Staff profile

I started at Palace Green Library in October 2017 on a temporary, externally funded contract to work on the Bamburgh Library collection. In October 2018, I was made a permanent member of staff to help look after and provide access to all rare book collections held at PGL.

From 2009 until 2019, I worked freelance as a historic libraries consultant and rare books cataloguer, and advised private clients on historic library management and cataloguing projects. Over the years, I have also been involved in historic building and garden restoration and interpretation projects as a historical consultant. 

I received MAs in English Literature and Medieval Studies from the University of Groningen before embarking on a PhD at the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York. After a period of working as a part-time tutor in the Department of History at Leicester University, I retrained as a librarian, gaining a MSc(Econ) from Aberystwyth University.

I am particularly interested in the use of books and book collections as material expressions of identity and cultural values; early modern herbals and gardening, especially in relation to health; and early forms of library management. 

• History of libraries in the early modern period
• Materiality of the book and the use of books in the early modern period
• Medieval and early modern herbals and health

Book review

• Westerhof, D. (online). Death at court (ed. K-H. Spiess and I. Warntjes)

Chapter in book

• Westerhof, D. (2024). Dead and dying bodies. In D. Davies (Ed.), Cultural history of death in the middle ages (25-40). (1). Bloomsbury
• Westerhof, D. (2013). A most profitable book: Publishing, owning and reading Petrus de Crescentiis’ Ruralia commoda between c.1450 and c.1550′. In W. Pietrzak, & M. Kozluk (Eds.), Le cabinet du curieux: Culture, savoirs, religion de l’Antiquité à l’Ancien Régime. Classiques Garnier
• Westerhof, D. (2013). Amputating the traitor: Healing the social body in public executions for treason in late medieval England. In S. Akbari, & J. Ross (Eds.), The ends of the body: Identity and community in medieval culture. University of Toronto Press
• Westerhof, D. (2010). Introduction. In The Alchemy of Medicine and Print: The Edward Worth Library, Dublin. Four Courts Press
• Westerhof, D. (2010). Petrus de Crescentiis’ Ruralia commoda: An agricultural regimen sanitatis?. In The Alchemy of Medicine and Print: The Edward Worth Library, Dublin. Four Courts Press
• Westerhof, D. (2005). Celebrating Fragmentation: The Presence of Aristocratic Body Parts in Monastic Houses in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century England. In J. Hall, & C. Kratzke (Eds.), Sepulturae Cistercienses: Burial, memorial and patronage in medieval Cistercian monasteries. Citeaux

Edited book

• Westerhof, D. (Ed.). (2010). The Alchemy of Medicine and Print: The Edward Worth Library, Dublin. Four Courts Press

Journal Article

• Westerhof, D. (online). Deconstructing identities on the scaffold: The execution of Hugh Despenser the Younger, 1326. Journal of Medieval History,
• Westerhof, D. (2021). A British Book Collector: Rare Books and Manuscripts in the R.E. Hart Collection, Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery, edited by Cynthia Johnston. Library and Information History, 37(3), 247-248. https://doi.org/10.3366/lih.2021.0088

Monograph

• Westerhof, D. (2008). Death and the Noble Body in Medieval England. Boydell & Brewer

Other (Print)

• Westerhof, D. (2017). A Hidden World of Childhood Tales – books in the Museum of Childhood, Sudbury Hall
• Westerhof, D. (2017). Circe's Enchanted Ark at Mount Stewart
• Westerhof, D. (2017). Getting away from grandeur
• Westerhof, D. (2016). Curzona’s pastimes: the writings of Mary Assheton, Lady Curzon
• Westerhof, D. (2015). A view from the margin: Cataloguing antiquarian books freelance