Henry Handley
@bookgreeble.bsky.social
Rare books librarian (they or he) interested in making the world a little more bearable for each other, also cats.
Reposted by Henry Handley
I hate gay Halloween what do you mean you’re an uncataloged book someone tried to rebind with duct tape
October 31, 2025 at 1:26 PM
I hate gay Halloween what do you mean you’re an uncataloged book someone tried to rebind with duct tape
This guy has the 1855 Whitman frontispiece of books about the Virgin Mary by Presbyterian-Episcopal-Catholic converts and priests (posthumous).
![Title page of Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary in North America, printed in New York without a date specified though there is a penciled-in [1866] below the New York imprint.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cnxnenlq5dzpvkhkro2grjrf/bafkreiam7ewc45d7mh42uyza3nhcmeegw44curar4h5hi7e3l5bvytyz7e@jpeg)
October 30, 2025 at 12:12 PM
This guy has the 1855 Whitman frontispiece of books about the Virgin Mary by Presbyterian-Episcopal-Catholic converts and priests (posthumous).
Reposted by Henry Handley
everything is terrible apart from the University of Texas Austin students who, protesting a committee set up to review the humanities curriculum, have produced this graphic arranging committee members by length of hair
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
October 24, 2025 at 5:51 AM
everything is terrible apart from the University of Texas Austin students who, protesting a committee set up to review the humanities curriculum, have produced this graphic arranging committee members by length of hair
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
You can't find time to become an expert? We'll have a lunch and learn!
Look a new thing
Librarians you should become experts in that new thing
No we aren't gonna give you new staff so you can hire or train specialists
You all just need to be experts at that and whatever else you're doing too
Don't drop anything though
We'll get mad
You have to do the new thing
Librarians you should become experts in that new thing
No we aren't gonna give you new staff so you can hire or train specialists
You all just need to be experts at that and whatever else you're doing too
Don't drop anything though
We'll get mad
You have to do the new thing
October 24, 2025 at 12:23 AM
You can't find time to become an expert? We'll have a lunch and learn!
Reposted by Henry Handley
If you can afford it, a *monetary* donation (it goes a lot farther!) to your local food bank would be a most excellent thing to do right now.
I want more people to care that SNAP benefits are being cut off on November 1. 40% of SNAP beneficiaries are children. This is callous and vile.
October 22, 2025 at 8:55 AM
If you can afford it, a *monetary* donation (it goes a lot farther!) to your local food bank would be a most excellent thing to do right now.
Jamet Mettayer, d. 1605, you would've loved Minecraft
October 19, 2025 at 2:46 AM
Jamet Mettayer, d. 1605, you would've loved Minecraft
The guy who tells cats to yell at 5 am
October 14, 2025 at 9:37 AM
The guy who tells cats to yell at 5 am
Reposted by Henry Handley
"PEN America identified 2,520 book ban cases... out of those, only 3% of the bans were triggered by a law requiring the removal of a book—the rest, 97%—came from bans caused by the fear that districts had of being out of compliance" #DontComplyInAdvance
www.wordsandmoney.com/pen-america-...
www.wordsandmoney.com/pen-america-...
PEN America Report Finds the Battle Over Book Bans Has Entered an Alarming New Phase
“For many students, families, educators, librarians, and school districts, book banning is a new normal,” the report, 'Banned in the USA 2024-2025: The Normalization of Book Banning,' concludes.
www.wordsandmoney.com
October 6, 2025 at 6:37 PM
"PEN America identified 2,520 book ban cases... out of those, only 3% of the bans were triggered by a law requiring the removal of a book—the rest, 97%—came from bans caused by the fear that districts had of being out of compliance" #DontComplyInAdvance
www.wordsandmoney.com/pen-america-...
www.wordsandmoney.com/pen-america-...
Caught covid for the first time 5 years in, shortly before annual shot. and I gotta say naming variants after clouds is underwhelming at best and 100% offensive to clouds
September 22, 2025 at 10:08 PM
Caught covid for the first time 5 years in, shortly before annual shot. and I gotta say naming variants after clouds is underwhelming at best and 100% offensive to clouds
Reposted by Henry Handley
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY, September 19, 1984, Former U. S. President Gerald Ford was stuck in an elevator in the Van Pelt Library at UPenn. Was there a medieval manuscript stuck in the elevator with him? Probably not, but we can dream. #medievalsky
September 19, 2025 at 2:40 PM
ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY, September 19, 1984, Former U. S. President Gerald Ford was stuck in an elevator in the Van Pelt Library at UPenn. Was there a medieval manuscript stuck in the elevator with him? Probably not, but we can dream. #medievalsky
Reposted by Henry Handley
Reposted by Henry Handley
Booklist for the 10th century library at Bobbio.
Among the various categories: "Books We Have But Can't Find" (de libris quos non reperimus sed habemus)
Among the various categories: "Books We Have But Can't Find" (de libris quos non reperimus sed habemus)
September 12, 2025 at 12:53 AM
Booklist for the 10th century library at Bobbio.
Among the various categories: "Books We Have But Can't Find" (de libris quos non reperimus sed habemus)
Among the various categories: "Books We Have But Can't Find" (de libris quos non reperimus sed habemus)
Personal announcement: I've been appointed Assistant Director of the Marian Library and Special Collections here at UD (Dayton, not Delaware) which means among other things that I get to figure out things like this copy of Anatomy of Melancholy with a detached front board and uh, this bookplate?
September 5, 2025 at 1:41 AM
Personal announcement: I've been appointed Assistant Director of the Marian Library and Special Collections here at UD (Dayton, not Delaware) which means among other things that I get to figure out things like this copy of Anatomy of Melancholy with a detached front board and uh, this bookplate?
Reposted by Henry Handley
It's always like this with archives, i have so many beefs with dead people
Been at the archives for two minutes and I'm already annoyed by a surgeon who was born 190 years ago.
August 6, 2025 at 9:43 AM
It's always like this with archives, i have so many beefs with dead people
Reposted by Henry Handley
Tom Lehrer outlived Kissinger, and I think that is evidence that there are at least some good forces in the universe.
“I do have a cause, though. It is obscenity. I’m for it.”
-from the intro to “Smut”
“I do have a cause, though. It is obscenity. I’m for it.”
-from the intro to “Smut”
"It is sobering to consider that when Mozart was my age he had already been dead for a year."
—Tom Lehrer, 1928-2025
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/a...
—Tom Lehrer, 1928-2025
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/a...
Tom Lehrer, Musical Satirist With a Dark Streak, Dies at 97
www.nytimes.com
July 27, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Tom Lehrer outlived Kissinger, and I think that is evidence that there are at least some good forces in the universe.
“I do have a cause, though. It is obscenity. I’m for it.”
-from the intro to “Smut”
“I do have a cause, though. It is obscenity. I’m for it.”
-from the intro to “Smut”
Reposted by Henry Handley
Finally got around to doing a first draft of an infographic/drawing on the basics of handling rare books :)
July 19, 2025 at 6:11 PM
Finally got around to doing a first draft of an infographic/drawing on the basics of handling rare books :)
Reposted by Henry Handley
This is #BookHistory too. Of a heartbreaking kind.
Tho' I imagine they haven't succeeded in accessing ICE detention facilities, this seems a good time to remind people to support the Prison Book Program (prisonbookprogram.org), which does amazing work compensating for the cruelties Öztürk describes
Tho' I imagine they haven't succeeded in accessing ICE detention facilities, this seems a good time to remind people to support the Prison Book Program (prisonbookprogram.org), which does amazing work compensating for the cruelties Öztürk describes
July 17, 2025 at 3:03 PM
This is #BookHistory too. Of a heartbreaking kind.
Tho' I imagine they haven't succeeded in accessing ICE detention facilities, this seems a good time to remind people to support the Prison Book Program (prisonbookprogram.org), which does amazing work compensating for the cruelties Öztürk describes
Tho' I imagine they haven't succeeded in accessing ICE detention facilities, this seems a good time to remind people to support the Prison Book Program (prisonbookprogram.org), which does amazing work compensating for the cruelties Öztürk describes
Early (earliest extant?) mention of library collections at what became MPOW, 1876: "Useless books are to be removed from the Brothers' Library and put in an old box to be stored away somewhere."
July 1, 2025 at 10:25 PM
Early (earliest extant?) mention of library collections at what became MPOW, 1876: "Useless books are to be removed from the Brothers' Library and put in an old box to be stored away somewhere."
Streaming It's Not You, It's a Trend: Managing Social Media in Archives and Special Collections since 2020 at #rbms25 and that title... oof, spot on.Grateful for survey work, panelists willing to share challenges in case studies and to @librarycolleen.bsky.social!
June 26, 2025 at 8:04 PM
Streaming It's Not You, It's a Trend: Managing Social Media in Archives and Special Collections since 2020 at #rbms25 and that title... oof, spot on.Grateful for survey work, panelists willing to share challenges in case studies and to @librarycolleen.bsky.social!
Reposted by Henry Handley
The pope posted this this morning and I’m thinking a lot about it
June 20, 2025 at 5:39 PM
The pope posted this this morning and I’m thinking a lot about it
Reposted by Henry Handley
The story of LGBT rights is a story of advances followed by setbacks followed by media with no skin in the game saying, "It's because you were too loud/asked for too much/moved too fast/got too big for your britches/didn't make your case." That never changes--but happily it's never the last word.
June 20, 2025 at 2:03 AM
The story of LGBT rights is a story of advances followed by setbacks followed by media with no skin in the game saying, "It's because you were too loud/asked for too much/moved too fast/got too big for your britches/didn't make your case." That never changes--but happily it's never the last word.
Reposted by Henry Handley
Honestly would use this with 9 am library visit tomorrow as a bridge between breakfast, hand washing, and old book touching. Books are like eggs! Think about it
I saw this sign in an antique shop yesterday and I can’t stop thinking about it. Books are like eggs
June 15, 2025 at 3:39 PM
Honestly would use this with 9 am library visit tomorrow as a bridge between breakfast, hand washing, and old book touching. Books are like eggs! Think about it
Reposted by Henry Handley
I saw this sign in an antique shop yesterday and I can’t stop thinking about it. Books are like eggs
June 15, 2025 at 3:03 PM
I saw this sign in an antique shop yesterday and I can’t stop thinking about it. Books are like eggs
New (to me) library lore: the first out-of-scope donation in 1943, "the first in a long series of books which have been donated to the library by those who insist on judging a book by its cover" 🙃
June 9, 2025 at 9:34 PM
New (to me) library lore: the first out-of-scope donation in 1943, "the first in a long series of books which have been donated to the library by those who insist on judging a book by its cover" 🙃