Back to the future : New College Library’s history today

New College Library was pleased to host a visit from the Friends of Edinburgh University Library last week. As well as looking at a selection of Special Collections and touring the Library, the Friends listened to a presentation about the history of New College Library, and how this is relevant to work in the Library today.

Evidence for New College Library’s history is found in the library building, its shelves, shelfmarks and books, and in the New College Archives. Photographic records from the archives provide evidence of the changing library environment and the changing expectations of library users – there’s not a computer in sight in these images of New College Library from 1946 and 1970.

Library history helps us today in making collection management decisions.

The sacred and profane history of the world ... / by Samuel Shuckford, . ; Revised, by James Creighton, Published by William W. Woodward, 1824. New College Library  Z.2152

The sacred and profane history of the world … / by Samuel Shuckford, . ; Revised, by James Creighton, Published by William W. Woodward, 1824. New College Library Z.2152

For instance, this ambitious work of history was written by Samuel Shuckford in the eighteenth century, with this nineteenth century edition published as the first American edition of this work. The label inside the book indicates that it was donated to New College Library as part of the first appeal for books that came with the founding of New College after the Disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843.  The donor, Thomas Aikman, who had emigrated from Stirling to America in 1794, was clearly following religious affairs in his homeland closely and decided  that the principles behind the founding of New College were close enough to his heart for him to donate this book. While this work exists in multiple editions across the University, library history unlocks this copy’s uniqueness as evidence of donation to New College Library as an act of faith and the engagement of the Scottish Presbyterian community across the world.

SuggestionsBook1844

New College Library Suggestions Book, 1844

We can also learn from New College’s library history of collection development. As we continue to develop student-led acquisitions at the University of Edinburgh Library, back in the earliest days of New College Library students were recommending books in this manuscript volume preserved in our archives.  Now of, course, students can make recommendations online at http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/book-recommendations.

In recent years the Funk Cataloguing projects have transformed access to Special Collections at New College Library, with over 30,000 items handled so far. But they are only one of several cataloguing projects to be carried out at New College Library. Back in 1893, a  team of student cataloguers who helped the Librarian, Dr Kennedy, produce the 1893 printed library catalogue. There are some fantastic photographic images of them in the New College Archive – here they are looking very decorous :

Dr Kennedy's Cataloguers, 1893

Dr Kennedy’s Cataloguers, 1893

 

 

 

 

 

And here they are, presumably finished the cataloguing!

Dr Kennedy's Cataloguers, 1893

Dr Kennedy’s Cataloguers, 1893

 

Christine Love-Rodgers, Academic Support Librarian – Divinity

 

The wood-walls of Scotland : a Christmas Carol

The wood-walls of Scotland : a Christmas carol, from the Fife Sentinel, with additions. Edinburgh : W. P. Kennedy … etc., 1844. New College Library F.a.12/13

New College Christmas Carol Service is taking place today at 5pm in the Martin Hall, led by members of the New College community and with singing from the New College Choir. Here’s a Christmas carol from  New College Library’s collections.

This pamphlet, The wood-walls of Scotland, was originally published in the newspaper the Fife Sentinel.  It contains a carol that would have been sung to a popular hymn tune, inspired by the verse from Psalm 132 “Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah: we found it in the fields of the wood.” Published after the Disruption of 1843, the carol is celebrating the outdoor services held to accommodate congregations who had separated to form the new Free Church of Scotland.

“On hill-side and green valley

Our wooden temples placed

The faithful, round they rally

The Gospel-standard rais’d”

Israel, the Assyrians and a shoemaker’s gift

The sacred and profane history of the world connected : from the creation of the world to the dissolution of the Assyrian Empire …, and to the declension of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel …/ by Samuel Shuckford, D.D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty, George the Second. ; Revised … by James Creighton. Philadelphia, 1824.
New College Library [Special Collections] Z.2152

At todays’ opening seminar in the Divinity Biblical Studies Research Seminar series, the speaker is Dr Carly Crouch, Lecturer in Hebrew Bible, University of Nottingham, on “Israel and the Assyrians”.

On that note, here’s an ambitious work of history from New College Library’s Special Collections that covers the Assyrian Empire and  “the declension of the kingdoms of Judah and Israel”. Written by Samuel Shuckford in the eighteenth century, this edition was published in the nineteenth century and is the first American edition of this work.

What interested me the most was in fact the label inside the book (well, I am a librarian), which states:

“Presented to the Free Church of Scotland, by Thomas Aikman, shoemaker, a native of Scotland, near Sterling [sic], a citizen of the United States of America since 1794 – a member of the Presbyterian Church in full communion for more than fifty years. Burlington, N.J., 1844.”

With this provenance, the book must have been donated to New College Library as part of the first appeal for books that came with the founding of New College as the College for the Free Church of Scotland after the Disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843.  It shows that Thomas Aikman, an emigrant of humble background, was following religious affairs in his homeland closely and that the principles behind the founding of New College were close enough to his heart for him to donate this book.

This book is part of the ‘Z’ Collection, currently being catalogued as part of the Funk Cataloguing Projects at New College Library.