A Picture of Health

Posted on October 28, 2014 by lwillia5

On Thursday 30^th October from 10am, Louise and Clair from Lothian Health Services Archive (LHSA) will be on the Library Pop desk on the first floor of the Main Library. LHSA is one of the largest medical archives in the UK, holding everything from institutional records of Edinburgh’s hospitals to small personal collections from those who worked inside them.

Including registers and minutes, plans, photographs, objects, audio-visual media and more, our archive documents the history of healthcare in Edinburgh and the Lothians over more than four hundred years (our earliest holding dates from 1594). Our collections trace the social, political, economic and (of course) medical history of our city and are widely used by the general public, students and academics. Our most popular resources come from our Royal Edinburgh Hospital (REH) collections, a psychiatric hospital (‘asylum’) that has just celebrated its bicentenary. Ranging from admission registers to patient letters, artwork and case books, the good recordkeeping of the hospital has led to a wealth of unique sources for students, academics and family historians exploring patient experiences in the nineteenth century.

Artwork by Royal Edinburgh Hospital patient, John Willis Mason, c. 1890s (GD16).

On Thursday, we’ll be focussing on our image collections. As Clair has been cataloguing LHSA’s considerable collection of photographs, she has put together a slideshow of some of her favourites:

Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh Ward, 1895 (P/PL1)

We’ll also be remembering the centenary of the First World War in our display by bringing along a number of collection items. For example, you will be able to see a rare wartime photo album from the Edenhall Hospital for Limbless Soldiers and Sailors (based near Musselburgh) and a scrapbook from nurse Ethel Miller. Nurse Miller worked in the 2^nd Scottish General Hospital Craigleith, where she decided to pass around a book amongst her soldier patients to record their memories, verses and sketches. The scrapbook is a real favourite with LHSA staff, and in autumn last year we produced a replica copy that is used in education work:

Page from the scrapbook of Nurse Ethel Miller, c. 1917 (Acc12/20)

So come and see us on Thursday from 10am and we can let you know how LHSA can help you, from historical research to sources for projects and finding your own Edinburgh family history.

Louise Williams, LHSA Archivist

Dolly Pops Up…

Posted on October 27, 2014 by towardsdolly

Did you know that Edinburgh has been a world leader in genetics for over a century? And that there’s definitely more to cloning than just Dolly the sheep? Come to the Pop-Up Library on the first floor of the Main Library between 10 and 12 tomorrow (28th) to learn about the fascinating animal genetics collections revealed by the Towards Dolly project, and have some fun while you’re at it. Don’t miss the chance to win some fabulous prizes (including ‘Dolly’ Mixtures, naturally). And yes, there will be a sheep drawing contest.

Don’t be a drone, be a clone – see you there!

Clare Button, Project Archivist, ‘Towards Dolly: Edinburgh, Roslin and the Birth of Modern Genetics’

Edinburgh College of Art library resources

Posted on October 27, 2014 by jfurness

There will be two ECA-related Pop Up Library sessions at the Main Library during Week 8 of Semester 1.

On Monday 3rd November from 2.00pm – 4.00pm Jane Furness and Margaret Redpath will be on hand to show everyone who visits the Pop Up Library desk some treasures from the ECA Artists’ Books collection. We will also be showing you how to search for Artists’ Books on the library catalogue and answering any questions you may have about Artists’ Books.

On Thursday 6th November from 10.00am – 12noon we will be on hand to talk about ECA Library resources more generally, including how to access e-resources for Art, Design, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, History of Art, and Music.

What’s on: 27th- 31st October

Posted on October 24, 2014 by alaurins

#LibraryPop

Drop in sessions -1st Floor Main Library

27th October- 31st October

	AM	PM Get the Best of the Library Week- Meet your Academic Support Librarian
Monday	Metadata games(Tag image collections)	2-3pm Divinity, History, Classics & Archaeology3-4pm Politics & International Relations, Economics
Tuesday	Towards Dolly(Documenting the birth of modern genetics)	2-3pm Literatures, Languages and Cultures3-4pm Business School, Informatics
Wednesday	Session cancelled 🙁	2-3pm Design, History of Art, Architecture, Music, Law3-4pm Medicine
Thursday	Lothian Health Service Archive	2-3pm Sociology, Social Work, Social Policy, Education3-4pm Psychology, Philosophy, Language Sciences, Research Methods
Friday	Zombie Apocalypse –Accessing resources off campus(ResourceLists@Edinburgh)	2-3pm Health in Social Science3-4pm Chemistry, Physics, Maths

Get the best from the Library week @Pop-up Library

Posted on October 24, 2014 by cstirling

All next week, 27^th-31^st October, the afternoon Pop-up Library sessions are being taken over by the Library Academic Support team for Get the Best from the Library Week.

Get the Best from the Library Week is all about helping you find out more about how the Library can work for you at the University of Edinburgh. So why not pop up and meet us at the 1^st floor, Main Library between 2-4pm every day next week.

During the Get the Best from the Library Week you can:

Discover the full range of information resources available to you
Find out about new resources purchased recently
Get one-to-one support from a library specialist in your subject area

The Library Academic Support team provides support to staff and students for all matters relating to library services, so no matter what your question is, we aim to help.

You can find out what subject areas are being covered each afternoon from the Get the Best from the Library Week timetable.

Hope to see you there!

Brought to you by the Library Academic Support Team.

For the love of Gaelic (and everything else Scottish).

Posted on October 21, 2014 by emacgillivray

The School of Scottish Studies Archives holds:

over 30,000 sound recordings
320 film / video items
over 50,000 images
manuscript collections

As part of the University’s Gaelic Week programme of events we will be popping-up at the first floor reception desk in the University Library on Thursday 23 October, 2-4pm. We will be highlighting some of our Gaelic holdings but will also have information available on all of our collections.

Over the past sixty years, fieldworkers at the School of Scottish Studies have collected thousands of audio recordings of songs, music, tales, verse, customs, belief, oral history and much more in Gaelic, Scots and English. These are complemented by film, photographic and manuscript collections. From rallying political songs to soothing lullabies, supernatural tales to humorous anecdotes, traditional crafts to fire festivals; the full range of Scotland’s cultural legacy is represented and brought to life in this rich tapestry of archive material.

The School of Scottish Studies Archives
Peter Cooke interviewing George Moss

There will be an opportunity to listen to some of our thousands of recordings, many of which can be accessed online via the Tobar an Dualchais / Kist o’ Riches website.

You can also learn, hands on, about the history of sound recording. Sound recordings were made using a variety of recording machines from wax cylinders to DAT tapes and digital memory cards. For many decades the reel to reel recording machine using quarter-inch magnetic tape was the standard and as a result the vast majority of our archive recordings are on open reel tape.

We invite you to come along to make your own recording using an open reel tape machine! You can record your own message or why not try one of the Gaelic or Scots sayings that we have selected? You can take the section of tape away with you, and we will also give you a QR code so that you can then listen to your recording online.

All this and more at the School of Scottish Studies Archives Pop-Up Library session on Thursday 23 October, 2-4pm.

Literature Review Q&A

Image

What is a literature review? Do I need to do a literature review? How do I get started with my literature review?

Bring these and any other questions you may have to the Pop-up Library on the first floor of the Main Library, where a Librarian will be available to answer them from 10.00 – 12.00 on Friday 24th October.

freebies, prizes and your digital footprint

Posted on October 20, 2014 by lconnelly

Managing your digital footprint was at the Pop-Up Library this morning (20 October 2014) and we will be back on 3 November with more freebies, prizes and activities.

What is your digital footprint?
It’s the data you leave behind when you go online. It’s what you’ve said, what others have said about you, where you’ve been, images you’re tagged in, personal information, social media profiles and much more.

Prizes and activities
(Eligibility: University of Edinburgh students)

You could win a Kindle! There are a number of ‘you have found a foot’ posters around campus. There are also a number of ‘you have found a foot’ images on various University web pages, Facebook pages and blogs. Find at least 5 (all on campus, all online, or both) and enter the competition for an opportunity to win a Kindle*.The competition will take place from 29 Sept-31 Oct 2014.
You could win a £10 book token! Take a few minutes to complete the ‘managing your digital footprint’ survey. Further details www.ed.ac.uk/iad.digitalfootprint
Contribute to our virtual walls (Padlets). We would like you to contribute to the virtual walls (Padlet), so that we can collect and share a variety of resources. You can add text, links, images, and audio to the virtual wall. You can add as many as you would like to the different Padlets. Further details www.ed.ac.uk/iad.digitalfootprint

Follow and find us: DF_cmyk_maxquality

Discover Gaelic Special Collections from New College Library

Posted on October 20, 2014 by cloverodgers

—Grant, Peter. Dain spioradail. Elgin : Peter Macdonald, bookseller, 1837. New College Library Gaelic Collections 250.

Did you know that over 400 items which together form the Gaelic Collections at New College Library have recently been catalogued online? Come and join me at the Pop-up Library (on the first floor of the Main Library) on Wednesday 22 October, 10-12 pm, to find out more.

The Gaelic Collection contains several editions of “Dain spioradail ” by the celebrated hymn writer Peter Grant, and this edition at Gaelic Coll. 250 is the fifth edition, considerably enlarged and improved from earlier editions. It was published in Elgin, in the highlands of Scotland.

The title page information refers to Grant’s Gaelic name Pàdraig Grannd nan Òran, which means ‘Peter Grant of the songs’. Grant was a Baptist minister, born on 30 January 1783 at Ballintua, Strathspey, Scotland. He was a skilled fiddle player, who was able to set his poems on evangelical themes to well known tunes which were popular into the twentieth century. This work is typical of the works in the Gaelic Collection, which contains many volumes of religious poetry. The Gaelic Collection was put together from various sources, including a substantial donation from the bequest of the Rev. Roderick Macleod.

Christine Love-Rodgers, Academic Support Librarian – Divinity