Finch Collins

@finchinthestacks

PGR at the Uni of Manchester, hosted at Chetham’s Library | libraries and data, early modern books and bodies | posts my own

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Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· 12d

Friday afternoon catalogue data wrangling -- personally, I'm fond of "bookse;;er."

Screenshot of a dozen spellings of "bookseller" in the data cleaning interface of OpenRefine: bokkseller, bokseller, bookbinder, bookdealer, bookeseller, bookse;;er, bookseller,$dfl.1746-1749, bookseller, booksellers, boookseller, booseller, booskeller, bpokseller.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Jul 2

Excited for my latest library checkout: @ewatson.bsky.social’s Print and Catholic Persistence in the Dutch Golden Age!

The book Print and Catholic Persistence in the Dutch Golden Age, by Elise Watson. The cover shows a colorful illustration of the Virgin and Child.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Mar 13

If you've enjoyed my posting about #QueerBib26, have no fear--Queer Bibliography will be back in 2027! It will be hybrid. The best way to not miss the CfP is to sign up for the QUEERBIB listserv, which you can do at www.jiscmail.ac.uk/QUEERBIB.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Mar 13

We start the tour with the anthology "Gay Comix," with a lovely cover, and notes of the community diversity (racial, international, and within the LGBTQ community). This issue (#3) includes the first coming-out comic by a trans man!

Front cover of Gay Comix #3 from 1982. An illustration in bright colors showing two bare-chested light-skinned men hitching a ride from two women, one with dark skin and coily hair, and the other with light skin and blond hair, driving a pickup truck.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Mar 13

Kadin turns to John M. Wing's extra illustration. Look at this insertion of a colored portrait of himself!

A 19th-century book with a colored portrait with a signature under it facing the title page of "The Life of George Brummell, Esq.", vol. 1.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Mar 12

This, too, is queer bibliography.

A black and white cat tucking into a small pile of wet cat food.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Mar 12

I mean, c'mon.

Black and white image of a c. 1900 book cover. The central figure is a nude man in a sculptural, sensual pose. "The world is mine whoever comes and goes" is written in a medieval font around the border. The caption reads: Figure 10: a. Michael Field, The World at Auction (Ballantyne, 1898), bound by Phoebe Anna Traquair.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Mar 12

Yingst illustrates this through a historiography of bibliographic and queer/trans studies work on Thomas Middleton and Thomas Dekker’s 1611 "The Roaring Girle." Look at the gendered change between the 1611 first edition and the 1780 printing! On 1780: "both more lurid and less ambiguously gendered."

Image from the 1611 title page of The Roaring Girle. A woodcut showing a person smoking a pipe and holding a sword on their shoulder. The figure wears breeches, buckled shoes with flowers on them, a ruffled collar, a brimmed hat, and a half cape.

Image from the 1780 title page of The Roaring Girle. The woodcut illustration shows the same figure, smoking a pipe and holding a sword on their shoulder, but with a more feminine face, sloping shoulders, and a cocked hat.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Nov 22

Last night @chethamslibrary.bsky.social: Dr. John Dee, warden of the college at Manchester, dreams of books! Part of the event “From Mortlake to Manchester,” which invited visitors to explore the medieval building through Dee’s eyes.

A medieval library press viewed through a wooden gate. On the table is a book-shaped light with translucent books floating above it.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Oct 21

Doing mandatory research integrity training and resisting the urge to give the training feedback that just says "shut up"

Summary

The effort required to create a research plan might be seen to take some of the fun and adventure out of research. When Galileo turned his home-built telescope to the night sky in 1609, he had not planned to make a discovery that would change the course of science. But in Galileo's day, research was largely a private undertaking, mostly self-funded or funded by patrons.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Sep 16

It has! Now I’m in “getting UK life admin set up as a foreigner” mode… but the most important part, Calliope, has gone smoothly!

Black and white cat sitting on a lap, with her paws tucked in. She looks content.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Sep 16

Oh dear… here’s some cows I spotted this weekend!

Three grazing cows, one brown and two black, halfway up a hill covered in tall bushes. The brown cow is looking at the camera.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Sep 11

The awaited life update: I’ve moved to the UK! At the end of the month, I’m beginning a PhD at the University of Manchester. I’ll be researching how library catalogue data can surface marginalized voices in early printed books, and working with Chetham’s Library as a case study. More to come!

Finch, a white person with short brown hair, standing in front of the John Rylands Library, a red stone building with an ornate fence and the library’s name in gold on the side. Finch is smiling at the camera.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Aug 6

It's official! My last day at the Linda Hall Library will be this Friday, August 8th. Watch this space for where I’m off to! In the meantime, I’ve got to pack up for an international move…

Two people looking at an antique book in a glass display case.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Jul 14

Sometimes you go looking for a plate and find that it’s been replaced by a watercolor!

Botanical watercolor of Jonesia asoca, with red and orange cluster of blossoms, dark green foliage, and a brown seed pod. It’s bound into a book from about 1800.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Jun 23

Coming to #RBMS2025 this week? Interested in queer and LGBTQ+ library work and bibliography? Join us for a casual meet up on Thursday afternoon at the Blue Orchid! Please repost and share the flyer widely! #QueerBibliography 📚

RBMS 2025 Queer Bibliography Meet-up! Thursday, June 26, 4 to 5 PM, at the Blue Orchid, 130 Court St., New Haven, Connecticut 06511.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Jun 10

Printed by a woman! German Euclid by Heinrich Hofmann, “gedruckt daselbst bey Johan Weidners Witwe” (“printed there by Johan Weidner’s widow”).

1628 title page for the book “Heinrich Hofmanni[i] Professoris Mathematici in der Universitat Jehna, Teutscher Euclides…” The imprint is given as “Johan Weidners Witwe.”

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Apr 9

how your email finds me

Illustration of three dung beetles rolling their dung balls, done in a 19th-century style.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Mar 5

I'm consulting David Lyndsay's VIAF file to make a point about gender and linked open data, and this MARC 375 really took me out. Gender goals, I think??

Machine-readable library cataloging (MARC) record for David Lyndsay, who lived and published as a man his whole life. The 375 field, for "Gender," reads "subfield a Females subfield a Males subfield 2 lcdgt," suggesting that Lyndsay is simultaneously male and female for his whole life, which is maybe gender goals?

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Feb 28

Finally, you can view the scanned books through the Linda Hall Library catalog! ⚡1823, "Observations on the Effects of Lightning on Floating Bodies": catalog.lindahall.org/permalink/01... ⚡c. 1861, "Three Experimental Illustrations...": catalog.lindahall.org/permalink/01...

Two gold-printed illustrations of a stylized mast, with three vertical segments scaffolding upwards connected by two vertical pieces. The righthand illustration is greyed along the path a current took through it. The second experiment was intended to show, in a stylized way, the effect of the lightning rod rising and falling as the jibs and rigging were adjusted.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Feb 28

Allison links to my blog post about Harris and the illustrations, if you're curious for more: www.lindahall.org/about/news/n...

Two sets of scattered shapes printed in gold leaf. The righthand set has a greyed area where a current ran through it. It demonstrates the course of electricity through a random array of disjointed metal surfaces.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Feb 28

I'm going to make a "referenced" section on my CV just to cite this.

References. Finch Collins, assistant curator of rare books at the Linda Hall Library, in Kansas City, Mo., introduced me to the books of William Snow Harris. You should have seen his face when I asked if we could apply a battery to one of the lightning experiments in the book. You can see the books in person by visiting the library. Or you can enjoy fully scanned copies of Observations on the Effects of Lightning on Floating Bodies and Three Experimental Illustrations from your computer.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Feb 28

New from LHL NEH fellow Allison Marsh: the gold-printed lightning diagrams of William Snow Harris. I had the great pleasure of introducing Allison to these books, acquired by the History of Science collection in 2024! spectrum.ieee.org/lightning-ro... #HistSci 📚

Pair of gold-leafed illustrations showing a sailor on a wooden ship holding a chain. The chain loops below the sailor as he holds it. The illustration on the right has the gold leaf charred at the top of the chain, the sailor, and the bottom of the chain, with the loop untouched, illustrating the danger of running a chain up a ship's mast during a lightning storm.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Feb 25

Don't mind me, just depicting the lymph nodes...

Full-color anatomical illustration of the first layer of the lower back, picturing muscles, lymph nodes, and tendons, with the anatomical figure's hips tilted back in contrapposto, revealing the anus and testicles. The image is from "Anatomia universale" ("Back, Stratum Primum," tab. 2, Florence: 1833). The anatomist and author is Paolo Mascagni and the artist is Antonio Serrantoni. Credit to the National Library of Medicine.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Feb 25

A great cover slide and a game of "recognize that queer theory cover font"--I swear I've seen both before and just need to figure them out.

Cover slide for the lecture "Queer Anatomies: Aesthetics and Perverse Desire in the 18th- and 19th-Century Anatomical Image, or: The Epistemology of the Anatomical Closet," by Mike Sappol, Uppsala University, Feb. 2025. The title is rendered in 2 very 90s' fonts that are definitely from queer theory books that I haven't been able to identify. To the left of the title is a full-color anatomical image of a human face with veins and muscles exposed.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Feb 12

I’m looking forward to attending this online! And what an amazing book cover! Paging the #QueerBib crowd especially.

Book cover of Michael Sappol’s “Queer Anatomies: Aesthetics and Desire in the Anatomical Image, 1700-1900.” The background is light pink, with a dark pink reproduction of an 18th-century anatomical illustration of two very buff men wrestling, evocative of Greco-Roman statuary. One of the men has his very well-defined rear to the viewer, while he lifts the other man, whose struggles reveal defined arm muscles.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Feb 12

My latest New Acquisition highlight: lichen, moss, and female scientific researchers! Click through for the glass tubes of lichen specimens preserved in the book structure (!!), stay for the tangible history of women in science. #HistSci 📜 📚 www.lindahall.org/about/news/l...

Detail of large letterpress spread reading “Rhizoplaca Chrysoleuca.” The letters are printed in a speckled turquoise, orange, and grey, resembling lichen on a rock.

Field collection detail for sunburst lichen, X. fallax, with eight watercolor observations of the lichen’s colors and handwritten information on specimen number, taxon, common name, habitat, season/date recorded, and additional notes.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Feb 10

This label on a scanned microfilm of a NASA tech report must have a story behind it.

Portion of a tech report page. There is a diagram of some space equipment with labels too faded to be legible. In the top corner is a label, placed atop the book during scanning, that says, "original page is of poor quality." It's unclear if the label was added when the microfilm was made from the book or when the microfilm was scanned into a digital format.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Feb 7

On my virtual desk today: a blog post on an artist's book we acquired in 2024! More on Rhiannon Alpers' "Lichen: Rambles in the Colorado Front Range" coming in the next week or so. #HistSci 📚 (where do the lichennologists hang out around here?)

Detail of an artist's book spread featuring large, serif font printed in turquoise with splatters of grey, orange, and white. The pattern resembles lichen. The text is cut off but reads "Rhizoplaca chrysoleuca."

Specimen of orange hooded sunburst lichen (Xanthoria fallax) seen through a ten times magnification loupe. The lichen is in a glass vial. The lichen is frilly and folds in on itself.

Finch Collins@finchinthestacks· Feb 7

My personal favorite, from founding Linda Hall curator Joseph Shipman...