Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

SHARP

@sharpweb.org

800 followers 650 following 34 posts

📚 Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing 💚 Promoting humanities scholarship 🤓 Supporting global, early career, and BIPOC scholars 🪢 Facilitating bookish community sharpweb.org

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

SHARP @sharpweb.org · Mar 3

Hi SHARPists! Check out our Starter Pack, and send us a message via chat if you'd like to be added!

go.bsky.app/KNSyCSb

11 17 41

Reposted by SHARP

Jim Wald @citizenwald.bsky.social · 24d

A couple of little amusements at the start of the term

1) Borrowed with due credit, Ian Gadd's iangadd.bsky.social book-ripping trick. I think he first told us about it at the 2011 @sharpweb.org conference in Washington

Now you all can enjoy it

www.instagram.com/p/...
1/2

NPR on Instagram: "Are you a bookmark person or a dog-ear person? NPR's Andrew Limbong looks at some of the the history behind how those two camps evolved."

20K likes, 435 comments - npr on July 30, 2025: "Are you a bookmark person or a dog-ear person? NPR's Andrew Limbong looks at some of the the history behind how those two camps evolved.".

www.instagram.com

1 1 2

Reposted by SHARP

Claire Squires @clairesquires.bsky.social · Aug 28

Deeply saddened to hear of the death of book historian, librarian and bibliographile (is that a word?) extraordinaire Ian Willison, as circulated today by Simon Eliot via @sharpweb.org list serv (see list.iu.edu/sympa/arc/sh...) 1/

A screenshot of text which reads:
I have to report the death of Ian Willison (1926-2025) on the 27 August, just a few days after he had celebrated his 99th birthday. Educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge and University College London, Ian had a long and distinguished career in librarianship, bibliography, and book history. He worked in the Library of the British Museum (1955-74) and then in the British Library (1974-87), finally becoming its Head of English Language (British). He was Visiting Professor of Historical Bibliography, University of Chicago (1959); and Cline Visiting Professor, University of Texas at Austin (1989). He was editor of volume 4 of The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (1972), and was one of the three General Editors of the Cambridge History of the Book in Britain (1999-2019). He was awarded a CBE for his services to the history of the book in 2005. Ian was the founder and benefactor of the Willison Foundation Charitable Trust, which was set up in 2016 to offer grants to those involved in research in book history. It has since supported many members of SHARP.
Ian’s intellectual enthusiasm and support benefitted many individuals and organisations. He was chair of the UK Book Trade History Group (1985–98), and helped to found the Institute of English Studies in the University of London in 1999, of which he was one of its first senior research fellows. He was also a keen supporter of SHARP in its formative years.
Those who knew him will remember Ian not just as scholar, but also as an enthusiastic, generous, kindly, and congenial man. He will be greatly missed.
Simon Eliot

1 6 13

Reposted by SHARP

Jim Wald @citizenwald.bsky.social · Aug 4

I always remember @iangadd.bsky.social telling me about that opening trick from his classes--
but I also recall his paper on dog-earing at the 2015 @sharpweb.org conference

sharpweb.org/wp-content/u...

1 1 5

Reposted by SHARP

Jim Wald @citizenwald.bsky.social · Aug 4

Do you dog-ear or think that’s too…. ruff on your #books?

view.nl.npr.org/?qs=...

On the psychology & cultural history of our attitudes toward the physical book. NB features fellow @sharpweb.org member & friend Ian Gadd @iangadd.bsky.social

3 2 6

SHARP @sharpweb.org · Jul 31

So, I can now confirm that it does NOT include journal articles like those published in Book History (at least for the moment).

SHARP @sharpweb.org · Jul 28

Good Question!!!

SHARP @sharpweb.org · Jul 15

🌟*Deuteronomy and the Material Transmission of Tradition* (Brill, 2024) by Mark Lester and *Required Reading: The Life of Everyday Texts in the British Empire* (Princeton University Press, 2024) by Priyasha Mukhopadhyay, were also highly commended.

2 3

SHARP @sharpweb.org · Jul 15

🏆 We'd like to officially congratulate @eve.gd, whose *Theses on the Metaphors of Digital-Textual History* (Stanford University Press, 2024) won our 2025 SHARP Book History Book Prize! www.sup.org/books/media-...

Theses on the Metaphors of Digital-Textual History | Stanford University Press

Digital spaces are saturated with metaphor: we have pages, sites, mice, and windows. Yet, in the world of digital textuality, these metaphors no longer function as we might expect.

www.sup.org

1 10 15

SHARP @sharpweb.org · Jul 15

Yes, this is correct! More about the 2026 online global book history festival coming soon!

Reposted by SHARP

SHARP News @sharpnews.bsky.social · Jul 11

How is everyone's @sharpweb.org #SHARP2025?!

#BookHistory

1 1 3

Reposted by SHARP

Shannon K. Supple @mazarine.bsky.social · Jul 10

Such an impressive group of finalists for the @sharpweb.org book history prize…

…and extra congratulations to prize recipient Martin Paul Eve for his “Theses on the Metaphors of Digital-Textual History”!

#SHARP2025

Screen of 13 book covers with presenter with mic speaking below the screen

2 11

Reposted by SHARP

Sarah Werner @wynkenhimself.bsky.social · Jul 10

So delighted that Martin Eve’s Theses on the Metaphors of Digital-Textual History has won the @sharpweb.org book prize!! #BookHistory #SHARP2025 📚

www.sup.org

2 13

Reposted by SHARP

Marie Léger-St-Jean @marielsj.bsky.social · Jul 9

THIS IS EGALITY! Because of the all-genders bathrooms at @urochester.bsky.social, *guys* have to queue to go pee during coffee breaks at #SHARP2025 like us girls!

1 1 4

Reposted by SHARP

Daniel Bellingradt @dbellingradt.bsky.social · Jul 9

Thanks to everyone posting from #sharp2025 into the blue skies. I am reading your posts, and I appreciate that you are doing this. #bookhistory for the win.

1 16

Reposted by SHARP

Christine Jacobson @cejacobson.bsky.social · Jul 8

hey #SHARP2025 good news, I have started work on my slides for my presentation that starts in *checks notes* 48 hours

slide deck that reads, "Thanks for Typing Surfacing Women's Type Labor in the Archives" on the left and on the right a lithograph poster of a woman in a golden edwardian dress sits working at a typewriter on a table with books and a vase of flowers

1 3 38

Reposted by SHARP

Colleen @librarycolleen.bsky.social · Jul 8

Printing a broadside at #sharp2025
This is a reproduction of The North Star, 1848 from Frederick Douglas, originally printed about a mile away in Rochester, NY.

2 11 66

Reposted by SHARP

scholarschoice.bsky.social @scholarschoice.bsky.social · Jul 9

Over at today's @sharpweb.org conference, @wlupress.bsky.social co-authors Beth Driscoll and Claire Squires stopped by and are pictured below with their book The Frankfurt Kabuff. #SHARP2025

1 3 9

Reposted by SHARP

kristinbluemel.bsky.social @kristinbluemel.bsky.social · Jul 9

Kathy Walkup and Crystal Z Campbell speaking @sharpweb.org for Keynote 2 on Rochester’s Visual Studies Workshop and Press. Joan Lyons, founder and past director, seated with Scott McCarney, Megan N Liberty and Tate Shaw.

1 1

Reposted by SHARP

Greg Barnhisel @gbarnhisel.bsky.social · Jul 8

The BOOK HISTORY editors are here in Rochester at the @sharpweb.org conference and ready to answer your questions or help you with any issues you might have missed! #bookhistory #sharp2025

1 6 39

Reposted by SHARP

Chicago Journals @chicagojournals.bsky.social · Jul 8

Visit our unstaffed table at the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, & Publishing conference in Rochester, NY to learn about our journals and grab some giveaways. Can't make it in person? Discover our journals here: ow.ly/kt2050WkuHG @sharpweb.org

1 1

Reposted by SHARP

Jolie Braun @joliebraun.bsky.social · Jul 3

Getting my presentation on 1990s zines & small magazine distributors ready for the #SHARP2025 conference next week, super excited to be part of a zine panel.

Screenshot of presentation slide featuring advertisements for distributors Fine Print and Desert Moon from issues of Factsheet Five.

1 4 17

Reposted by SHARP

Marie Léger-St-Jean @marielsj.bsky.social · Jul 8

#SHARP2025

Marie Léger-St-Jean @marielsj.bsky.social · Jul 8

It's starting! #SHARP25

As always, here are my slides:

docs.google.com/presentation...

Electoral Cartograms in the 1890s - SHARP

Electoral Cartograms in the 1890s: Data visualization, the value of a vote, and mapping constituencies onto communities Marie Léger-St-Jean · MarieLSJ on Bsky

docs.google.com

1 4

Reposted by SHARP

Gabriel Mckee @secret-terror.bsky.social · Jul 8

Starting #SHARP2025 with @amoreshead.bsky.social on the early 20th century origins of the "credibility bookshelf"-- relevant to the library of fake books covering HVAC ducts at the ISAW Library @isawlibrary.bsky.social

2 3

Reposted by SHARP

Marie Léger-St-Jean @marielsj.bsky.social · Jul 8

Two great things about the keynote at #SHARP2025:

- the speaker was chosen from the proposals submitted
- there are sign language interpreters!

Since there are other live-tweeters, I'll do my own interpreting by posting in French...
#SHARP25

1 17

Reposted by SHARP

Colleen @librarycolleen.bsky.social · Jul 7

Heading to #sharp2025. It is my first time attending, so please talk to me.

2 2 18