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December 19, 2025
The Edinburgh DataShare Awards!
The Research Data Service team applauds those researchers at the University of Edinburgh who share their data. We therefore decided to show our appreciation by presenting awards to our most successful depositors, as part of the Dealing With Data conference. The prizes themselves do not come with a cash research grant attached unfortunately. However, the winners did receive a certificate bearing an image of our mascot for the day, Databot. We think you’ll agree the winning depositors and their data demonstrate the diversity of our collections, in terms of subject matter, formats and sheer size. We were particularly pleased with the reactions from both the recipients and the attendees, both in person, by email and on twitter (#UoEData was the Dealing with Data hashtag). Who doesn’t love the drama of an awards ceremony! A video is available.
Photo: CC-BY Lorna M. Campbell
The winners in full…
MOST DATASHARING SCHOOL: Edinburgh Medical School
– the School which boasts the greatest number of Edinburgh DataShare Collections currently. Thirty-three eligible Collections (already containing at least one dataset) such as “Connectomic analysis of motor units in the mouse fourth deep lumbrical muscle”, the Edinburgh Imaging “Image Library” and “Generation Scotland”.
MOST PROLIFIC DATASHARER: Professor Richard Baldock
– the most prolific depositor into Edinburgh DataShare for the academic year 2016-17, and over the lifetime of the repository, having shared a grand total of 1,105 data items with full metadata. These are grouped together into numerous Collections under the heading of “e-Mouse Atlas”. The majority of these detailed images show microscope slides of stained tissue, others are 3D models. They accompany a book and website published by Professor Baldock, building on the seminal work of Professor Matt Kaufman in developmental biology. The metadata for each of the slides links to a lower definition version within the e-Mouse Atlas website, where the data may be viewed and navigated in context. The original slides themselves are held by the University’s Centre for Research Collections.
Detail from Elizabeth Graham; Julie Moss; Nick Burton; Yogmatee Roochun; Chris Armit; Lorna Richardson; Richard Baldock. (2015). eHistology Kaufman Atlas Plate 21a image d, [image]. University of Edinburgh. College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine. http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/ds/735.
– the depositor of the greatest number of Edinburgh DataShare items from the College of Science and Engineering in academic year 2016-2017. Euan deposits his coordination chemistry research data so frequently that we set up a Collection template on the Brechin Research Group, which automatically pre-populates some of the metadata fields for him, saving Euan time. If only we could find a way to mention metallosupramolecular cubes here.
The certificate awarded to Professor Euan Brechin
MOST PROLIFIC DATASHARER (CAHSS): Dr Andrea Martin
– the depositor of the greatest number of Edinburgh DataShare items from the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences in academic year 2016-2017. Some of these “Language Cognition and Communication” data items are still under temporary embargo. Users may nonetheless see all the metadata.
MOST POPULAR SHARED DATA: Professor Peter Sandercock
– the depositor of the Edinburgh DataShare item which has attracted the greatest number of page views over the lifetime of the repository: “International Stroke Trial database (version 2)” (aka IST-1). These data from the International Stroke Trial provide a great example of how clinical trial data may be anonymised to allow them to be shared. For more information, you may want to watch Prof Sandercock’s very accessible and detailed public lecture. Admittedly, one other item is higher up DataShare’s table of page views than IST. However we believe the traffic drawn by “RCrO3-xNx ChemComm 2016” to be artifactual, arising from the appearance of the word ‘doping’ in its abstract, and the fact the deposit was made at a time when doping in sport was very prominent in the news media. Additionally, the earlier, superseded, version of the IST-1 dataset also appears in the all-time top ten, and if we combine the number of views, it is in the No.1 spot outright 🙂
MOST POPULAR DATA 2016-17: Dr. Junichi Yamagishi
– the depositor of the Edinburgh DataShare item which has attracted the greatest number of page views (1,720 to be precise, as counted by Google Analytics) over the academic year 2016-17: “Automatic Speaker Verification Spoofing and Countermeasures Challenge (ASVspoof 2015) Database”. Here’s the suggested citation, which DataShare compiles automatically, and displays prominently, to encourage users to cite the data:
Wu, Zhizheng; Kinnunen, Tomi; Evans, Nicholas; Yamagishi, Junichi. (2015). Automatic Speaker Verification Spoofing and Countermeasures Challenge (ASVspoof 2015) Database, [dataset]. University of Edinburgh. The Centre for Speech Technology Research (CSTR). http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/ds/298.
MOST POPULAR DATA 2016-17 (CAHSS): Professor Miles Glendinning
– the depositor of the Edinburgh DataShare item from the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences which has attracted the greatest number of page views (1,374 to be precise, as counted by Google Analytics), over the academic year 2016-17: “Hong Kong Public Housing Archive”. The Research Data Service is working closely with Miles, Personal Chair of Architectural Conservation, on a series of batch imports to put his fabulous array of photographs of public housing tower blocks from all around the world on DataShare over the coming months – keep an eye on DOCOMOMO International Mass Housing Archive.
Image cropped from “HKI_H_Yue_Fai_Ct.jpg” from Glendinning, Miles; Forsyth, Louise; Maxwell, Gavin; Wood, Michael. (2015). Hong Kong Public Housing Database, 2006-2015 [image]. University of Edinburgh. Edinburgh College of Art. http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/ds/322.
– the depositor of the Edinburgh DataShare Collection page from the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine which has attracted the greatest number of page views over the academic year 2016-17: “Diseases of Wild Birds”. Hundreds of grotesquely beautiful photographs of dead wild birds, bodies ravaged with viruses, bacteria and protists, found at locations all around the United Kingdom; these images support the PhD thesis of Dr Tom Pennycott from our Veterinary School.
You can see usage statistics for any DataShare Item or Collection simply by clicking on the “View usage statistics” button on the right-hand-side of the page.
Pauline Ward, Research Data Service Assistant
EDINA and Data Library
An insight into Joseph Joachim’s life and work – Sarah and Devon’s experiences as CRC interns
Earlier this year, our two interns Sarah and Devon spent a few months re-housing and listing the papers of the Hungarian violinist Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), recently donated to the CRC. They share their experiences with us.
Sarah Hendriks:
When I was about eight years old my violin teacher gave me a new piece of music and said, ‘now you get to play a real piece’. It was Joachim’s Hungarian Dance No. 4 and I loved it. It’s remained one of my favourite pieces to play and its folksy, vibrant style inspired my later love of other composers like Bloch and Kreisler.
Despite loving his music, I knew relatively little about Joachim the man until I took on this internship at Special Collections. By going through the collection I discovered so much about Joachim, his family, his music, and his life. I also got to meet his relatives and talk about the collection and hear their recollections of the items. Matching the stories to the items I’d been reading and examining for the last two months reinforced the human aspect of the material I’d been working with: such a rare experience!
Over the last three months I’ve catalogued what feels like hundreds of newspaper clippings, notes, concert programmes, photographs, and music. I’ve had the chance to brush up my German whilst reading the mountain of obituaries and anecdotes about him, his violins and his performances. There were also notes about his life in Hungarian and a poem in French on the occasion of his death. Buried amongst the newspaper clippings was a handwritten account of a family holiday: I’d never read a more touching portrait of the man.
Postcard of Joseph Joachim in a fake car with the Mendelssohn brothers, 1890-1907 (Coll-1711/5/5)
The highlights for me, however, were the photographs. Joachim apparently loved a joke and you can see this in the picture of him in a fake car. The images also captured his pensive side, reading his letters in front of a fire or concentrating on some German verse. A particularly special picture for me is the one of Joachim with Nellie Melba, a fellow Australian whose alma mater I also attended. Apparently they were great friends with an equally adventurous sense of fun that often perplexed those around them. I like to think you can see a touch of this camaraderie in their portrait.
Working with archives is, for me, always exciting. You never quite know what you’re going to come across or discover and so often the material hasn’t been examined in a long time. The Joachim archive was so full of delights and surprises and it exceeded all my expectations. This internship has been a wonderful experience and one I would highly recommend. It would not have been possible without the generosity of the Joachim family and the support of the Special Collections Team and I’d like to thank them both for the opportunity. I’ve learnt so much about the practical side to archive management and processing, but also had an awful lot of fun learning about a hero in the process. I can’t wait for the next one!
Signed image mounted on card of Joseph Joachim and Nellie Melba, taken by Guigoni & Bossi, Milan, late 19th/early 20th c. (Coll-1711/5/7)
Devon Barnett:
I wanted to be an Archive Intern so that I could learn first-hand the processes behind turning a collection of items into an organised and usable resource. As a Music graduate, it was an added benefit that the archive I would be working on centred around an important figure in classical music – Joseph Joachim. While working on the Joseph Joachim collection I have learned how to box list items, how to identify anything that may need to be sent to conservation, how to think about what items may be useful and beneficial to be digitised, and how to best categorise, arrange, and reference the items as well as a collection of books.
Image of Joseph Joachim playing cards outside a coffee shop, 1890-1907 (Coll-1711/5/12/5)
I have also learned a lot about Joseph Joachim, both his musical output and his personal life. Shockingly, I had never heard his name even once in my entire four years of studying a music degree and I did not know that he is owed at least in part for helping Johannes Brahms to find success and for helping Clara Schumann to care for Robert Schumann in his final years of critical mental illness. My favourite item of the collection by far was a letter written in 1907 by Donald Francis Tovey. It was written to an unspecified ‘Mrs Joachim’ and concerned the recent passing of Joseph Joachim. The letter is beautifully and poetically written, and really shows the loss felt by the music world. The letter is also important for its personal connection to Edinburgh. Tovey was a composer, musician, musicologist, and close friend of Joseph Joachim. Tovey became the Reid Professor of Music at the University of Edinburgh’s Reid School of Music (from which I have just graduated), and at which there now exists the position of Tovey Professor and the award of the Sir Tovey Memorial Prize for outstanding promise shown in composition or performance. As the university is home to not only the Joseph Joachim collection but also a collection of Tovey’s large collection of books and music scores, this letter is significant and relevant to both, tying them nicely together to both each other and the university.
Letter to ‘Mrs Joachim’ from Donald Francis Tovey on the subject of Joseph Joachim’s death, 1907, p.1 (Coll-1711/1/2/5) (click here for a higher resolution image)
Letter to ‘Mrs Joachim’ from Donald Francis Tovey on the subject of Joseph Joachim’s death, 1907, p.2 (Coll-1711/1/2/5) (click here for a higher resolution image)
Their fantastic work has enabled us to create a great resource on our online discovery platform, ArchivesSpace. Click here to see the catalogue.
Riddle’s Court, a Discovery
With our this project currently in progress, our eyes and ears are particularly attuned to Patrick Geddes material elsewhere in our collections. It was a delight recently to stumble across a volume entitled Records relating to the Mechanics’ Library and University Hall, Riddle’s Court. We have been working very closely with the Education Officer at the Patrick Geddes Centre, Riddle’s Court, so this is an extra special find at this time.
In the late 1880s, Patrick Geddes acquired Riddle’s Court for the purpose of creating University Hall. Prior to this, it had been in the possession of the Mechanics Library, who had been based there since the mid 1850s.
A volume in our collection contains extracts of records relating to the building’s time as the Mechanics Subscription Library, including the earlier history of the buildings, as well as records of its time as University Hall. As well as text, the volume is peppered liberally with illustrations.
The first residents moved in for the Winter Session of 1889-90. There were only three of them – William Speirs Bruce, Riccardo Stephens and William Grant Burn-Murdoch. All three had a strong connection to Geddes.
Illustration by Louis G Irvine
E-Resource Trials ending soon
Last chance to try out the following e-resources and send in your feedback – these trials all end on the 30th November.
AcademicFocus
AcademicFocus is a one-stop access platform for China English journals, including:
1. Academic journals originally published in English in mainland China
2. English translations of top China academic journals (which we have access to via the China Academic Journals database platform)
3. Proceedings of international conferences held in China.
As of October 2017, there are 267 journals and 2447 conference proceedings and the numbers will grow. Subjects cover all areas in science, technology, medicine, social sciences, arts and humanities.
Arab World Research Source:™ Al-Masdar
Arab World Research Source is a dedicated resource of scholarly journals, quality magazines, trade publications, industry profiles, country reports, market research reports and conference papers related to the Arab World. This resource reaches across all major subject disciplines, including business, economics, science, technology, humanities and sociology. The database contains more than 140 scholarly full text titles, with the majority of the journals featuring Arabic full text.
Bloomsbury Design Library
The Bloomsbury Design Library is a comprehensive online resource offering coverage of design and crafts worldwide, from 1500 BCE to the present day. It combines carefully curated text and image content of the highest quality with an intuitive taxonomy for research and discovery. It can be used to enhance teaching, learning and research in the field of Visual Arts and Design.
EBSCO eBooks™ Arabic Collection: Al-Kotob
Serving the countries and territories of the Arabic League and beyond, this Middle Eastern collection of 4,600 Arabic e-books covers a broad range of academic subjects, including art, biography, business, child development, education, medicine, social sciences, humanities, Islamic studies, history, law, music, religion, political science, technology, engineering and more. The collection includes content from noteworthy publishers as well as award-winning authors including Abbas Mahmoud El Akkad, Fatima Naaot, Mohamed Awad Aidi, and Ibrahim Abdel Qader Mezni.
MedOne Neurosurgery
MedOne Neurosurgery is a unique online resource providing the global neurosurgical community with unprecedented access to Thieme’s entire neurosurgery collection (E-Books, Journals, Procedures, Cases, Media and Training Center).
One Belt, One Road Reference Source
One Belt One Road Reference Source is a collection of full-text journals and publications to support the understanding and study of the One Belt One Road mega-region including parts of Asia, the Middle East, and Central and Eastern Europe. It is the only comprehensive source of full text journals and publications published in, and about the 65 countries which make-up the One Belt One Road initiative.
Further info.
Access these and other trials from our Trials Webpage.
Research Data MANTRA gets a refresh
Research Data MANTRA updates
MANTRA, the free online training course which provides guidelines for good practice in research data management (RDM), has recently been refreshed. The course content remains applicable to all research disciplines, and is particularly appropriate for postgraduate students and early career researchers who would like to learn more about managing their research data.
The latest release helps ensure that content from each of the eight learning modules remains up-to-date, with interactive elements across all units being revised to make them more user friendly, and new content added to some units.
Additionally, as part of the CEPAL, United Nations project some video content used within MANTRA has been translated. Claudia Vilches and Gabriela Andaur from Hernán Santa Cruz Library (Santiago, Chile) have helpfully translated several of the video interviews with research staff, and these can now be viewed with Spanish subtitles within MANTRA or on our Youtube channel, helping to widen accessibility to these training materials for researchers outside the UK. Please contact us if you wish to translate any of the MANTRA materials.
MANTRA learning units now available via Zenodo
In addition to being a free-of-charge online learning resource, all content from MANTRA is openly available for use and re-use by others. For those interested in developing their own RDM training materials based on MANTRA content, all MANTRA units (along with four sets of data handling exercises) are now available for direct download from the Zenodo repository’s RDM Open Training Materials community. The eight individual MANTRA units were created using open source software Xerte Online Toolkits and units can be imported and edited in Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) such as Moodle. All that we ask is for attribution according to our CC-BY licence.
Content from a number of shorter MANTRA ‘taster’ units is also openly available from Zenodo. These provide an overview of RDM in four very short modules which can be edited so as to add information about local RDM support services, before deploying locally in a VLE or on the Web.
Family history and the Statistical Accounts
We’re always interested to hear how you use the Statistical Accounts. Family historians are one of the key groups who make use of our service so we were delighted to see Jane Harris recently publish a blog on using the Statistical Accounts for family history research. Jane has kindly agreed that we republish her post – we hope it’s useful for those of you researching your Scottish roots!
Jane Harris
Jane specialises in Scottish genealogy and family history. A member of the Association of Professional Genealogists and the Scottish Genealogy Network, Jane provides both family history research and tutoring so you can do research yourself. Her particular interests include the Stirling area, where she lives, and Orkney, where she was born and grew up. Jane described her experience with the Statistical Accounts for us:
A row of books with rather dull dust jackets; a couple of interesting quotes in a lecture or course book. That sums up my knowledge of the Statistical Accounts from my student days. When I started seriously researching my own family history many years later that view changed rapidly. Checking the earlier censuses, I was fascinated by the number of distinctively Highland surnames in my father’s home parish of Walls, Orkney. The Old Statistical Account provided an explanation: that a large number of people had come from “Strathnaven”, having been cleared to make way for sheep, so early victims of the clearances. I was hooked.
The Statistical Accounts are now one of my standard sources for client research in the late eighteenth to mid nineteenth centuries, both for general background and also for specific information on churches, migration, occupations and so on.
Now for Jane’s original blog, with some great pointers…
S is for Statistical Accounts of Scotland
Keep reading! They are far more than numbers. The Statistical Accounts are two fascinating sets of reports on each Scottish parish in the 1790s and the 1830s/40s. They cover economic and social activities as well as natural resources.
What, when, who, how?
Sir John Sinclair of Ulbster sent out 171 queries to the ministers of each of the 938 parishes in Scotland in the 1790s. Their responses form the Old Statistical Account (OSA). In 1832, because of all the changes that had taken place in Scotland, a new survey was agreed. The responses are collectively known as the New Statistical Account (NSA). Find out more about the background.
How are the Statistical Accounts useful for family history?
- Context for our ancestors’ lives.
“The prejudices, entertained by the inhabitants of this parish, against inoculation [sic] were, for a long time, invincible. But the better sort, setting the example, the rest gradually followed… In one season 460 were inoculated, of whom only 3 died” (Kilmalie, Invernesshire, Old Statistical Account, p409). Mortality by age group statistics (Glasgow, Old Statistical Account p508).
- Information on churches other than the established Church of Scotland.
“There is in St Ninians a Relief meeting-house… there is another meeting-house in Ba-burn connected with the United Secession” (St Ninians, Stirlingshire, New Statistical Account p336).
- The state of the parish registers: “the fourth is a mere ragged fragment” (Wick, Caithness, New Statistical Account p137). May explain why you can’t find a baptism:
Excerpt from the New Statistical Account for Wick, Caithness, Vol XV, 1845, p137.
- Names of landowners, which could lead you to estate records.
For example, see Menteith, Perthshire, New Statistical Account p1108.
- Local history generally, development of industries, migration and so on.
“What accounts for this [population] increase of 71 is the settlement of a colony of Highlanders, who had been forced to emigrate from Strathnaven [sic], where their farms had been converted into sheep pasture” (Walls, Orkney, Old Statistical Account p313).
- The minister’s view on his parishioners.
This snip from the Dalziel, Lanarkshire, (Motherwell area) New Statistical Account is particularly rich:
Excerpt from the New Statistical Account for Dalziel, Vol VI, 1845, p454.
In summary
Topography, geology, botany, agriculture, weather, population statistics, diseases, the state of the church and manse, manufactures, occupations (for example see table from Inverness’ Old Statistical Account below), wages, prisons, schools, language, history, antiquities, communications – and much more. Each account as individual as the minister who wrote it. You can find them all on the Statistical Accounts of Scotland website.
Table of occupations from the Old Statistical Account for Inverness, Vol IX, 1793, p622.
Thanks to Jane for letting us share her thoughts. You can find Jane’s blog here:
http://www.janealogy.co.uk/blog/
Follow Jane on Twitter @janenharris
Let us know your story
Could you share your Statistical Accounts experience with us? What have you found that’s been particularly helpful in your local or family history research? We’d love to hear from you. Comment below or email us, edina@ed.ac.uk.
Explore Your Archive 2017
The Explore Your Archive Campaign is run in conjunction with the Archives and Records Association, the professional body for archivists in the UK and Ireland. The University of Edinburgh is joining in this campaign, running from 18 to 25 November, led by colleagues in the Centre for Research Collections. Throughout social media you will see archivists promoting their archives, whether they are interesting, intriguing, puzzling or pleasing, using the hashtag #exploreyourarchive.
Here at New College Library we have made a significant step to help you explore your archive. For the first time, the catalogues which have previously only been available in the Library itself are now available online. There are over 530 catalogue entries for New College archives now freely searchable on archives.collections.ed.ac.uk . You can browse the whole collection, or search by person, organisation, place (in some instances), and limit searches by date.
The process of creating the online catalogue has revealed the strengths of the collection and the breadth of topics covered. Far from being simply a treasure trove of Scottish church history material, the collections include:
- centuries of theological thought and sermons: https://goo.gl/xw46oZ
- records on 20th century ecumenism: http://archives.collections.ed.ac.uk/repositories/5/resources/85506 and
http://archives.collections.ed.ac.uk/repositories/5/resources/85442 - photographic materials relating to the Holy Land and teaching in New College http://archives.collections.ed.ac.uk/repositories/5/resources/86230
- 17th century correspondence on the provision of Gaelic bibles to the Highlands and Islands, http://archives.collections.ed.ac.uk/repositories/5/resources/85389
- journals of devout protestant women, http://archives.collections.ed.ac.uk/repositories/5/resources/86326 and http://archives.collections.ed.ac.uk/repositories/5/resources/86286
- newspaper cuttings on the Scottish Potato Famine, http://archives.collections.ed.ac.uk/repositories/5/resources/86426
- a letterbook belonging to Hugh Miller, geologist, http://archives.collections.ed.ac.uk/repositories/5/resources/86490
- 1970s student cartoons, and http://archives.collections.ed.ac.uk/repositories/5/resources/85709
- botanical drawings and samples http://archives.collections.ed.ac.uk/repositories/5/resources/86596
In addition, digital images of some of the archives and special collections, including our copies of the National Covenants can be found on https://images.is.ed.ac.uk – click on the New College icon.
Should you wish to consult any material you find through the online catalogue you are welcome to visit New College Library or contact new.college.library@ed.ac.uk. All archives and manuscripts are consulted in the Funk Reading Room at New College Library.
The first of the daily hashtags for Explore Your Archive week is #archivecatwalk. The annual class and graduation photographs taken in New College, the earliest of which is from 1857 (ref. AA1.8.2), provide a fascinating timeline of fashions. The students below would look quite at home in today’s hipster cafes, especially those with the extra cachet of having a cane.
Staff and students at New College, Edinburgh, 1860 (ref. AA1.8.2)
Keep an eye on our tweets and those of our colleagues @EdUniLibraries, @CRC_EdUni, @EU_SSSA, and www.facebook.com/crc.edinburgh/ for further archives exploration.
Kirsty M Stewart, New College Collections Curator
E-Resources Access Alert – EZProxy issues RESOLVED
This issue has been resolved
There are currently off campus access problems to e-resources via EZProxy links which are being investigated by our IT team.
Eg http://www.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/login?url=http://www.oxfordscholarship.com may not work but if you drop the “http://www.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/login?url=” portion to http://www.oxfordscholarship.com the link will work as long as you are on the VPN or able to log in to the e-resource using Institutional Login/Shibboleth (if offered by the publisher).
Please see http://edin.ac/1bjVuCC for details of how to access E-Resources during this time, especially if off campus.
Further updates may also appear on the IS Alerts page http://reports.is.ed.ac.uk/alerts/index.cfm?fuseaction=view_alert&alert_id=7222.
We apologise for any inconvenience during this time.
Under the Skin: Studies in Parchment
This week’s blog comes from Special Collections Conservator, Emily, who recently took part in a training event in London on the conservation of parchment. This is the first in a two-part blog. It focuses on the introductory section of the workshop, consisting of a series of lectures to develop understanding of the material. The second post will look at practical techniques for the conservation of parchment…
From 19 to 22 October, I attended a four-day training event on the conservation of parchment at the National Archives in Kew. Parchment can be a problematic material to work with as it highly sensitive to moisture. Since many of the treatments we use in paper conservation utilise water, we have to employ methods that use the smallest amount possible to avoid irreparable damage. We have a large amount of parchment in our collections at the CRC, including approximately 3000 parchment charters in the Laing collection, so I was keen to find out more about this material and learn the very latest techniques for its conservation and preservation.
Parchment charters in the Laing collection
The event consisted of two days of lectures, followed by a two-day practical session. The lectures were open to a large number of people, whereas the practical workshop was limited to a maximum of 15 attendees.
The talks during the first two days focused on the making and analysis of parchment. The first talk was by Theresa Lupi, freelance Book and Paper Conservator in Malta, who discussed aspects of codicology and how it can be helpful to conservators. By studying different elements of the manuscript, we can learn how the parchment was made, what tools and techniques were used to prepare it and how this might affect its longevity and the treatments we can use. Following this, Theresa also gave lecture on fragments of manuscripts. Parchment documents were often recycled and reused in the past, and fragments can be found in the bindings of later books or used a wrappers for other items. These fragments can give clues to the how manuscripts were historically used.
Drawings in manuscripts in the CRC collections
Next, Dr Fiona Brock, Lecturer in Applied Analytical Techniques at the Cranfield Forensic Institute presented a paper on the radiocarbon dating of parchment. Fiona first described the method of radiocarbon dating and discussed the advantages and disadvantages of using this method to estimated when the parchment was made.
After this, Professor Matthew Collins from the University of York presented his research which focuses on the identification of skins in our archive, and how this can tell us about the history of livestock management and craft. Matthew uses small eraser slithers which are gently rubbed against the parchment to remove a minute amount of material from the parchment. These tiny samples are analysed and the type of animal used to make the document can be identified. This service is offered for free and you can obtain a sample kit by emailing matthew@palaeome.org.
The day ended with a presentation by Jiří Vnouček, Conservator of Parchment and Paper at the Royal Library of Copenhagen. Jiří discussed the methods of parchment making and how it has changed over the centuries. Studying the production techniques can give conservators clues which help date and give provenance to the manuscript.
The next day began with another talk from Jiří, which followed on from his presentation the previous afternoon. He first focused on the methods of parchment making in the UK, and showed the below video of the methodologies used in Britain in 1939. He also discussed parchment making in Iceland and how the preparation can affect the final result.
The following talk by Angelica Bartoletti, Researcher in Conservation Science at the Tate, examined parchment on a nano-scale. Angelica states that not all damage to parchment is visible and by scrutinising the material on a micro-scale, we can detect damage before we can see it with the naked eye, and develop conservation techniques to reduce the effects of that damage.
The penultimate talk of the day was by Dr. David Mills, Microtomography Facilities Manager at Queen Mary University of London. The main focus of this talk was on the Apocalypto Project, a collaborative effort between conservators, scientists and computer vision experts to investigate how x-rays can be used to reveal obscured writing or text on parchment. David and his team used a CT scanner to take a 3D x-ray of a tightly rolled piece of parchment. Using a computer programme, they were able to digitally unravel the scroll and decipher the handwriting, without causing any detectable damage to the document. This technique has also been successfully used to view previously inaccessible archives, including glass plate negatives which have been stuck together, and a roll of film that was severely degraded by vinegar syndrome, which can be viewed in the video below. Amazingly, this service is offered for free! Email David (D.mills@quml.ac.uk) for more information.
The final talk of the day was by Edward Cheese, Conservator of Manuscripts and Printed Books at the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge. He gave a talk on the repair and binding of parchment manuscripts. Edward evaluated the balance between the risks of conservation treatment, against the benefits to collection items when they have been conserved. For example, Edward argued that although treatments such as humidification may have negative effects on the substrate, this is preferable to leaving the document unusable, or leaving the item in a state which encourages repeated stress on certain areas when handled. For example, a parchment charter that is difficult to open should be humidified and flattened, rather than repeatedly opened and closed which will eventually cause a split, even though the humidity may cause damage on a micro level.
Overall, I found the first two days of the event informative and inspiring, and it provided a great base for the practical session that followed. Read the second part of this blog to find out more about historic conservation of parchment, and up-to-date methods conservators use today – coming soon!
E-Resource Trials ending on Monday
There are a few days left to try out the following potential new e-resources and send in your feedback.
Eighteenth Century Drama
Eighteenth Century Drama features the John Larpent Collection from the Huntington Library – a unique archive of almost every play submitted for licence between 1737 and 1824. The resource also features correspondence between key theatrical figures, biographical information, portraits, advertisement and historical information. The companion texts The London Stage 1660-1800 and A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers & Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800 feature as both scans in their original printed format and as a searchable database.
Foreign Office Files for Japan 1919-1952
Providing significant insight into this fascinating period of Japanese history, these Foreign Office files provide full-text searchable access to formerly restricted top level discussions and correspondence from the British Embassy and consulate in Japan. Files consist of wide-ranging material, including memoranda, reports, minute sheets and correspondence, along with detailed assessments of key events, speeches and topics of special interest.
Literary Manuscripts Leeds
This project offers scholars the opportunity to examine complete facsimile images of manuscripts of 17th and 18th century verse held in the celebrated Brotherton Collection at the University of Leeds. Poets represented include Mary Campbell, John Dryden, George Herbert, Mary Leapor, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, Hester Pulter and Jonathan Swift. There are also countless songs, riddles and popular tags which tell us even more about contemporary society.
Literary Print Culture
Explore this unique archive relating to the history of printing, publishing and bookselling dating from 1554 to the 20th century. The Stationers’ Company was a key agent in the process by which the book trade was regulated and monitored and thus it is widely regarded as one of the most important sources for studying the history of the book, publishing history, the history of copyright and the workings of an early London Livery Company.
Romanticism: Life, Literature and Landscape
The Wordsworth Trust is recognized as the leading archival collection of Wordsworth manuscripts anywhere in the world. The collection offers an insight into the working methods of the poet and the wider social, political and natural environment that shaped much of his work. In addition, this collection makes available the writings of Dorothy Wordsworth through her much celebrated Grasmere Journals, Alfoxden diary and travel journals. Verse manuscripts and correspondence from leading literary lights of the Romantic period such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey are also available as well as a strong collection of Thomas de Quincey manuscripts.
Shakespeare in Performance
Shakespeare in Performance features rare and unique prompt books from the world-famous Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC. The prompt books tell the stories of key performances as they were put on in theatres throughout Great Britain, the United States and further afield, between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. In a mixture of handwritten manuscripts and printed typescripts, often interspersed with personal notes, sketches, and cues for lighting and music, this resource takes users behind the scenes to shine a light on how the Bard’s timeless works have been interpreted by theatre companies, actors and directors across the centuries. *Please note that PDF download options are not available during trials.
Socialism on Film
Sourced from the British Film Institute (BFI), this collection of documentary, newsreel and feature films reveals the world as seen by Soviet, Chinese, Vietnamese, East European, and Latin American filmmakers. Ranging from the early 20th century to the 1980s, material encapsulates the themes of war, revolution, news, current affairs, culture and society. The project makes available the superb ETV-Plato Films collection put together by the British communist Stanley Forman in the years after the Second World War – produced almost exclusively in the communist world and then versioned into English for distribution in the West. *Please note that PDF download options are not available during trials.
Further info.
Access these and other trials from our Trials Webpage.
Collections
Hill and Adamson Collection: an insight into Edinburgh’s past
My name is Phoebe Kirkland, I am an MSc East Asian Studies student, and for...
Cataloguing the private papers of Archibald Hunter Campbell: A Journey Through Correspondence
My name is Pauline Vincent, I am a student in my last year of a...
Projects
Cataloguing the private papers of Archibald Hunter Campbell: A Journey Through Correspondence
My name is Pauline Vincent, I am a student in my last year of a...
Archival Provenance Research Project: Lishan’s Experience
Presentation My name is Lishan Zou, I am a fourth year History and Politics student....