Ballot Archive

05 Jun 2025

Candidate Details

Candidate Name

David Macfarlane

Academic degrees, honours etc.

Elected to the Council of the Bibliographical Society, 2023, and convenor of its Web Working Group

Profession or occupation

digital humanities consultant and letterpress printer teaching historical printing techniques

Grounds for election

Throughout his career in IT, David Macfarlane has pursued a keen interest in the history and practice of printing. With a longstanding research interest in Tudor book production and historical typography, he is now Curator of the Historical Printing Room at Cambridge University Library and leads Historical Printing classes and demonstrations both there and at the Cambridge Museum of Technology Letterpress Print Shop, which he has revitalised over the past two years. As proprietor of the Green Dolphin Press he has three decades of letterpress printing experience. This included collecting, restoring, cataloguing, and using a large array of hand-set metal type, several different models of printing presses, hot metal casting equipment, and an extensive matrix library. His most recent publication is a Handbook of Letterpress Pamphlets produced over the past 50 years at the Historical Printing Room at Cambridge University Library.

Signatories

The following Fellows have signed this Blue Paper