Who Am I?

My name is Lydia and I am a science librarian.  I have degrees from the University of Texas at San Antonio (B.A. English, 2007) and the University of Oxford (St. Peter’s College, M.St. English 650-1550, 2008) and the University of Texas iSchool, where I earned my M.S.I.S. in 2013 with a focus in academic librarianship, special collections/archives, and conservation with continuing interest in medieval and early modern printed books and manuscripts.  I first began working in libraries as a high school student at my local public library, and I am currently working at the University of Texas at Austin as the Physical & Mathematical Sciences Librarian.

What is book archaeology?

Book archaeology is a fancy way of saying codicology, which is the study of books as physical objects and the individual pieces and techniques that make them up — things like their parchment or vellum, paper, pigments, inks, and so on.  It also includes palaeography, the study of ancient handwriting.

Why did you make this blog?

In this blog, I plan to talk about my coursework as a MSIS student at the University of Texas at Austin iSchool and my previous manuscript palaeography experience at the University of Oxford, as well as my studies in papermaking, printing, and bookbinding at the Southwest School of Art.

Can I just say…?

If you would like to contact me, you can do so by adding a comment to this page or you can find me on Twitter (@lamfletcher), Academia.edu, LinkedIn, Google+ or Goodreads.  I hope you will keep checking back for more things or will add me to your RSS feed reader.

Thanks for reading!