Eye Balm: 10 Bookish Insta Feeds to Put on Your Radar

Ah, January: that month touted as the time to refresh everything from one's diet and wellness to home decor. Why not apply the same mentality to your daily Insta scroll with some new bibliocentric feeds.

Special collections libraries, rare booksellers and collectors have embraced Instagram as an ideal platform to virtually share their treasures with the world. Fellow FB&C writer Nate Pedersen wrote the inaugural "rare Books on Instagram" post back in 2016, profiling institutional accounts like those of the British Library (@britishlibrary), the American Antiquarian Society (@americanantiquarian), and others. Follow-up posts looked at librarian accounts and collector feeds. Keeping with that theme, below, in no particular order, are ten noteworthy institutional Instagram accounts that excel at showcasing rare books, manuscripts, and other works on paper.                                

Don't have an Instagram account? No problem: All of these accounts are freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection.                                                                                                                                  

La Bibliothèque nationale France (@labnf)

The Barr Smith Library at the University of Adelaide (@uofaspecialcollections)

The New York Public Library (@nypl)

Musée de Cluny (@museecluny) 

The Harry Ransom Center (@ransomcenter) 

The Emily Dickinson Museum (@emilydickinson.museum) 

The Printing Museum (@theprintingmuseum)

The HuntingtonLibrary (@thehuntingtonlibrary)

The Johns Hopkins University (@jhuspecialcollections)

The Alaska Digital Newspaper Project (@alaskahistoricalnewspapers)