Sam Lemley

Rare Books & Ancestral Machines Spotlights a treasured collection of objects from Carnegie Mellon’s special collections to mark the reopening of the Posner Center.Rare Books & Ancestral Machines is a portable guide to the Posner Cen...

Rare Books & Ancestral Machines is out soon from Carnegie Mellon University Press. It features one hundred books & early calculating machines from the collection alongside eight interpretive essays. Thrilled to see this out in the world!
More here: press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/bo...

A generous and thorough review of The Four Shakespeare Folios in PBSA this month

CMU Electrical and Computer Engineering students Nancy Anderson, Amelia Lobo, and Tanisha Sethi designed a working, modernized model of the Enigma.

CMU Electrical and Computer Engineering students Nancy Anderson, Amelia Lobo, and Tanisha Sethi designed a working, modernized model of the Enigma.

Modernized model of the Enigma.

WWII Enigma machine in Special Collections

Inspired by the two WWII Enigma machines in our Special Collections, @cmu.edu Electrical & Computer Engineering students designed a working, modernized model. 🔐

Their open-source device runs on a Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), featuring a custom Printed Circuit Board (PCB) for input/output.

Fine and Rare V: New Acquisitions in Libraries Special Collections YouTube video by Carnegie Mellon University Libraries

The recording of Fine & Rare V is now available. 📽️

In this special event, Curator of Special Collections @samlemley.bsky.social discusses areas of collection strength, ongoing research, and instructional programs in @cmu.edu's Special Collections.

💻 Watch it here: youtu.be/EBBeiuGRpJU?...

Medieval Tales of Merlin and Arthur, Hidden for Centuries, Return to Light Cambridge University researchers found a manuscript with rare Arthurian tales bound into a ledger more than 400 years old and used advanced technology to reveal its contents.

Medieval Tales of Merlin and Arthur, Hidden for Centuries, Return to Light www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/w...

Thanks, William! Glad to be connected

Fine and Rare V: University Libraries

Join us for an inside look at new and unique highlights from our Special Collections, presented by Curator of Special Collections @samlemley.bsky.social.

Fine and Rare V
Thursday, March 20 at 6:30 p.m. ET

This is a virtual event. Please register to receive the link to attend: cmu.is/Fine-Rare-V

We’re excited to announce an $8m gift to support special collections at @cmulibraries.bsky.social - I’m especially grateful to our curator @samlemley.bsky.social for his partnership and our advancement & marketing teams, and my leadership colleagues at @cmu.edu www.library.cmu.edu/about/news/2...

Thrilled to share that the Posner Center
@cmulibraries.bsky.social will be reimagined as a dynamic & accessible space for research, teaching, and public engagement with Special Collections — thanks to a generous gift from the Posner Foundation of Pittsburgh and the Posner Family. bit.ly/4j1MQyj

Could Monkeys Really Type All of Shakespeare? Not in this universe, a new study concludes.

Shakespeare: 1
Infinite Monkeys: 0

Could Monkeys Really Type All of Shakespeare? www.nytimes.com/2025/01/03/s...

A correct link to the item record! cmu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01...

The portrait shows Jacquard at his desk, a model of his loom nearby. He's inspecting punched cards with a drafting compass. These cards — 24,000 of which would have been required to weave this image — were a precursor to early computer programs, making this a *very* early digital image.

A favorite acquisition last year is this very meta portrait of Jacquard woven in silk on a jacquard loom. It’s scarce: only three copies listed in OCLC. The @cmulibraries.bsky.social copy is also massive: LoC’s copy measures only 59cm in height, ours 84! cmu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/perma…

Showing The Stephen Greenblatt
@cmulibraries.bsky.social Shakespeare Folios a year ago this week — read more about the Libraries' wildly successful 2023 Shakespeare Folio exhibitions & programs here www.library.cmu.edu/exhibits/sha...

A centuries-rich buffet of computational devices, mathematical instruments, and rare books this semester with @carnegiemellon.bsky.social students @cmulibraries.bsky.social Special Collections: Napier’s rods, the Leibniz calculator, a set of Japanese nine-nine cards, and the ever popular Enigma M3.

We're inviting applications for our open science primer training program. Closing date for applications 3 Jan 2025. Events will run across the country during 2025 - details at guides.library.cmu.edu/opensciencep...
As always grateful thanks to our friends at IMLS inc @james3neal.bsky.social

The Search for van Gogh’s Lost Masterpiece Cast off by the Nazis, but heralded by curators, the artist’s painting of his doctor, made just before van Gogh’s suicide, has not been seen in 34 years.

The Search for van Gogh’s Lost Masterpiece www.nytimes.com/2024/12/17/a...

I dig the inbuilt optimism of the name 'Bluesky' — a blue-sky future for knowledge exchange in social media's dumpster-fire era? One can only hope. I'm here now, if infrequently. Working to archive my Xitter feed meanwhile.

cmu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01...

Cataloged some oddities, like this triode vacuum tube packed in horsehair — one obsolete technology nestled in the debris of another. MARC and RDA are blunt instruments for describing artifacts, but a keyword search for "triode" now returns delightful results on the Libraries' catalog!