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December 16, 2025
Around the World in 90 years- the Story of Historic Leith Improvement Scheme Photographs
When Fraser Parkinson first contacted us about the collection of historic photographs of Leith that he had been entrusted with, my colleagues and I at the Centre for Research Collections were very excited. The photographs were taken to show the slums of Leith prior to the ‘Edinburgh (Leith) Improvement Scheme of 1924’, where large areas were to be cleared and rebuilt. Fraser tells us that:
‘The Town Council Minutes of 3rd April 1924 propose the demolition or reconstruction of ‘certain houses, courts, and alleys unfit for human habitation’.
The concerns of William Robertson, Medical Officer of health for the City and Royal Burgh of Edinburgh, were that the
‘narrowness, closeness and bad arrangement, or the bad condition of the streets and houses, or the want of light, air, ventilation or proper conveniences or other sanitary defects are dangerous or injurious to the health of the inhabitants of the buildings in the said Areas, or of the neighbouring buildings.’
The scheme involved large-scale demolition in this area of Leith, and the re-housing of most displaced residents out-with the areas covered by the scheme.
These photographs were taken as a record of the area at this time by the City Council. They provided the photographic evidence of the conditions that presented significant risk to public health at this time.’
Data Carpentry & Software Carpentry workshops
The Research Data Service hosted back to back 2-day workshops in the Main Library this week, run by the Software Sustainability Institute (SSI) to train University of Edinburgh researchers in basic data science and research computing skills.
Learners at Data Carpentry workshop
Software Carpentry (SC) is a popular global initiative originating in the US, aimed at training researchers in good practice in writing, storing and sharing code. Both SC and its newer offshoot, Data Carpentry, teaches methods and tools that helps researchers makes their science reproducible. The SSI, based at Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre (EPCC), organises workshops for both throughout the UK.
Martin Callaghan, University of Leeds, introduces goals of Data Carpentry workshop.
Each workshop is taught by trainers trained by the SC organisation, using proven methods of delivery, to learners using their own laptops, and with plenty of support by knowledgeable helpers. Instructors at our workshops were from Leeds and EPCC. Comments from the learners – staff and postgraduate students from a range of schools, included, ‘Variety of needs and academic activities/disciplines catered for. Useful exercies and explanations,’ and ‘Very powerful tools.’
Lessons can vary between different workshops, depending on the level of the learners and their requirements, as determined by a pre-workshop survey. The Data Carpentry workshop on Monday and Tuesday included:
- Using spreadsheets effectively
- OpenRefine
- Introduction to R
- R and visualisation
- Databases and SQL
- Using R with SQLite
- Managing Research & Data Management Plans
The Software Carpentry workshop was aimed at researchers who write their own code, and covered the following topics:
- Introduction to the Shell
- Version Control
- Introduction to Python
- Using the Shell (scripts)
- Version Control (with Github)
- Open Science and Open Research
Software Carpentry learners
Clearly the workshops were valued by learners and very worthwhile. The team will consider how it can offer similar workshops in the future at a similarly low cost; your ideas welcome!
Robin Rice
EDINA and Data Library
A Passage to India – Part 2
In this week’s blog, Special Collections Conservator, Emily Hick, describes the next stage of conserving a collection of Indian paintings, and explains how she used a rigid gel to remove old tissue papers that were adhered to the front. You can read part one of this blog here.
After completing a condition report and putting together a treatment proposal, we began interventive treatment. The first step was to surface clean the paintings. This removes all loose surface dirt, which can be harmful to paper documents, and prevents the dirt from sinking further into the paper fibres during the later aqueous treatments, making it difficult to remove. To do this we used a soft goat hair brush on the painted areas and smoke sponge on the borders. We cut the smoke sponge into small pieces and used a dabbing motion to avoid removing any of the gold leaf sprinkled on the surface. A good quality Mars Staedler™ rubber was cut into thin slithers and used to remove areas of ingrained dirt on the edges of the painting.
Ingrained dirt at the corner of a painting
Dawsonera downtime
E-Books on the Dawsonera website will be unavailable for up to half an hour between 7:30am and 8:00am on Thursday 25th August 2016 while they undertake essential work on the platform. Dawsonera will be offline during this time and students should ensure they have downloaded and opened any e-books they need access to before this outage occurs. It will also not be possible to read titles which have been downloaded but not opened before the outage period.
Highlights from the RDM Programme Progress Report: February to April 2016
The membership of the Research Data Service Virtual Team across four divisions of IS was confirmed and met for the first time (to replace the former action group meetings) on 11 February where it was agreed meetings would be held approximately every six weeks for information and decision-making.
In February, the DataShare metadata was mapped to the PURE metadata and staff in L&UC and Data Library trained each other for creating dataset records in Pure and reviewing submissions in DataShare. It was agreed that staff would create records in Pure for items deposited in DataShare until the company (Elsevier) provides a mechanism for automatically inputting records into Pure.
In March, Jisc announced that the University of Edinburgh was selected as a framework supplier for their new Research Data Management Shared Service.
A review of the existing ethics processes in each college is in progress with Jacqueline McMahon at the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS) to create a University-wide ethics template. There is also engagement with the School ethics committees at the School of Health in Social Sciences (HiSS), Moray House School of Education (MHSE), Law and School of Social and Political Science (SPS) in CAHSS.
The Research Data Management and Sharing (RDMS) Coursera MOOC opened for enrolment on 1 March 2016. This was completed in partnership with the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill CRADLE project. Research Data Management and Sharing (RDMS) MOOC stats from the Coursera Dashboard reveal that as of 23 May 2016, there have been 5,429 visitors and 1,526 active learners; 335 visitors have completed the course.
The large data sharing investigation was completed for DataShare and reported previously. (Two new releases in DataShare defined: upload and download). Upload release (2.1) to go live 23 May 2016.
PURE dataset functionality is now included in standard PURE and Research Data Management (RDM) training. There are now 210 dataset records in PURE.
Four PhD interns were hired in mid-March to act as College representatives for the IS Innovation Fund Pioneering Research Data Exhibition. They will be employed until mid-December 2016.
A total of 363 staff and postgraduates attended RDM courses and workshops during this quarter.
There were 30 new DMPonline users and 55 new plans created during this quarter.
There are now 210 dataset metadata records in PURE.
A total of 56 datasets were deposited in DataShare during this quarter.
The total number of DataStore users rose from 12,948 in the previous quarter to 13,239 in this quarter, an increase of 291 new users.
National and International Engagement Activities
In February
- Stuart Lewis gave a DataVault presentation at the International Digital Curation Conference (IDCC) in Amsterdam.
In March
- A University news item was released to mark the launch of the Research Data Management and Sharing (RDMS) MOOC on Coursera. http://www.ed.ac.uk/news/2016/dataskills-010316
- Stuart MacDonald gave an RDM presentation to trainee physicians at the Royal College of Physicians Edinburgh Course: Critical appraisal and research for trainees, Edinburgh. http://www.slideshare.net/smacdon2/rdm-for-trainee-physicians
- Three delegates from Göttingen University were hosted here. The delegates have shared interests in RDM and visited to gain more insight into RDM support and experiences here.
- Robin Rice gave an invited talk about the RDMS MOOC and web-based Survey Documentation and Analysis (SDA) tool to Learning, Teaching and Web and elearning@Ed Showcase and Network monthly gathering.
In April
- Robin Rice attended the ATI Reproducibility and Sustainability workshop at Oxford University on behalf of IS and gave a lightning talk on use of DataShare for reproducible science.
- Stuart MacDonald gave an invited presentation on RDM and ELNs to HEIDS at University of Strathclyde: Research Data Management and ELN Information Sharing Event. http://www.slideshare.net/edinadocumentationofficer/rdm-elns-edinburgh
- Robin Rice gave a peer reviewed presentation at the Force11 2016 conference in Portland, Oregon: Overcoming Obstacles to Sharing Data about Human Subjects. http://www.slideshare.net/rcrice/overcoming-obstacles-to-sharing-data-about-human-subjects
As part of my responsibilities to cover the one year interim of Kerry Miller’s maternity leave, I will be writing blogs for this page until Kerry returns next summer.
Prior to this post, I worked the past 12 years as the geospatial metadata co-ordinator at EDINA. My primary role was to promote and support research data management and sharing amongst UK researchers and students using spatial data and geographical information.
Tony Mathys
Research Data Management Service Co-ordinator
Main Library Summer Improvements 2016 – Update 18th August
Work is continuing in the Main Library on a programme of works to bring significant improvements for library users through increasing the number of study spaces by 350 and providing additional power and data facilities at study desks.
Work underway this week (22nd – 31st August)
1st floor – construction and electrical enabling work will now begin in what was the ‘New Book Area’ and ‘Reception Desk’ to transform these area into new study spaces. In addition to these works, study desks adjacent to accessible study rooms 8 – 11 will also undergo upgrade which will include desk top power being installed to these desks. Please be aware that whilst these works are being carried out, temporary diversions will be put in place to both the meeting room suite and south side study area. Directional signage providing alternative access to these areas will be placed on 1st floor to assist you.
Lower Ground Floor – construction work has also now started in this area and will continue throughout the rest of August.
Apologies for the continuing noise and disruption – thank you for your patience while work is underway.
More DataVault presentations
It’s been a busy summer for the DataVault, with further presentations taking place.
First up was a short trip to Dublin to the Open Repositories 2016 conference in June. The presentation was scheduled to be part of the 24×7 session: 24 slides to be presented in 7 minutes – that’s a mere 17.5 seconds per slide (rather than the usual rule-of-thumb of a minute or two!) and with the slides auto-advancing for a bit of added fun!. Thomas Higgins and Stuart Lewis presented, and gave an overview of the project, the platform, and gave a demonstration.
A copy of the slides is available for download.
Then in August, Mary McDerby and Stuart Lewis attended the Repository Fringe in Edinburgh, where Stuart presented the DataVault in a session led by the DCC’s Angus Whyte, alongside Rory Macneil from ResearchSpace, looking at the subject of research data workflows, and what this means for systems such as the DataVault which sit within those workflows.
Wartime service honours of Dr William Aldren Turner (1864-1945)… Devised a management strategy for shell shock… Honoured by Belgium and Britain
EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY MEDICAL STUDENT… SERVED WITH ROYAL ARMY MEDICAL CORPS (RAMC)… BECAME ADVISOR ON ‘WAR NEUROSIS’ AND SHELL SHOCK TO THE BRITISH WAR OFFICE…
William Aldren Turner was born in Edinburgh, 5 May 1864. He was the son of the Principal of Edinburgh University, Sir William Turner, and his wife Agnes. The younger Turner was educated at Fettes College, and then he studied at Edinburgh University as a medical student. He graduated as M.B., C.M., with first-class honours, in 1887, and then completed a term as house physician at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.
Detail from the citation for the award of the King Albert Medal presented to Turner by the Belgian Ministry for Foreign Affairs (Quatercentenary Collection, Box 16)
He also studied as a postgraduate in Berlin and at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. He was awarded his M.D. in 1892.
Detail from the citation awarding the King Albert Medal to Turner, 1921 (Quatercentenary Collection, Box 16)
In 1892 Turner was appointed as an assistant to David Ferrier (1843-1928), and as a demonstrator and then lecturer in neuropathology, at King’s College, London. In 1896 be was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (London), and in 1899 he was elected assistant physician to King’s College Hospital. Nine years later he became physician in charge of neurological cases and lecturer on neurology.
For six years he was also on the staff of the National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic. He published Epilepsy, a Study of the Idiopathic Disease (1907), and with Grainger Stewart, a Textbook of Nervous Diseases (1910). He married Helen Mary Mackenzie in 1909.
Citation – King Albert Medal (Quatercentenary Collection, Box 16)
As a Territorial officer in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC), Turner had been rushed to France in December 1914 as a temporary Lieutenant-Colonel (Special Duty) when it became clear that ‘nervous and mental shock’ casualties were multiplying. He was one of the few doctors at the National Hospital with first-hand experience of casualties in France.
Award to Turner from the British Red Cross and the Order of St. John (Quatercentenary Collection, Box 16)
As a consultant both at King’s College Hospital and the National Hospital, he was responsible for devising a management strategy for shell shock and in January 1915 (through to 1919) he was appointed consultant neurologist to the War Office. He was created C.B. in 1917, the same year he was elevated to Colonel.
Turner acted as neurologist to the War Office Medical Board from 1919 to 1943 – the principal advisor to the government in these matters – and from 1930 to 1943 as consultant adviser to the Ministry of Pensions.
Part of the citation from the award of OBE, 1919 (Quatercentenary Collection, Box 16)
In 1921 he was awarded the King Albert Medal (Koning Albert Medaille / Médaille du Roi Albert) by Belgium. This was a medal established by Belgian royal decree on 7 April 1919 and it was awarded to both Belgians and foreigners who were exceptionally meritorious in promoting, organising or administering humanitarian and charitable work that assisted Belgians in need during the First World War.
In recognition of valuable services rendered during the War, he was also presented with an award by the British Red Cross and the Order of St. John of Jerusalem in England, and in 1919 he was given an OBE.
‘Efforts are Successes’: Dunfermline College of Physical Education and the 1928 Olympic Games
Our collections celebrate and often reflect people’s excellence, endeavour and achievement and being in the throws of Olympic achievements we’ve looked at the Dunfermline College of Physical Education archives to see what we could find.
The Old Students Association for the College, which is still going strong, can boast of members that competed at the Olympics and many who became so expert in their sport, that they were asked to coach or umpire. We thought however we’d try and find an example of being a spectator at the Olympics, as many of us are doing that, watching it on television at home. While this is not the same as attending, many of you may have actually attended events at the Olympics in London in 2012 or the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014. Maybe you’ll recognise the experience C.D. Abercromby had in 1928, when attending the Olympics in Amsterdam, Holland.
Excerpt from Dunfermline College of Hygiene and Physical Education, ‘Old Students Association Reports 1912-1936’
Some interesting Olympics 1928 facts:
- It was the first time the Olympic flame was lit during the Olympics
- For the first time the parade was led by Greece, the home of the Olympics
- The first appearance of Coca-Cola as a sponsor
- It was the first games to be called ‘Summer Olympic Games’
- There were 14 sports, 20 disciplines and 109 events with a total of 46 competing countries
Rachel Hosker, Archives Manager
Breaking Boundaries – videos now online
A few months ago we hosted the ‘Breaking Boundaries‘ event, examining the subject of research data through the eyes of the archives, records management, and research data management communities. If you weren’t able to make the event, or if you want to hear the talks again, then you’ll be pleased to hear that the videos from the event are now online:
- Introduction (archives): Rachel Hosker
- Introduction (research data management): Stuart Lewis
- Case study / Keynote: Victoria Cranna
- Case study / Keynote: Ian Deary
- Lightning talk 1: Chris Awre
- Lightning talk 2: Adrian Stevenson
- Lightning talk 3: Rebecca Grant
For full details of the event programme and write-up, please see the following blog post:
Collections
Hill and Adamson Collection: an insight into Edinburgh’s past
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Cataloguing the private papers of Archibald Hunter Campbell: A Journey Through Correspondence
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Projects
Cataloguing the private papers of Archibald Hunter Campbell: A Journey Through Correspondence
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Archival Provenance Research Project: Lishan’s Experience
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