Tag Archives: Annexe

Fifty Shelves of Gray (and Nelson)

The Laird of Glenfernie by Mary Johnston (Nelson Archive)

The Laird of Glenfernie by Mary Johnston (Nelson’s Continental Library)

Springtime by H. C. Bailey

Springtime by H. C. Bailey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While the cover of Fifty Shades of Grey displays a degree of restraint, publishers and consumers of the romance genre did not always have such a taste for understated dust-jackets. Instead, they favoured a more direct approach.

The Prize-Winner. A comedy in one act by Macdonald Watson (Repertory Plays. no. 86.)

The Prize-Winner. A comedy in one act by Macdonald Watson (Repertory Plays. no. 86.)

The King's Wooing by Conal O'Riordan (Repertory Plays No. 71)

The King’s Wooing by Conal O’Riordan (Repertory Plays No. 71)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In these examples from Gowans and Gray’s playbooks of the 1910s to 30s and Nelson’s Novels from the 20s onwards, it’s clear that previous generations wanted to get right to the action.

Marcella by Mrs. Humphry Ward

Marcella by Mrs. Humphry Ward

Over 500 books from the Nelson publishing archive have been shelf-marked and catalogued by rare books cataloguing interns Beth and Fiona. There are only around another 9,500 left to go!

The books in the collection reflect the decades of the 20th century- beginning with the staid, uniform editions of the New Century Library; progressing through stylish art deco illustrations; austere WWI and WWII paper; bright, pulpy dust-jackets from the ‘40s and ‘50s; and into rainbow-hued classics of the later decades.

Interesting examples of the changing book styles of the 20th century will be exhibited in the 6th floor display wall at the Centre for Research Collections next year.

The Thomas Nelson Archive contains these Gowans and Gray playbooks; a handsome series of repertory plays with fragile glassine dust wrappers.

Fiona Mowat and Beth Dumas , CRC Cataloguing Interns

Items from Nelson’s Library on the On-line Catalogue

[Blog] The AnneXe Factor: Full Nelson Archive

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Centre for the Study of World Christianity Update

With the print collections of the Centre for the Study of World Christianity (CSWC) Library, set up by Professor Andrew F. Walls, now having been in our care at the Annexe for a year, the time to say goodbye again is approaching.

Over his long career spanning over 50 years Professor Walls has held posts (among others) at the UK universities of Aberdeen, Liverpool Hope and, of course, Edinburgh. The scope and nature of his research led the magazine Christianity Today to describe him in 2007 as ‘a historian ahead of his time’ and ‘the most important person you don’t know’.

Professor Andrew F. Walls

Professor Andrew F. Walls set up the Centre for the Study of World Christianity at Edinburgh

As the topic of the influence exercised by different religious groups within British society is at the forefront of the public interest the moment, Professor Walls’s outlook on the way Christianity has moved and developed over the years is certainly pertinent. And his unique outlook is reflected in this collection that he gradually built up over the years of his career as a missionary and academic. Apart from Professor Walls’s main interest in the development on Christianity and Christian mission in Africa (which he saw as a reflection of the future of Christianity as a whole), the collection contains material that illuminates the way that the Western world has viewed eastern religions and vice versa. The CSWC collection is a unique resource on the topic. However, previous access to this collection was irregular.

When the collection was added to the fold at the Annexe, it was partially to make it accessible on a wider basis (via intra-library loans available to all users), but also to allow work to be performed on this diverse collection. Indeed, over the past year requests for CSWC items became a regular part of our workflow at the Annexe. As the collection has gradually grown over the years since its donation to the New College library by Professor Walls, now was an opportunity to streamline it and make easier to both access and manage.

To this end, here at the Annexe we have used our time with the World Christianity collection, in collaboration with colleagues throughout Information Services, in order to carefully work through the 11,000 items contained in it. A number of projects were set up to ensure that the material is consolidated, itemised, and re-classified. Each item (books and pamphlets) will be individually processed and the collection streamlined, ready for its re-integration to the Library of Congress stock at New College library later this summer. As an off-shoot of this process, a small part of the collection will be divided and sent to complement the Andrew Walls Collection currently held at Liverpool Hope University, forging a strong collaborative link.

Iraklis Pantopoulos, Library Annexe Assistant

[Article] Christianity Today: Historian Ahead of His Time

[Blog] The AnneXe Factor: Library of the Centre for the Study of World Christianity now at the Annexe

About the Centre for the Study of World Christianity

About New College Library

Overview of the Andrew F. Walls Centre, Liverpool Hope

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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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Beautiful Bindings

thesis on rickets 1 thesis on rickets 2

As part of our Thesis Scanning Service, when we come across a request for a thesis that has beautiful binding we make sure to scan and include these images in the digitised content.

A recent example of this is the beautiful golden marble effect shown above on William David Osler’s ‘Thesis on Rickets’ awarded in 1896.

The digitised copy of this thesis is available for download from the Edinburgh Research Archive (ERA), Edinburgh University’s digital repository of original research produced at The University of Edinburgh.

Download and view ‘Thesis on Rickets’ from the ERA archives’.

More information on our digitisation service can be found on our Thesis Scanning service page.

Stephanie Farley (Charlie), Library Annexe Assistant

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Reading Rooms and visiting the Annexe

We run a fast and effective retrieval service for Annexe materials. If you want to consult the whole item we can have it sent to a convenient library location via our twice daily courier deliveries, and if you are wanting a chapter or article we can scan and deliver a digital copy directly to your inbox.

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Reading Room Annexe 1

Occasionally, however, you may want to browse through a larger selection of Annexe materials which include: lesser used books, back issues of journals,reference maps and atlases, newspaper indexes and microfilm.

The Annexe also stores selected material from the Library’s Special Collections, University Archives and Lothian Health Services Archive (LHSA).

Perhaps you want to search through part of a journal run for relevant articles or browse the microfilms for a couple of years’ worth of newspapers. If so you’ll find a well-stocked kitchen, friendly staff and plenty of study space to spread out as you work.

The Annexe has two comfortable reading rooms and we can offer visitors use of an open access PC, a microfilm reader and an OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog) for searching items in the catalogue.

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Reading Room Annexe 2

To arrange access to items from the Library’s Special Collections, University Archive s and Lothian Health Services Archive (LHSA) material stored in the Annexe, contact the CRC to first determine if a visit to the Annexe would be suitable.

To arrange a visit to the Annexe to access any of the other material simply send us an email (library.annexe@ed.ac.uk) or give us a call (0131 651 1523) to discuss a suitable time.

Despite our remote location out in South Gyle we’re relatively easy to get to either by the 2, 22 or 35 buses or by hopping on one of the regular trains that call at Edinburgh Park. You could even sneak in a visit to Krispy Kreme’s over the road while you’re out this way.

Stephanie Farley (Charlie), Library Annexe Assistant

Maria O’Hara, Library Annexe Assistant

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Happy Halloween/Samhuinn from the Annexe

The results of our now annual Annexe pumpkin carving competition.

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Ohh spooky.

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Stephanie Farley (Charlie), 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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Requesting Electronic Delivery of Journal Articles and/or Book Chapter Scans from the Annexe

In addition to the item retrieval service for books and journals, we also provide electronic delivery of scanned journal articles and chapters from items held out at the Library Annexe.

There are two starting points from which to make a request for an article or book chapter:

  1. Use the Library Catalogue, and select ‘Library Annexe Scan Request’
  2. If you know the article or chapter you require, log in to ILLiad.

The User Guide provides information on using ILLiad to make a request for the digital delivery of a scan:

You do need to register with ILLiad to receive the requested scans, however registration is free and needs doing only once.

Interesting fact: in the last year the Annexe Team processed a total of one-thousand-and-ninety-seven scan requests for an average of fifty requests per week.

Stephanie Farley (Charlie), Library Annexe Assistant

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Tour de Store

As well as the usual retrieval and scanning services offered by the Library Annexe, which you may have read about on our blog or web page, we are also happy to provide tours of the facility to anyone who wishes to see what we do. We have hosted occasional open days where staff and library users are invited to spend an hour at the Annexe viewing some of the collections and watching us work, but we will also happily give tours upon request.

Annexe Tour

Scott is obviously deeply absorbed by the tour or else dazzled by the lights.

We were visited on Wednesday 24th July by Rachel, Scott & Christine from the Main Library’s Help Desk team, who deal with requested Annexe material every week and were keen to see the Annexe for themselves.

Library Tour 2

Rachel ponders the secrets of the Annexe collections.

They were undeterred by the earlier bout of traditional Edinburgh rainfall and made the short and easy journey from George Square to South Gyle. We started proceedings with a tour of the two units that comprise the Library Annexe, a circuit that took us through two reading rooms, staff offices and, of course, the 33,000 linear meters of shelving space spread across our substantial stores. Stops were made to take in some of the varied collections, including a rare chance to glimpse the recently acquired Nelson Archive. As guide, I did my best to provide our guests with some interesting facts and figures. For example, did you know that, in addition to our monographs, journals and archives, we also hold approximately 1,000 ECA Artworks? Or that we scan an average of 26 articles and chapters for our users each week? Or that we loaned a total of 3185 items in the 2011/12 academic year?

Library Tour 3

Charlie demonstrates how we process requests and even manages to do it with a smile.

After the circuit was completed, the visiting Help Desk staff were granted respite in our staff quarters, where Charlie demonstrated how we process the various physical item requests we receive each day, and Maria did a stellar job of showing off our impressive scanning suite, which we use for digitising all scan requests and is central to the operation of our increasingly well subscribed thesis scanning service.

Library Tour 4

Maria is in the spotlight as she shows off our state-of-the-art scanner.

Links:

Requesting Material from the Library Annexe

Thesis Scanning Service

Carl Jones, Library Annexe Supervisor

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