Starting from today, we'll share some of the gems in the collections of our amazing contributors. First off: the Winterbourne HG Press. Broken historical printing machines have been salvaged and restored so that important aspects of the printing history can be kept till today.

What a great way to keep the printing heritage alive

Today we’d like to introduce our contributor Amberley Museum, the only working historical printing house south of England. It houses fully working machinery and artefacts, e.g. a Columbian ‘Eagle’ flat-bed press (c 1856); engraved copper plates; Linotype machines and many more!

Amazing! We hope our site can give the printing community more space to celebrate letterpress very soon!

Did you know that Beamish Museum is also our contributor? A world famous open air museum which brings the history of north-east England to life, it's home to important artifacts of printing history, incl. Columbia flat-bed press (1840), Stanhope printing press, many more.

Seeing letterpress at work is such an important part of printing heritage!

Proud to have the Pickering Beck Isle Museum Museum of Rural Life as our contributor. The museum hosts a printing house where visitors can see a historic, hand-operated printing press in action & have a go at some basic printing techniques in Activity Room and create their own lino prints.

C19 printing history is connected with the industrialisation of the British Isles, as our contributor Bradford Industrial Museum nicely demonstrates. Some of its collection highlights include: Monotype machine; Linotype model 78; and Meteor Automatic stop-cylinder printing press.

How to keep the printing history alive and relevant? Certainly one important way is through education, as our amazing contributor the Bodleian Bibliographical Press does. The teaching programme offers learning sessions, using technologies from 15th - 21st century.

A piece like this helps bring printing history to life.

Ditchling was at the heart of a revolution in lettering beginning of 20th C, and we’re lucky to have Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft as our contributor. One of the collection stars is the Stanhope printing press, which represents the very beginning of the St Dominic’s Press.

The theme of #InternationalMuseumDay 2024 is Museums for Education and Research. VMoP is proud to support this mission through our work, but we can't do it without our wonderful supporters and contributors. Want to play your part? We'd love to hear from you!

We share mission of education & research with our contributors. One example is Cambridge University Library Historical Printing Room. It originated from a decision to set up a bibliographical teaching press, and the Library has a significant collection of archival resources & printing artefacts.

A great example of the materiality of book history

Our website is now live!! Check out the pages at vmop.org.uk, where you can find out more about the VMoP project, our current contributors, and ways you or your organisation can support us or take part.

CALL for Contribution: Passionate about printing history and culture? Keen to inspire interest in print collections in the British Isles? We'd love to have your blog on our newly launched website! See more details 👇or follow the link: tinyurl.com/453rm9vb

Interested in writing a blog for us, but not sure where to start? Why not take a look at our first post, vmop.org.uk/blog/welcome, where you can find more about VMoP, what we look for in blog posts, and other ways that you can get involved. We look forward to hearing from you!

The design of the bookplate is practically a mini universe of the trade of printing. 🤗

Would love to be there to see printing history comes to life 🤩

The first blog from our collection contributor is live! In ‘George Baxter and his patented ‘Baxter Process’ prints’ (vmop.org.uk/blog/baxter), Syd Exton and Yvonne Smith from the The New Baxter Society explores the Baxter process and a wide range of prints made with this process.