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December 16, 2025
New! Ancient commentators on Aristotle
The Library is in the process of obtaining the complete collection of these ancient Greek commentaries on Aristotle, which were originally gathered together and edited in the series Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca (CAG). The 23 volumes in the series were first published by Reimer of Berlin between 1882 and 1909.
Open Access Technical Workshop – ‘Un-Report’
Hello All,
Here is the ‘un-report’ from our 4th April event looking at system functionality for Open Access. It mainly consists of informal notes and verbatim comments from the day.
OpenAccessTechnicalWorkshop Un-Report_20160404
We will be following this up at the final programme workshop around systems and metadata. The date and venue will be announced soon.
The presentations can be seen here:
Jisc – Sherpa REF and Publications Router
PURE – discussion was online on an instance of PURE – see the ‘un-report’ where there are lots of comments.
Posted on behalf of Valerie McCutcheon, University of Glasgow
Treasury of Linguistic Maps Online: trial access now available
We now have trial access – until 13th June 2016 – to Treasury of Linguistic Maps Online. 
Treasury of Linguistic Maps Online presents linguistic maps selected from various atlases and other publications that have been published over the years by De Gruyter Mouton and other De Gruyter imprints.
For the first time, this material is made available and searchable in one place and in a new, improved format.
All maps have been scanned in high-resolution for maximum quality and enriched with detailed metadata.
Many of these maps have not been digitally available before, and some are difficult to find even in printed form. The map interface allows zooming in on details, printing, and PDF export.
As always, your views on the resource will be most welcome!
Planning future sprints
We’re now in the third phase of the DataVault project, and as previously discussed, we are using fortnightly development sprints to undertake the remaining development tasks. Following our monthly project meeting yesterday, we now have draft sprints to take us up until the end of June, and the first full release of the software!
Keep an eye out for a future blog post: we’re scheduled to hold an event for potential early adopters of the DataVault system in their own institutions. 29th June, central London!
Between now and then we have planned a further four sprints (sprints 3, 4, 5, and 6). We plan these in details at the start of each sprint, but right now we have indicative backlogs for the next three. Not only will these involve further developments to the software, but also test installations at our institutions to allow more thorough testing of the software in-situ, especially once fully configured into local systems such as Shibboleth and PURE.
All of the Jisc #DataSpring projects have also been reviewed by both the SSI and the DPC in terms of sustainability and good practice from an open source perspective. We’re glad to report a relatively good result, but there are a few areas where we can improve – so we will also be addressing those in the coming weeks. These include better documentation, links about how to contribute to the project, and clearer contact details.
Fake invoice warning
Here is a quick blog post to warn you of targeted attempts to distribute malware by unknown and hostile persons. Over the last few weeks we have been sent numerous emails similar to the one below:
At a first glance it looks relevant. It is addressed to me personally, it references my place of work, it has some invoicing details that could conceivably be genuine. However, alarm bells should be ringing as it is from a contact I have never heard of, the company is not relevant, the email address is not consistent with the contact name, and the email is hosted from an american cable TV/ISP company. This type of email has been dubbed a spear-phishing attack by threat researchers.
If you were to download and open the MS Word file it contains a macro which deploys a Malware payload which sniffs out data on your computer and sends it back to the command and control server. More info at:
The return of the Microsoft Word macro virus
A colleague was recently infected by malware distributed by opening a MS Word document. Whilst the infection was caught and dealt with quickly they were unfortunately a victim of online bank fraud a few weeks later which may, or may not be connected, but the timing is highly suspicious. Here is a reminder to:
- Only open expected email attachments that come from a trusted source.
- Don’t rely on all anti-malware software to detect viruses in email attachments as not all macro viruses are detected by antivirus software.
- Delete any suspect emails without opening them.
Frogs and foxes
Art does not reproduce what we see; rather, it makes us see
Paul Klee
Our relaxation table in the Main Library Foyer has been helping students relax while they are revising for exams. One of the most popular activities has been origami, which is a great way to take a little break and re-focus your mind. So far, we have been making bookmark hearts, as well as roses and skulls to celebrate Shakespeare’s 400th birthday.
However, we have been getting requests for more patterns to try! There are some great websites that provide free origami patterns, such as origami-instructions.com and origami-fun.com. You can search there for whatever you want to make!
Otherwise, why not try some of our favourites? You could soon be the proud owner of a frog, fox, or penguin! Pick up some origami paper from our table today, and don’t forget to tweet us your creations (#happylibrary)!
Given in Good Faith : Making Presbyterian History
If you visit the Given in Good Faith exhibition, currently open at the Centre for Research Collections, you’ll be able to see some of New College Library’s treasures set in the context of the exhibition themes of church history, worship, scripture and science.
For the first of these themes, church history, we chose Special Collections items that demonstrated how New College Library’s historic collections look back to the Free Church of Scotland’s intellectual history and reflect its heritage as a centre of learning for Presbyterian ministry.
Treasures from the Reformation include the first edition of John Calvin (1509-1564)’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. One of New College Library’s iconic items, this guide and inspiration for a new form of Christian life, became a hugely influential work of Protestant theology. Less than a dozen copies of this edition are known to be in existence.
Calvin, Jean. Christiane religionis institutio, totam ferè pietatis summã. Basel: Thomas Platterum & Balthasarem Lasium, 1536. TR.852
APCs paid “in the wild”
As part of the LOCH project we have been looking at the problems of identifying Article Processing Charges (APCs) that the Library is not currently aware of – which we colloquially call ‘APCs paid in the wild’. We have written a short case study that is currently under open review at The Winnower:
Improving estimates of the total cost of publication by recognising ‘APCs paid in the wild’
The take home message from our ‘APCs paid in the wild’ case study can be summarised as:
We estimate that these costs could account for up to 20% extra in the total cost of publication that is not currently being accounted for. This additional cost is important to take into account when institutions are negotiating fair offsetting agreements for open access publishing.
We would welcome any constructive criticism on the work so please have a read and leave an open review so that we can improve the article.
Theo Andrew – LOCH Project Officer, University of Edinburgh
Trees, torture and the TR Collection
At New College Library we’ve been busy cataloguing the TR Collection, one of the Funk Donation funded projects, and over 1500 items have been catalogued so far. Believed to have once been kept in the Tower Room at New College Library (which is the origin of the shelfmark) this collection contains many early and interesting items. We’ve chosen three of them to put on display in the New College Library Hall, and using our new Special Collections scanner to capture images from them.
Ursin’s Arboretum Biblicum, a guide to trees in the Bible, is a richly illustrated early botanical work.
Ursin, Johann Heinrich (1608-1667). Joh. Henrici Ursini Arboretum Biblicum : in quo arbores & fructices passim in S. literis occurrentes … Nuremberg : Johannem Danielem Tauberum, 1699. New College Library TR.1123
Lord Elgin Records 19th Century China
One of the works in the ECA Rare Book Collection that places us firmly in a place and time in history is a book of photographs taken around the time of the notable expedition of Lord Elgin, James Bruce, to China on a diplomatic mission and military campaign. If one does not know much about Chinese history, which I must admit I know little of, you might view this image at first glance as simply another beautiful view of Chinese landscape and architecture. Upon further reading into the life of the 8th Earl of Elgin and the Old Summer Palace, as well as the photographers whose works are featured in the album, it becomes a much different story. One of these photographers was the talented Felice Beato who was known for photography that created images of war as a continuous process. He documented each stage of his subjects, including gruesome scenes of the aftermath of battles and seizes. This method provides great insight into the progression of Lord Elgin’s presence in China as many images fit into his timeline. Although the above photograph taken in 1860 seems to show a sturdy structure overlooking a stunning mountain range, it does depict a cultural landscape that was near the end of its time and one that was extremely vulnerable at the time. The caption for the image tells a snapshot of the gruesome story. The caption reads “View of the Summer Palace, Yuen-Min-Yuen, showing the Pagoda before the burning, Pekin. Octr 1860.” This could easily be one of the last photographs of the site before its infamous looting and burning on October 18, 1860. Many of the items taken from this event are still held today in the UK and other prestigious museums in Europe, although there is an ongoing conversation of where these works of great art and cultural importance belong.
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
My name is Pauline Vincent, I am a student in my last year of a...
Archival Provenance Research Project: Lishan’s Experience
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