Megan Rosenbloom

Megan Curran Rosenbloom[1] (born 1981)[2] is an American medical librarian and expert on anthropodermic bibliopegy, the practice of binding books in human skin.[3] She is a team member of the Anthropodermic Book Project, a group which scientifically tests skin-bound books to determine if their origins are human.[4] Rosenbloom is the author of Dark Archives, a 2020 non-fiction book on the history, provenance, and myths about books bound in human skin.[5]

Megan Rosenbloom
Rosenbloom in 2016
Born1981 (age 41–42)
Education
OccupationMedical librarian
Known fordeathsalon.org
Anthropodermic Book Project
WebsiteOfficial website

Education

In 2004, Rosenbloom earned a bachelor of arts degree in journalism from Drexel University. Rosenbloom received her Master of Library and Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh in 2008.[6]

Career

Rosenbloom works as a medical librarian at University of Southern California Norris Medical Library, and as an obituary editor for the Journal of the Medical Library Association.[7]

Through her library work, Rosenbloom had access to a large number of old and rare medical books that were also about death.[7] She began doing public lectures on the way the history of medical advancements is intertwined with the use of nameless corpses and met Caitlin Doughty; together they curate Death Salon events.[8] Rosenbloom believes the more people deny the inevitability of death, "the more people are psychically destroyed when it happens in their lives."[9] She co-founded and directs Death Salon, the events arm of The Order of the Good Death where people can have conversations and discussions with others about death.[10] Death Salons are a mix of private Order of the Good Death business and public events, happening nearly annually since 2013.[11][12]

As a member of the Anthropodermic Book Project, Rosenbloom and her colleagues Daniel Kirby, Richard Hark and Anna Dhody use peptide mass fingerprinting to determine if the binding on books is of human origin.[13] Rosenbloom is part of the outreach team, trying to convince rare book libraries to have their books tested.[13]

Writing
  • Rosenbloom, Megan (Summer 2016). "A Book by its Cover: Identifying & Scientifically Testing the World's Books Bound in Human Skin" (PDF). The Watermark: Newsletter of the Archivists and Librarians in the History of the Health Sciences. 39 (3): 20–22. ISSN 1553-7641.
  • Rosenbloom, Megan (19 October 2016). "A Book by Its Cover". Lapham’s Quarterly. Retrieved 24 December 2018.
  • Rosenbloom, Megan (2020). Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374134709. Retrieved 5 February 2020.

See also

References
  1. "About Megan Rosenbloom". meganrosenbloom.com. Archived from the original on 20 June 2021. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
  2. "Rosenbloom, Megan". LC Linked Data Service: Authorities and Vocabularies (Library of Congress). 8 June 2020. Archived from the original on 22 December 2021. Retrieved 2 November 2020.
  3. "The Team". The Anthropodermic Book Project. 19 October 2015. Archived from the original on 28 January 2021. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  4. "Dark Archives – Megan Rosenbloom". US Macmillan. 14 June 2016. Archived from the original on 5 April 2021. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  5. Jacobson, Christine (30 March 2021). "A Look at Anthropodermic Bibliopegy: On Megan Rosenbloom's "Dark Archives"". Los Angeles Review of Books. Archived from the original on 8 July 2023. Retrieved 8 July 2023.
  6. Journal, Library (16 March 2016). "Megan Rosenbloom – Movers & Shakers 2016 – Educators". Library Journal. Archived from the original on 10 April 2021. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  7. Price, Sallyann (22 October 2019). "Newsmaker: Megan Rosenbloom". American Libraries Magazine. Archived from the original on 28 May 2021. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  8. "About Us". Death Salon. 4 November 2013. Archived from the original on 13 April 2021. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  9. Hayasaki, Erika (25 October 2013). "Death Is Having a Moment". The Atlantic. Archived from the original on 27 July 2021. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
  10. "Megan Rosenbloom". USC Libraries. Archived from the original on 23 August 2020. Retrieved 5 February 2020.
  11. O'Connor, Kim (16 May 2013). "A Profile of the Order of the Good Death". Pacific Standard. Archived from the original on 27 April 2021. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
  12. Ortiz, Jen (21 October 2019). "Death Positivity Movement – I'm Afraid of Dying". Marie Claire. Archived from the original on 28 January 2021. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
  13. Davis, Simon (19 October 2015). "The Quest to Discover the World's Books Bound in Human Skin". Mental Floss. Archived from the original on 2 May 2021. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
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