Category Archives: Featured

2020 World Book Day

Do you know today is World Book Day? Originally designated by UNESCO on 23rd April, World Book Day in the UK has been celebrated on the first Thursday in March since 1995 and is a celebration of  reading, authors, illusatrators and of course, books!

Here at the University Collections Facility, we definetely don’t want to miss out this opportunity to appreciate our beloved collections and share some of them with you!

The Jim Burns Portfolio

Who said an academic library can only be solemn? At the UCF we have a wide range of collections including those science fiction fans’ favorite. The Jim Burns Portfolio is a collection of 28 Jim Burns’ best known works.

 

This folio contain full-page images which represent the work of Burns, including his work between 1978 and 1989, and also Burn’s words to his supportive fans.

 

The Ideal Book

What’s your ideal book to spend a whole weekend reading on your cozy couch? We have The Ideal Book for you! Written by William S. Peterson ( 1939-) the Ideal Book records essays and lectures by William Morris ( 1834-1896) written on book art. On World Book Day, let’s all read through the book which contain the wisdom from Morris, whose novelty theories and views on book art made a siginificant impact on modern design.

The book also includes four interviews with Morris, which not only provide a first hand record of Morris and his works but also a valuable chance to learn about him as an individual.

 

What’s your favorite book, and how are you celebrating World Book Day? Do share with us in the comments below. If you want to find out more about the University Collections Facility and our collections, please visit our webstite.

The University Collections Facility

World Book Day

Sandy Lin, UCF Library Assistant

 

 

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The Christmas Book Flood

Image: Engraving by F. Barnard from Christmas Books by Charles Dickens, (LRA.S.6660/1). Title page.

Here at the UCF, things are feeling firmly festive – the tiny office tree has been bedecked, mince pies are heaped in the break room, and staff are sporting some of their best knitwear – it’s definitely almost Christmas! Beyond all the feasting and gift-giving, one of my favourite moments of the season is having the time to slow down and relax, to cosy up in front of a warm fire and read a good book by the glow of fairy lights. And this is exactly the Christmas custom in Iceland. Every year in the few months approaching December, publishers release all their new titles in the prevailing tradition of Jólabókaflóðið, or the “Christmas book flood”. This practice dates back to World War II, where currency restrictions limited the amount of imported giftware. This did not extend to paper however, and therefore the humble book became the default gift. Christmas Eve is the main gift-giving day in Iceland, and after receiving their crisp new books many Icelanders spend the night cosied up and reading away, as in my idyllic winter image.

In the same spirit, I hope to introduce you to a deluge of Christmas books held here at the UCF. Amongst the more literary offerings, there are some unexpected instructive volumes; The history of the Christmas card (.74168 Bud.) for example, a guide to eradicating Christmas tree pests (Reference seq.) and the slightly less seasonal, An investigation of the coconut-growing potential of Christmas Island (F 634.616 Dir.). I’m not sure those titles are exactly what I’m hoping to find under my tree this year!

Offering us a more festive read is Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Christmas Sermon (LRA.S.3773). First appearing in the pages of Scribner’s Magazine in 1888, these musings were subsequently published in their own slim little volume by Chatto & Windus in 1906. Here, Stevenson considers how Christmas is a period of both reflection and celebration:

“There is no cutting of the Gordian knots of life; each must be smilingly unravelled. To be honest, to be kind – to earn a little and to spend a little less, to make, upon the whole, a family happier for his presence, to renounce when that shall be necessary and not be embittered, to keep a few friends, but these without capitulation – above all, on the same grim condition, to keep friends with himself – here is a task for all that a man has fortitude and delicacy. He has an ambitious soul who would ask more; he has a hopeful spirit who should look in such an enterprise to be successful…But Christmas is not only the mile-mark of another year, moving us to thoughts of self-examination: it is a season, from all its associations, whether domestic or religious, suggesting thoughts of joy (p. 14-16)”

A handwritten inscription in the opening pages, “With much love from…” shows us that this book too was originally given as a gift, which is a cheering thought.

Furthermore, I cannot think of Christmas and not think of Dickens. This may be because The Muppet Christmas Carol is the most beloved film in my household at this time of year, but I am firmly of the opinion that in this tale, Dickens created the best and most enduring Christmas story of all time. We hold several editions of this classic at the UCF, including within a collection of Dickens’ Christmas books published in 1892 by Chapman & Hall (LRA.S.6660/1). In the preface, Dickens writes of the volume: “My chief purpose was, in a whimsical kind of masque which the good-humour of the season justified, to awaken some loving and forbearing thoughts, never out of season in a Christian land.” Bound in an appropriate holly-green with gold lettering on the spine, this beautiful volume is further illustrated inside with 28 engravings by F. Barnard. Above you may see the decorative title page, whilst below is Ebenezer Scrooge encountering the ghost of Jacob Marley, and a transformed Scrooge carrying Tiny Tim through the streets on Christmas day.

Image: Christmas Books, opposite title page.

Image: Christmas Books, p. 8.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My family will most definitely be receiving some rectangular-shaped packages this Christmas, although perhaps not a first edition Dickens. During my most recent bookshop trip I even accidentally picked up a little gift for myself – Stuart Kells’ The Library: a catalogue of wonders (Counterpoint, 2018). The blurb calls it, “A love letter to libraries and to their makers and protectors”, and I can’t think of anything better to curl up with on Christmas Eve. A Merry Christmas to us all, and happy reading!

 

Daisy Stafford, UCF Library Assistant

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Halloween Highland Superstitions

Image: Title page of a manuscript copy of The secret commonwealth by Robert Kirk, 1692. Held in The Laing Collection (La.III.551).

The day of Halloween is upon us and here at the UCF we’re marking the occasion the only way we know how…with some seriously spooky books! A quick click through the catalogue reveals some absolutely terrifying reading material. Titles such as Bats in roofs: a guide for surveyors (699.878), A bibliographical ghost revisits his old haunts (.01 Fra.), and Safe handling of corpses containing radioactive substances (WN650 Nat 1966) are lurking on our shelves. It’s enough to make even the most stoic librarian shudder!

Continuing to search for the magical and mystical amongst our collections, I came across a title by Robert Kirk; The secret commonwealth of elves, fauns & fairies: a study in folk-lore & psychical research (tOD 91 KIR). Kirk was a Gaelic scholar, folklorist, and alumnus of The University of Edinburgh. He collated this collection of folklore between 1691 and 1692 but died without seeing it published, which wasn’t until over a century later in 1815, by Sir Walter Scott. Several copies are held amongst the universities collections, whilst an 1893 edition, digitised by the HathiTrust, can be found here. Besides being a very significant work in its own right, it has recently served as the inspiration for the title of the second volume in Philip Pullman’s Book of Dust trilogy.

We only hold one item however, with the word Halloween actually in its title. This is Alexander Macgregor’s Highland superstitions; connected with the Druids, fairies, witchcraft, second-sight, Hallowe’en, sacred wells and lochs, with several curious instances of Highland customs and beliefs (SSSA.S.841). Published in Stirling in 1901 it lives amongst the School of Scottish Studies collection. A slim, unassuming volume, bound in forest-green, it details the events of All Hallows Eve as follows:

“Hallowe’en in Gaelic means “Samhuinn,” that is “Samhtheine,” the fire of peace. It is a Druidical festival, at which the fire of peace is regularly kindled. There is no night in the year which the popular imagination has stamped with a more peculiar character than Hallowe’en. It was the night, above all others, when supernatural influences prevailed. It was the night for the universal walking abroad of all sorts of spirits, fairies, and ghosts, all of whom had liberty on that night. It was customary in many parts of Scotland to have hundreds of torches prepared in each district for weeks before Hallowe’en, so that, after sunset on that evening, every youth able to carry a blazing torch, or “samhnag,” ran forth to surround the boundaries of their farms with these burning lights, and thereby protect all their possessions from the fairies. Having thus secured themselves by these fires of peace, all the households congregated to practice the various ceremonies and superstitious rites of that eventful evening. (p. 44)”

Some of the rites and ceremonies Macgregor describes we might recognise, such as ducking for apples or the reading of fortunes in teacups. Others, less so, “the wetting of the shirt sleeve, the sowing of hemp seed, pulling the stalks of corn, throwing the clue of blue yarn into the pit of the kiln, the white of eggs put into a glass of water” (p.46) do not feature in our modern autumnal festivities. An evocative account of the latter ceremony follows, in which a fresh egg is punctured with a pin and allowed to drip into a glass of pure water, to reveal one’s destiny:

“The glass is then held up to the candle, and some important event in the future of the life of the inquirer is found exhibited hieroglyphically in the glass, – the egg droppings assuming an endless variety of shapes, in which the skilful in these matters discover a resemblance to things, which, by association, clearly point out coming circumstances and events. All this was done by an old, weird Sybil, who had been invited for the special purpose of reading to the young folks the various signs and indications of this privileged right. (p.49)”

Perhaps you will take a leaf out of our book (and Macgregor’s) by adding this early 20th century rite into your revelries this evening. The Beltane Samhuinn Fire Festival is keeping the smahnag tradition alive with their yearly blazing display on Calton Hill. Happy Samhuinn!

 

Daisy Stafford, UCF Library Assistant

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Sheep Showcase

Have you ever met Jordan, the Library Cat? What if there was another furry animal in the Library, maybe not as alive, but nonetheless as interesting?

The Main Library’s newest Fringe Festival exhibition opens on Friday 31st July 2015, featuring Dolly, the sheep!

Showcasing not only Dolly herself (on loan courtesy of National Museums Scotland), but also rare books, archive documents, pictures, sound and film clips from the University of Edinburgh’s Special Collections, presenting all the research that eventually led to the creation of Dolly, the first animal in the world to be cloned from an adult cell.

Towards Dolly books

A sample of the University collections on display

The Fly Room

The Fly Room – from the Towards Dolly exhibition

The Curator, Clare Button’s words about the exhibition:

Dolly is the most famous chapter in Edinburgh’s long genetics history. This exhibition tells the wider story of the many pioneering discoveries which have taken place here, taking our visitors ‘towards Dolly’ and beyond.

We, here at the Library Annexe, are happy to be able to contribute with a few books from our collections. These are:

If you become interested in the subject, and would like to have a look at these books, they will be requestable again after the end of the exhibition, through DiscoverEd.

Further links:

University of Edinburgh Exhibitions: Towards Dolly

News and Events: Dolly stars in genetics exhibition

Towards Dolly

‘Towards Dolly: A Century of Animal Genetics in Edinburgh’

The exhibition is free and open to the public from 31 July to 31 October 2015, Monday to Saturday, 10am to 5pm.

Exhibition Gallery, Main Library, George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9LJ

Viktoria Varga, Library Annexe Assistant

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Do it like they do on the DiscoverEd channel

DiscoverEd is the Library's discovery service and principal search tool

DiscoverED, the University of Edinburgh’s new one step information, discovery and delivery service, is now on-line and fully operational. You can request Library Annexe items using the new service; all you have to do is sign in and find the items using the search bar. As well as books, DiscoverEd will search ebooks, ejournal articles and more.

The first request for a Library Annexe item was placed by non-other than our staff member Dominic Tate. Congrats Dominic, we know how important this is to you. [You will receive your diploma in the mail shortly.]

You can read all about DiscoverED at the links below.

About DiscoverEd

Search for Library Annexe items and more

Marko Mlakar, Library Annexe Assistant

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Employ.Ed Hidden Collections Intern – Weeks 5 to 6

Three quarters of the internship now behind me, I have decided to focus on actually finishing off projects that I have been working on – and that means the New Zealand House periodicals collection first and foremost. That is now almost entirely listed, and should hopefully start appearing on the catalogue in the foreseeable future (and a few things are already available under an NZSC Per. Shelfmark). The list currently contains 125 series, some of which are unique in the UK, ranging from art magazines, through government journals and statistics, to environmental agencies’ reports.

On a more serendipitous note, I stumbled across a collection of works of the hitherto unknown to me Ukrainian poetess Lesya Ukrainka, and found really good poem about… Robert Bruce. The poem was written in 1893, when Ukraine was within the borders of the Russian Empire, and played its part in the national resurrection and independence movements of the Ukrainian people. For all the differences between the circumstances they are in, with one country considering independence and the other at risk of losing it yet again, the history of both Ukraine and Scotland is currently being written, and in that context this poem sounds very relevant and appropriate.*

*We only have the book in Ukrainian; I am afraid that the full text of Robert Bruce, King of Scotland is not available in English online or at Edinburgh University Library, but here is a link to the UK holdings of her collected works in English translation:

COPAC holdings for Lesya Ukrainka

Nik Slavov, Hidden Collections intern

Request Lesya Ukrainka books and other authors through Inter-Library Loans

Not available at University of Edinburgh? Recommend a book

Find New Zealand House periodicals on the online catalogue

 

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Employ.Ed Hidden Collections Intern – Weeks 2 to 4

Halfway through the internship, so here comes another update from the Annexe.

These few weeks have been a lot more eventful than I would have expected.

Let me try and get things in chronological order. In week two I made a list of (hopefully) everything in our House of Lords collection (or everything in our collection that is to do with the House of Lords to be more precise) for the National Library of Scotland, who are aiming to digitise their collection and wanted to know what we can offer as back-up.

Important lessons were learned from this trailblazing work, for example:

  • Wear a dust mask when you are spending hours surrounded by 160 shelves of really old books.
  • Take regular breaks for fresh air.
  • Do not cough your lungs out due to not following the aforementioned guidelines.

Since then I have mostly been working on the New Zealand periodicals collection, which seems to be going at quite a good pace (I am almost certain I will be able to finish the pre-cataloguing work while I am here, with luck maybe get to cataloguing as well). There were occasional patches of very interesting things, chief among them The Journal of the Polynesian society. While it is unlikely to get a spot in the Main Library, it is available as an on-line resource, and I thoroughly recommend leafing through it to anyone interested in linguistics, anthropology, geography or history. The covers of National Educations with their pictures of Maori (and Pakeha) kids from the 80’s strongly intensified my sentimental state of mind around Wednesday, week 3. Bad puns in old advertisements made me groan (XYZ Pens and Markers – Always write for you!). Oh, and I found pages from a pamphlet or book from the 1906-07 international fair in New Zealand featuring pictures of towns and landscapes, advertisements (Hotel Central with its new Pneumatic Elevator!), and similar. Another thing I ran into was “A Souvenir of the Empire Coronation Contingents at the Coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth”.

A Souvenir of the Empire Coronation Contingents at the Coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth

Their majesties King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Crowned in Westminster Abbey May 12th 1937

A Souvenir of the Empire Coronation Contingents at the Coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth

A Souvenir of the Empire Coronation Contingents at the Coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth

Of course, there are also patches of extremely chaotic and messy stuff. And then there are the 27 shelves of Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives of New Zealand – a truly electrifying read. No pictures here. You’ll have to come and see that I am not overstating for yourself.

How to do baking. Put the oven on at Regulo 5...

How to do baking (Cherry Fairy Cakes)

Our Thomas Nelson collection however is probably soon to become available, and that contains a number of lovely and interesting books, from the pretty Nelsons Classics books to French textbooks for Swedish students. Also, a lot of bibles. Also, “How to do baking.”

And here’s what I am most looking forward to – I have been asked to take a look at some of our special collections. Yay, old books! Papyrus bindings! Weird drawings! A History of Serpents and other liuing creatures! Let us see if will manage to get my hands of some incunabula. More on that story as it unfolds.

The colleagues, as we’ve now established through thought experiments with Scott and Iraklis, are almost certainly all real. This is a good thing to keep in mind, because hearing someone starting to speak on the radio when you’ve forgotten you have one and you know you are working alone in the store can be a terrifying experience.

In addition, Iraklis said that they won’t let me go when my contract expires (possibly under the influence of fudge and baked goods). Let’s see how that works out. In all fairness – I’d be quite happy to stay.

Nik Slavov, Hidden Collections intern.

Nelsons classics

The Thomas Nelson Archive contains, “a number of lovely and interesting books.”

The National Library of Scotland

Edinburgh University Health and Safety Department 

The New Zealand Collection

The Thomas Nelson Archive (from the Annexe blog)

The Journal of the Polynesian Society

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Employ.Ed Hidden Collections Intern – Week 1

The Library Annexe will be joined for the next 8 weeks by Nik Slavov, who is working for the University as part of the Employ.Ed on Campus summer internship programme, in collaboration with the Careers Service.  Nik is our Hidden Collections Intern, who is tasked with understanding and prioritising print books stored in the Library Annexe, that are not on the Library’s online catalogue.  The eventual goal is to make unique material available for the user community.

Here Nik reflects on his first week at the Library Annexe.

Carl Jones, Library Annexe Supervisor

My first week at the Library Annexe now behind me, it would appear it is now time for me to look back and see how that went.

It feels like I haven’t seen anything yet. On the other hand, considering how much I’ve learned about the House of Lords, the native population of Oceania, reclaiming land for ironsand processing, Australasian literature in the 70’s, Antarctica, dairy farming, soil erosion and pollution (it is actually quite scary), New Zealand’s defence program and a number of other topics that I had never thought to occupy my brain with, all of that being just a side effect of organising a few shelves at Annexe 1…

Well, considering all that, I still haven’t even scratched the surface of what’s there. If my math’s any good, I’ve seen less than 0.05 % of what is held in that room only. At this point, Pratchett’s theory of L-space seems very plausible (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L-Space#L-space). The sheer mass of books distorts the space-time continuum, which is why the Library Annexe is way bigger on the inside.

The team is lovely. In all fairness, given the randomness and rareness of my encounters with other human beings within the Annexe, and the alleged hallucinogenic effect of the fungus that develops in old books, I am not entirely certain they actually exist, but in case I didn’t make you guys up – it’s lovely working with you. Or at least, you know, in the same building, or the one next door. Having lunch together. Occasionally. And sometimes overhearing conversations on the radio…

At least it clearly says in the office that this is a Vashta Nerada free workspace, which is a relief. And apparently there have been no Velociraptor-related work accidents in a bit less than a year (is that really good? I should look into that. There ought to be a book with statistics on the topic in the Annexe somewhere. I can’t find one on the catalogue, but I couldn’t find the New Zealand Agriculture and Fisheries Department report from 1968 on the catalogue either, yet I am certain I had it in my hands yesterday.

Unless, you know… fungus.*

Nik Slavov, Hidden Collections intern.

(*For pedantry’s sake, I’d like to point out that there is no active mould in any of the Library Annexe Collections! -ed.)

The Careers Service

On campus internships

Search for Vashta Nerada and other resources using Searcher

The Conservation Studio (fungus experts)

 

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We feel very Olympic today

Our newest Library Assistant at the Library Annexe is Marko Mlakar, who joins us at Edinburgh from Ljubljana, Slovenia. Marko worked at the University of Edinburgh last year as an intern within the Scholarly Communications team and brings a wealth of experience to the Collections Management team. Marko settled into his new role just in time for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, and with enough Olympic spirit still in the air, reflects on the competition in his first blog entry.

Carl Jones, Library Annexe Supervisor

With the Olympic Games now behind us, it’s time to reflect a little on the fun we had at the Annexe over these past few weeks. Honestly, we could not hold our excitement about the Games so we got involved with every single Olympic day – falling short of watching TV during our work hours, of course! Since that super Olympic spirit hadn’t really left us we wanted to track down the oldest item about the Olympics in our collection for the Annexe blog… but it turned out to be neither that interesting nor that old – a bit of an anti-climax, for sure! Our advice is if you really want to know more about the Games, Moray House Library seems to be the place to visit.

The Library Annexe Sochi Winter Olympics board
The Library Annexe Sochi Winter Olympics board. Slovenia punch above their weight to bring the “Team Annexe” medal count up to 15.

We did, however, manage to introduce a bit of playful competition to the office during the games! Cheering for our united athletes of “Team Annexe” the Olympic spirit was running high from the get go, to the extent that we even created our Annexe Team Olympic medal board, which we put up to follow the achievements of our Olympians.  Our united Team of Australia, United Kingdom and Slovenia won no less than 15 medals altogether (3 gold, 5 silver and 7 bronze) beating China and some other great winter sporting nations such as Finland, Italy and Sweden. WOW! That is without a doubt an extraordinary achievement for such a small team. And as every story has to have a moral at the end, we would like to make sure you get this one right – never underestimate the power of team effort, no matter how small the team.

About Moray House Library

About the Scholarly Communications Team

Marko Mlakar, Library Annexe Assistant

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Library of the Centre for the Study of World Christianity now at the Annexe

The Library of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non Western World (CSCNWW), which was located in Thomas Chalmers House, adjacent to New College, was moved out to the Annexe over the summer break and is now available to students and staff at all library sites via the Library Annexe retrieval service.

The space in Thomas Chalmers House being previously used to house the library collection was generously loaned by the School of Divinity but is now required for other purposes. Previous access to this collection was haphazard and managed by postgraduate students in the department. Moving the collection out to the Annexe provides regular reliable access to material that was previously available only sporadically.

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Study spaces in the New College Library

Additionally this move is going to allow cataloguers the chance to properly examine and update the collection.  This means a greater wealth of information in regards to what is held in the collection, making location of research and study materials much easier for students, staff, and visiting readers.

As part of an ongoing project, other lesser used materials identified in the New College library will also be moved out to the Library Annexe. This will create space for the more relevant and higher use items in the CSCNWW Collection, as identified via the retrieval service, to be housed at the New College library for easier browsing access.

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Shelving in New College where space will be created to house higher use items from the CSCNWW Collection.

The Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non Western World (CSCNWW) Collection was originally a private donation to the New College library by Professor Andrew Walls. The collection has grown over time via additional donations and acquisitions, and contains a large amount of primary research material in the history of Christian missions in the non-western world.

For more information about the Centre for the Study of World Christianity please click on the link below:

Centre for the Study of World Christianity

Stephanie Farley (Charlie), Library Annexe Assistant

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