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You love books. These experts love books harder.
A medieval manuscript with cat paw prints.
Via images.nationalgeographic.com
When I was a research curator at the New York Public Library, I learned a valuable lesson: unfettered access and Boolean logic will only get you so far. You need someone on the inside. The specialists who work behind locked doors in temperature controlled archives don't just know their collections – they love them.
And when we love something, how do we show it? We're protective, of course, but we're far too excited to keep it a secret. We post the best pictures of the object of our affection online, replete with the wittiest, most informative captions we can think of. We celebrate and tease in a way that only we can, because we know them best, and we care the most.
In that sense, book historians, librarians, and professors are just like us. They embrace social media to broadcast their ardor for archival treasures. It begins with a photo on Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr or Pinterest, accompanied by a witty observation and context, perhaps followed by a longer post, podcast, or video. They love feedback, and readily engage in threads of a most silly and serious nature – and they almost always invite you to meet IRL.
There's an obvious educational benefit, but if you've been imagining the stereotypical librarian all along, severe and pedantic, you're in for a surprise. The way they playfully embrace incredibly rare materials offers a daily dose of perspective. We're living out our collective memory, and the world, both past and present, is most improved when viewed through a such a wondrous lens.
The following eight book historians, curators, specialists, and librarians do that best:
Monkey in the Margins
@DamienKempf and @bxknits regularly update the Getty Museum’s Pinterest homage to the rich and varied lives of monkeys in the margins of medieval manuscripts. These monkeys have attended the coronation of Boniface IX, dueled with unicorns, fired cannons, attended book clubs, jousted with squirrels, made wine, and doted on cats. They’ve also attempted murder.
Via pinterest.com
Ask the Past: Advice From Old Books
When she isn’t teaching at John Hopkins’ Peabody Institute, professor Elizabeth Archibald posts a veritable treasure trove of advice from the past on her site. Learning how to “Disfigure a Peacock” is less relevant today than it was in 1673, but Archibald addresses contemporary concerns as well. That’s not to say that that the 1563 suggestions that “the gall of a Patrich” on your temples will do anything to improve your memory, but I do believe this 1530 axiom still stand: “No woman desires a man with rabies.”
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