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The first exhibition of Lyell’s notebooks<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n The first free public display of the Lyell collection is currently on at the University of Edinburgh’s Main Library on George Square, on the 6th floor in the Binks Exhibition Wall of the Centre for Research Collections (CRC). The volumes selected include a journal of a European tour of made by Lyell and his parents in 1818, an 1828 examination of the 1822 eruption of Vesuvius and an illustration of geology of Prosen Village (close to the Lyell family home at Kinnordy, Kirriemuir) in 1874.\u00a0 The exhibition also features an engraved\u00a0 portrait and a selection of geological specimens.<\/p>\n The exhibition also features a notebook which contains the description of shells sent to Lyell by Darwin, alongside the shells themselves.\u00a0 The shells and the geological specimens are part of a wider collection of around 100 stone artefacts (axes, spears and arrow heads), three meteorites, 25 fossils, 25 rocks. These were generously donated to the University in 1927 by the Lyell family (along with a significant collection of Lyell’s papers, now held in the CRC) and are held at the University\u2019s Cockburn Geology Museum.\u00a0 Although the shells were already well known to us, finding documentation about them in the notebooks was a very exciting discovery.<\/p>\n The exhibition runs until 26 March.<\/strong><\/p>\n The notebooks fall into 5 series, the largest of these being Coll-203\/A1, the principal scientific notebooks<\/em>. The other series are Coll-204\/A2 \u2013 travel journals, Coll-203\/A3 \u2013 scientific journals \/ manuscript notes, Coll-203\/A4 \u2013 Madeira and Canaries and Coll-203\/A5 \u2013 Indexes.\u00a0 While full cataloguing will take some time and require to be resourced separately, skeletal catalogue entries for the first series has been created by repurposing a much earlier inventory. Some rudimentary entries have also been created for the volumes in the other series to allow them to be given unique identifiers, which are essential for managing digitisation, consultation and exhibition.<\/p>\n These catalogue records are not yet online but will be in the near future, once the notebooks are available for general consultation.<\/p>\n Notebooks shelved awaiting boxing<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n While primarily in pretty good condition a full conservation survey has been undertaken and work identified.\u00a0 In particular a good number the spine labels, which are an essential part of the materiality of the notebooks, are particularly fragile and will require some specific intervention.<\/p>\n Each notebook will require its own \u2018book shoe\u2019 after which they will then be boxed for efficient storage and retrieval.\u00a0 In the meantime, the notebooks have been temporarily shelved in sequence until this work can be carried out.<\/p>\n Two volumes have been selected as initial exemplars for digitisation.\u00a0 The first volume comes from the scientific notebooks and contains, \u201cGeological notes and observation; Notes on modern causes\u201d.\u00a0 The second is from scientific journals and contains some drafts of letters from Lyell to Charles Darwin.<\/p>\n A more ambitious plan of digitisation is currently being initiated, prioritising, in the first instance, the most physically robust volumes that require no or little intervention by a conservator.<\/p>\n Juliette Lichman working on Lyell digitisation assessment<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n The CRC is currently advertising an exciting new post: Project Archivist (Climate Change).\u00a0 This puts Lyell firmly in context, identifying his papers not solely as a record of his own life and work and of the history of his discipline but recognising its significance in terms of understanding our planet.\u00a0 Neither does Lyell stand in isolation.\u00a0 Crucial connections and interactions between him, his contemporaries and his successors run through a range of our collections and properly identifying and making these available for research is a high priority. Vital to understanding the Earth and its needs is understanding its history.\u00a0 This innovative post will scope out how Lyell\u2019s papers and other collections here can play an important role.<\/p>\n As well as focussing on the collections, the Project Archivist will also have a responsibility to liaise with academic and other researchers and stakeholders and to establish and develop a cluster of research interest in and around the collections as a means of identifying the collaborative basis of future projects.<\/p>\n For further details on the post: https:\/\/www.vacancies.ed.ac.uk\/<\/a>\u00a0 Vacancy Reference 050984<\/p>\n If you have any questions regarding the Lyell collections please contact in the first instance Rachel Hosker, Archives Manager and Deputy Head of Special Collections, at Rachel.Hosker@ed.ac.uk<\/a> or to discuss the fundraising campaign or future funding needs; David McClay, Philanthropy Manager, Library & University Collections at\u00a0david.mcclay@ed.ac.uk<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Collection Curation Since their arrival, the focus has been on a range of preliminary tasks to get the notebooks ready for digitisation, consultation and exhibition. Exhibition The first free public display of the Lyell collection is currently on at the University of Edinburgh’s Main Library on George Square, on the 6th floor in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":158,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcnwkP-N","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/lyell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/lyell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/lyell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/lyell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/158"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/lyell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/lyell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/lyell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions\/53"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/lyell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/lyell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/lyell\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/h2>\n
Cataloguing<\/h2>\n
Conservation & Preservation<\/h2>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk\/lyell\/files\/2020\/01\/notebooks-shelved-225x300.jpg\")
Digitisation<\/h2>\n
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Lyell in Context \u2013 New Post<\/h1>\n