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December 18, 2025
Oxford Scholarship Online – new e-books
A further 197 e-books across a variety of subject disciplines have been added to Oxford Scholarship Online and these are now available in DiscoverEd.
A list of the new additions can be found in the spreadsheet here.
The women behind the words: thanking the typists of the twentieth century
Digitising this thesis collection is an act of time travel. We began in May at the early twentieth century and are currently working through the seventies. We have enjoyed images of a man in a beautiful three-piece suit coaxing a snake into a glass tube from the twenties, and are currently being treated to some majestic large collars, trousers and hair from the seventies. Not only do the fashions change, but the technology changes as well, from hand written, to meticulously typed on typewriters, and finally to modern computers, which we have yet to encounter. In this way the PhD thesis collection is a litmus test for the technological development of the society from which it emerged.
The collection is also an indication of social development. It cannot be denied that the authors of these theses are not representative of society en masse, but a highly educated, largely male minority. But these are not the only people bound within these volumes, and one could argue not the only creators of these theses as physical objects. I am fascinated by the names of countless women who worked tirelessly to create this collection. These are of course the professional typists who pieced together chapters, created tables and graphs and read handwriting that seems to have been often rather illegible. I encounter these women in the acknowledgments section of the theses. I find this particularly amusing because presumably in order to be thanked in the thesis they needed to type their own acknowledgement.
I have been taking note of these women for about three weeks now and so far about 40% of the volumes I have encountered contain acknowledgments to typists. I don’t know if these means the work was typed by its author or if the typist’s name just hasn’t been included. I have recorded sixty different women. Only two women, Helen Scott and Anthea Cormack, have been named twice. Cormack typed two theses addressing fibrinolysis, whereas Scott typed one PhD in chemistry and another MD about the liver. Therefore I’m not sure whether typists specialised in certain topics or not. I have encountered one example of a man typing a thesis for a women, Maureen Child completed her thesis entitled ‘An ethological study of social interaction among nursery school children’ in 1978. She thanks Nick Child, perhaps a relative, for typing her thesis.
These names will not be on the catalogue, they did not receive a new title for their work, and presumably within a decade or so their skills were no longer required. I have managed to find very little information about typists working in Edinburgh in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s but clearly there were several. I would like to type an acknowledgement to them so they don’t have to do it themselves for once.
Sustainable Organization Library – more content added
We have updated our holdings to Sustainable Organization Library. New e-journal and e-book content has been added to DiscoverEd.
New e-journal
The Journal of Sustainable Mobility (ISSN 2053-2350) is a new peer-reviewed journal that provides an interdisciplinary forum for the exchange of innovative and empirically sound research on sustainable transportation. The Journal of Sustainable Mobility is published in association with Cranfield University, Nottingham Business School and The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).
The Journal of Sustainable Mobility publishes on topics including, but not limited to, the following:
- Low-carbon vehicle technologies
- Renewable/clean/green technologies
- Biofuels and other sources of renewable energy
- Transportation management systems
- Vehicle emission controls
- Sustainable transport policies and governance
- Corporate sustainability
- Historical review of the automotive and oil industries and transport management systems
- Comparative studies of national and regional approaches to technology development and environmental control
- Case studies of innovations in technology, business models, and policy initiatives in relation to sustainable mobility
New e-books
Dō Sustainability E-books – 50 new titles. DōShorts are a collection of concise, high-quality books for professionals. They address one sustainability challenge at a time and can be read in 90 minutes. The collection includes practical “how to” guides as well as framework pieces and business briefings that give an expert overview of cutting-edge developments in a wide range of fields.
See the full list at http://www.ingentaconnect.com.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/content/dos
More info
The full list of Sustainable Organization Library content can be browsed at http://www.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/login?url=http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/collection/gse_susorg2013. Individual records have been added to DiscoverEd. Sustainable Organization Library can also be accessed from the Business Databases AZ list.
Digital video resources for Divinity
I’ve been following up from student feedback questions following library induction sessions last week, and one really interesting one has been about library access to digital video recordings.
The Library has recently purchased access to the large and comprehensive online streaming video resource Academic Video Online from Alexander Street Press. Containing over 50,000 recordings overall, it currently lists 324 videos on ‘Religion & Thought’ – and that’s just the start.
Academic Video Online allows you to create and share playlists and create clips, permalinks are also available to embed or link to from other sites. Transcripts are available for many videos and these can be searched. Read More
Ada Lovelace Day 2016: Wikipedia editathon
On Tuesday, 11th October 2016 the University’s Main Library will once again be running a Wikipedia editathon to celebrate Ada Lovelace Day 2016.
This is an international celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Read More
Cochrane Clinical Answers – new e-resource
We have recently added Cochrane Clinical Answers to our A-Z list and DiscoverEd.
Cochrane Clinical Answers (CCAs) provide a readable, digestible, clinically focused entry point to rigorous research from Cochrane systematic reviews. They are designed to be actionable and to inform decision-making at the point of care. Each Cochrane Clinical Answer contains a clinical question, a short answer, and an opportunity to ‘drill down’ to the evidence from relevant Cochrane reviews.
Cochrane Clinical Answers homepage
Further info
You can also access CCA via:
Nursing – Clinical Decision Tools AZ list
Open Access Journals for Religious Studies
We’ve recently added some new open access journals for Religious Studies to DiscoverEd, aiming to make what’s freely available online as discoverable as possible for University of Edinburgh students.
These include the South Asianist, which is produced by the University of Edinburgh, to inspire critical debate on social, environmental, linguistic, religious, political and economic issues in South Asia. Read More
I: ‘The Times’ History and Encyclopaedia of the War – its early issues and ambition
‘…AN ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT CONTEST NOW IN PROGRESS…’
Printed and published by The Times newspaper, The Times History and Encyclopaedia of the War was a British weekly periodical first issued on 25 August 1914, only three weeks after the outbreak of war on 4 August. In the Preface to the first issue, the object of the enterprise was defined.
The Preface claimed that it would be ‘an account of the great contest now in progress’, and it would be ‘at once popular and authoritative’. It would be ‘popular in the best sense of the word’, and discuss the political factors which have led up to the crisis’, and serve ‘as a work of reference’.
As far as writing was concerned, the publisher spoke of its ‘staff of foreign correspondents […] celebrated for the knowledge and insight into political and social conditions’. These correspondents had made ‘the foreign pages of The Times the most accurate review of current foreign affairs published in any paper in the world’. The Times had ‘succeeded in obtaining the services of writers well versed in Military and Naval affairs and foreign political matters’.
The Times History and Encyclopaedia of the War was to be issued ‘weekly in sevenpenny parts’ (7d in 1914 being roughly £3.00 in 2016), and thirteen parts were to form one volume. Special bindings were to be offered ‘in three different qualities’ – cloth, half leather, and full leather – to be ‘sold by every bookseller’. Modern 2016 prices for these various ‘qualities’ would be cloth £7.75, half leather £14.25, and full leather £26, roughly.
Ad’ for the special binders that were available in which to gather the weekly parts of ‘The History’. From Volume 1, Part 2, p.ii.
The weekly parts would also carry advertisements within the covers, and not just for The Times own products such as its binders, a weekly edition of the newspaper, a war atlas etc. Here is an advertisement for a tobacco – Player’s Navy Mixture – which was a ‘Combination of Bright Virginia, Louisiana perique, Latakia, and other scarce Eastern Tobacco’…:
Tobacco advertisement from the cover of one of the weekly issues of ‘The History’, in Part 21, Volume 2.
At first, the publication was known as The Times History of the War but as the war progressed it would be known by the much more descriptive title of The Times History and Encyclopædia of the War. The earlier Parts 1-63 used the earlier title, and Parts 64-273 formed the later title. By war’s end the history/encyclopaedia would consist of twenty-one volumes. The individual parts of Volumes 1-21 were issued from 25 August 1914 to 27 July 1920, and Volume 22, published in 1921, formed a general index.
King Peter I of Serbia was featured on the front cover of Part 21 of Volume 2.
The earliest component parts featured graphic work on the front covers of the individual issues. Those in Volumes 1 and 2 featured the German Emperor, George V, Earl Kitchener, Field-Marshall Sir John French, Lt-Gen. Sir Douglas Haig, Peter I, General Gallieni, and Nicholas II, amongst others. The front cover was not always a statesman or military figure though…:
‘Homeless’ probably from communities in northern France or Belgium, featured on the front cover of Part 10, Volume 1.
Refugees fleeing assault on their communities were featured on a front cover in Volume 1, and in Volume 2 a cover features an enlistment poster ‘appealing’ for recruits after attacks on the east coast of England. It was an appeal to the ‘Women of Scarbro’ (Scarborough) to help ‘avenge slaughter of the innocent women and children’ of the town and ‘encourage’ men to ‘Enlist at Once’…
In the ‘East coast raid number’ this poster was featured on the front cover of Part 23, Volume 2.
The Preface to the first issue also commented on its maps. These were to be reproduced from those appearing in the pages of the daily newspaper – The Times – though ‘in some cases special maps will be prepared for particular purposes’. It went on, ‘special pains have been taken to secure their accuracy in every particular’.
World map showing Africa and South America in 1915, appended to part 23, Volume 2, p.357.
An insert world map appended to Part 23 (February 1915), Volume 2, showed ‘the combination of powers and principal events of the first months of the war’. The map impressed on the reader how global the war had become, with naval action around the Falkland Islands in December 1914, naval action in the south eastern Pacific off Chile, and actions in south western Africa and west Africa.
Same map showing action in the Middle East in 1915, appended to part 23, Volume 2, p.357.
The same map showed action taking place in Cyprus, Egypt, and Basra (then simply a city in the Ottoman Empire, rather than in the yet to be configured Iraq), and action in the Indian and western Pacific Oceans, and in China.
Siege Howitzer illustrated in Part 6, Volume 1, p.223.
Very early in the work too, it would become clear to the reader how ‘modern’ and ‘industrial’ warfare had become. The issues would feature pictures of aeroplanes of all warring parties, the siege howitzer and other heavy artillery, airships…:
French aeroplane illustrated in Part 15, Volume 2, p.54.
‘Zeppelin’ illustrated in Part 16, Volume 2, p.81.
and bombing…:
‘Air bombing’ illustrated in Part 18, Volume 2, p.196.
A further look at the content of The Times History and Encyclopædia of the War will be taken in the next few months.
Dr. Graeme D. Eddie, Assistant Librarian Archives & Manuscripts, Centre for Research Collections (CRC)
Planning for the REF at Surrey: a visit from the LOCH project
The REF Open Access Planning workshop, which took place in Manchester in December 2015, was oversubscribed. This was quite disappointing for many of us who were in the process of setting up workflows in preparation for April 2016 and were keen to attend.
Our open access team here at Surrey was therefore delighted to receive a visit from Dominic Tate, Scholarly Communications Manager at the University of Edinburgh and project manager of Lessons in Open Access Compliance for Higher Education (LOCH), to offer advice and start a dialogue on open access and the REF. The visit took place in January, when we were still shaping our implementation plans.
The session was interactive, which allowed us to talk about how Surrey has been supporting open access in the last 10 years and what challenges we face in terms of embedding open access, managing workloads and reporting on compliance. Here are some of the key things we addressed:
Planning for the REF.
- Different models work for different Universities; but while there is no one-size fits all solution, exchanging ideas with others is always beneficial. Dominic put us in touch with nearby institutions with this in mind.
- It is important to keep the model simple. A ‘devolved’ or ‘centralised’ model – or a combination of both, can be chosen to fit the institution’s size, culture, and existing practices. Here at Surrey we are combining both approaches, identifying champions at School or research group level to help spread the messages, but also supporting a ‘top-down’ approach, e.g. emails from senior members of staff.
- It is important to create a really clear understanding of what is meant by ‘on acceptance’ and provide succinct guidance regarding this.
Staffing and workflows
- It is difficult to evaluate the FTE needed to work on Open Access if it is not yet fully embedded or adopted in the institution.
- Thinking about what tasks need extra resource is essential. We took this advice to put forward a business proposal for a specific workflow that we believed would work best for Surrey.
- It is worth considering the relatively low cost of Green OA in making a case for funding: this is approximately £33 to deposit a manuscript compared to £88 to pay an invoice – plus the invoice cost of approx. £1750 (based on SPARC figures). this, too, has been very informative when putting forward a business case.
Changing Culture / key messages
- Having an open access policy in place, which Surrey has had for many years now, is only the first step towards implementation. A clear operational plan is necessary to implement the policy. In this respect Surrey has made a lot of progress, but this now needs to be aligned with HEFCE priorities.
- We need to start thinking about open access as part of the research lifecycle. If, for example, we treat open access like we treat research ethics, then it will become much harder for researchers to ignore.
- The emphasis should be on the added value of OA, rather than on compliance.
Four months after Dominic’s visit, and with REF compliance as our top priority, we have drawn considerably on that day’s discussions to:
- Formulate key messages around compliance;
- Plan, set up and start implementing a heavily mediated workflow for REF compliance, supported by advocacy available at many levels and through several communication channels;
- Make sure that key ideas around the value of open access are not lost among funders’ mandates, supporting systems and copyright jargon.
Surrey has been supporting open access since the setup of our first repository in 2005. GFollowing the introduction of HEFCE’s open access policy we have reviewed our practices, moving to more mediated procedures, and strengthened the messages with compliance in mind. Discussing this within the LOCH project context has helped us see more clearly what others have tried and what is most likely to work for our institution. Even more importantly, we have also addressed support of open access beyond compliance with HEFCE.
Posted on behalf of Christine Daoutis – University of Surrey
New Furniture Arriving
We are almost there – thanks for your continued patience!
New furniture for the 358 additional study spaces will start to arrive next week – please see below for details.
Tuesday 13th September – 2nd & 4th Floors
Thursday 15th September – Lower Ground Floor
Tuesday 20th September – 1st & 3rd Floors
Whilst every attempt will be taken to avoid the minimum of disruption to users as the new furniture is assembled there will be an element of unavoidable noise as these works get carried out.
The installation of the new desk top power modules will be installed quickly after the new study desks have been assembled, the desktop power will enable you to charge your devices via a plug or a USB port. These works will be carried out in the evening as there will be an element of drilling work involved. As with previous works, barriers will be put in place to alert users of the areas where the contractors will be working in.
Tuesday 13th , Wednesday 14th & Thursday 15th September – 2nd & 4th Floors
Monday 19th September – Lower Ground Floor
Tuesday 20th & Wednesday 21st September – 1st & 3rd Floor
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....