy a fine film, but they may not have enough tissues or a therapy appointment booked soon enough
quote post with the fictional character you are in your head
October 8, 2024 at 7:27 PM
quote post with the fictional character you are in your head
Wrote a "What I did this summer" blog for work. My answer: coordinate a multi-archive guest curated exhibit that addresses the complicated history of school desegregation for the 50th anniversary of the Garrity Decision now on view at the BPL! See more here: librarynews.northeastern.edu?p=276335 📜
September 26, 2024 at 5:38 PM
Wrote a "What I did this summer" blog for work. My answer: coordinate a multi-archive guest curated exhibit that addresses the complicated history of school desegregation for the 50th anniversary of the Garrity Decision now on view at the BPL! See more here: librarynews.northeastern.edu?p=276335 📜
I can tell there will be a flurry of reporting on school desegregation in Boston in light of the 50th anniversary of the court decision based on the week I've had. I felt like I was running a hotline for archival image permissions, which I suppose in a way I am
September 13, 2024 at 1:27 PM
I can tell there will be a flurry of reporting on school desegregation in Boston in light of the 50th anniversary of the court decision based on the week I've had. I felt like I was running a hotline for archival image permissions, which I suppose in a way I am
Bostonians! Next week begins programming for our "Back to School" Archives Crawl! Join repositories across Greater Boston to see records representing centuries of education history. Northeastern will hold an open house Tuesday 9/10 from 2-4pm, email me at mo.brown@northeastern.edu for more deets 📜
September 6, 2024 at 1:37 PM
Bostonians! Next week begins programming for our "Back to School" Archives Crawl! Join repositories across Greater Boston to see records representing centuries of education history. Northeastern will hold an open house Tuesday 9/10 from 2-4pm, email me at mo.brown@northeastern.edu for more deets 📜
Really using these pictures of women from the Boston School of Physical Education participating in Greek dancing classes at a lakeside camp in Maine as fodder for my pre-fall semester dissociation
August 22, 2024 at 3:10 PM
Really using these pictures of women from the Boston School of Physical Education participating in Greek dancing classes at a lakeside camp in Maine as fodder for my pre-fall semester dissociation
The Boston Globe Library Collection is far more than a collection of newspaper clippings and photographic prints and negatives. It is also a living record of tiny feuds between librarians about mis-labeling sports files 📜
August 20, 2024 at 4:10 PM
The Boston Globe Library Collection is far more than a collection of newspaper clippings and photographic prints and negatives. It is also a living record of tiny feuds between librarians about mis-labeling sports files 📜
Imagine I’m your social media neighbor knocking on the door to leave a little present on your porch but here the present is a photograph of my 97-year-old grandfather’s zinnias 🌼
August 14, 2024 at 1:15 AM
Imagine I’m your social media neighbor knocking on the door to leave a little present on your porch but here the present is a photograph of my 97-year-old grandfather’s zinnias 🌼
More Boston bookselling history in my latest travels: here's an early catalog from Ernest Hamilton before his distribution company became "Scoham Bookshelf" in '63 & before he founded his bookstore, Third World Books in '72, which was devoted to books & pamphlets about the struggle for liberation 📜
July 17, 2024 at 7:41 PM
More Boston bookselling history in my latest travels: here's an early catalog from Ernest Hamilton before his distribution company became "Scoham Bookshelf" in '63 & before he founded his bookstore, Third World Books in '72, which was devoted to books & pamphlets about the struggle for liberation 📜
Love this treat of printing history in a 1973 issue of Gay Community News where they gave the "GCN: 'Some of our best friends are straight'" award to Bob Getz of Two-Penny Press and their printer & typsetter, Joan Cameron, who helped GCN move from mimeograph to offset 📜hdl.handle.net/2047/D20372304
July 10, 2024 at 8:37 PM
Love this treat of printing history in a 1973 issue of Gay Community News where they gave the "GCN: 'Some of our best friends are straight'" award to Bob Getz of Two-Penny Press and their printer & typsetter, Joan Cameron, who helped GCN move from mimeograph to offset 📜hdl.handle.net/2047/D20372304
Tickled by this ad found in my database travels for Dorothy Canfield Fisher's The Home-maker. A very minimalist tease of: "You will enjoy it and discuss it." And by golly I think the novel delivers what they promised!
July 9, 2024 at 6:29 PM
Tickled by this ad found in my database travels for Dorothy Canfield Fisher's The Home-maker. A very minimalist tease of: "You will enjoy it and discuss it." And by golly I think the novel delivers what they promised!