Home University of Edinburgh Library Essentials
April 7, 2026
A-Z lists unavailable
There is currently an outage on the Library website – updates will be posted on the ISHelpline twitter account – https://twitter.com/isalerts
Please use DiscoverEd to access e-resources during the downtime
Stalin Digital Archive – new database
Following a successful trial, we have now purchased the Stalin Digital Archive database from EastView.
The Stalin Digital Archive contains primary and secondary source material related to Joseph Stalin’s personal biography, his work in government, and his conduct of foreign affairs. A majority of these documents are scanned page images and corresponding bibliographic records in Russian created by the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI). The archive also contains full transcriptions of all of the volumes in Yale University Press’s acclaimed Annals of Communism (AOC) series.
Stalin Digital Archive can be accessed via the databases A-Z list, the History A-Z list or DiscoverEd.
The Parliament Rolls of Medieval England – new database
Following a successful trial earlier this year, we have now purchased the Parliament Rolls of Medieval England database.
The rolls of parliament were the official records of the meetings of the English parliament from the reign of Edward I (1272 – 1307) until the reign of Henry VII (1485 – 1509), after which they were superseded by the journals of the lords and, somewhat later, of the commons. The rolls, which amount in total to over four million words, were first edited in the eighteenth century and published in 1783 in six folio volumes entitled Rotuli Parliamentorum ( RP ) under the general editorship of the Reverend John Strachey.
This database can be access via our Databases A-Z list, History A-Z list or DiscoverEd.
New Testaments from history
At the beginning of next month, the University of Edinburgh welcomes the Annual Meeting of the British New Testament Society, which will take place on 3- 5 Sept 2015. Currently on display in New College Library are three notable New Testaments from our Special Collections. Read More
Cambridge Books Online – More E-Books Added
For this academic year we have expanded our holdings to include coursebooks – we have now loaded 8000+ e-books across most subject disciplines to DiscoverEd. A list of the additions can be found here.
A full list of our Cambridge Books Online can be found here. We will provide monthly updates on new titles added.
Further info
Further information about our e-books is available from http://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/library-museum-gallery/finding-resources/ebooks
If a book you require is not held by the library, please visit our Library Resources Plus webpage.
Japan Times Archives 1897-2013
Following a trial of Japan Times Archives 1897-2013 last May, we have now subsbscribed to this resource, together with full access to the current issues of Japan Times Online.
Japan Times Archives 1897-2013
Founded in 1897, The Japan Times is the oldest English-language newspaper in Japan. It has been published to promote mutual understandings between Japan and other countries. This newspaper Includes unique articles which cannot be read in Japanese-language newspapers. The Japan Times Archives provides full-text access to issues from March 1897 to December 2013, and the Japan times Online includes articles from 1999 to present. Both resources are full text searchable.
Papers of Dr. Jacobus L. Potter & Dr. Elizabeth M. Potter
THEIR BIRTHS IN NOVEMBER 1924 WERE ANNOUNCED IN THE SCOTSMAN ON THE SAME DAY… AFTER CAREERS IN THE USA, JACOBUS LOUW POTTER BECAME EXECUTIVE DEAN, FACULTY OF MEDICINE, EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY, 1981,
Recently added to our collections are the Papers of Dr. Jacobus L. Potter (1924-2015) and Dr. Elizabeth M. Potter (1924-1979), donated by the surviving family.
Elizabeth M. Ross at Tonley House, Alford, a hostel housing young women helping local farmers during the Second World War. Elizabeth was a cook at the hostel before going on to study medicine. An article about the women and their work was printed in the ‘Bon-Accord & Northern Pictorial’, 21 September 1944.
Elizabeth Mackay Ross and Jacobus Louw Potter grew up and went to school in different parts of Fife, Scotland, and met at Edinburgh University. Jacobus graduated in 1948 and Elizabeth in 1949, each with the degrees of M.B. Ch.B. They married in 1949.
Jacobus Louw Potter, probably at graduation in 1948.
One of the first posts that Jacobus held was that of resident surgeon in the rheumatic diseases unit of the Northern General Hospital, Edinburgh. In 1952 however he joined the medical branch of the Royal Air Force becoming a squadron leader in charge of the medical division, RAF Hospital, Padgate, in Cheshire. In 1954 he returned to Edinburgh as a research fellow at the Northern General, and he went to the USA to research at the New York University School of Medicine’s pathology department.
The cover of the sketch-book filled by Jacobus L. Potter, 1944-1945.
In 1962, Potter returned to the USA, to White Plains, New York, and spent the next 20-years in the country. He had varied roles including: work with the Health Research Council of the City of New York; Associate Professor and Associate Dean of the New York University School of Medicine, 1958-1980; physician/consultant for the New York Veteran’s Administration Hospital; and, consultant at New York Infirmary.
Sketch by Jacobus L. Potter, also a talented artist, showing a bundle of plain muscle fibres and connective tissue.
He also served on various bodies and committees, and he was elected as a Fellow of the American College of Physicians. He also became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
Part of a sketch of capillaries by Jacobus L. Potter.
Meanwhile, after her graduation and marriage Elizabeth held posts at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, the Northern General Hospital, and Bruntsfield Hospital, all in Edinburgh, and at Bangour Hospital outside the city.
Sketches of hair follicle with sebaceous gland, and sweat gland.
Joining Jacobus in the USA in 1963 she worked at the New York University School of Medicine, the New York University Medical Center, New York Infirmary, and St. Clare’s Hospital Center.
Sketch of submaxillary gland.
In 1981 Jacobus L. Potter was back in Scotland where he took up the post of Executive Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Edinburgh University. This was noted in the University of Edinburgh Journal, Vol.30. No.1. June 1981. p.6. Sadly Dr. Elizabeth Mackay Potter had predeceased her husband on 26 July 1979, still only in her 50s.
Sketch of the thymus.
Jacobus Louw Potter FRCP FACP died on 9 May 2015 in Edinburgh. His second wife, Rena (Catherine Matthews), had predeceased him a little earlier in 2015.
Sketch of the cerebellum.
The donated collection which will now be prepared and boxed is composed of correspondence, class certificates and University study memorabilia, degrees and professional certificates of the couple. It is expected to be complemented with diaries and additional correspondence at a future date.
Notes of anaesthetics contained in the sketch-book kept by Jacobus L. Potter.
Dr. Graeme D. Eddie, Assistant Librarian Archives & Manuscripts, Centre for Research Collections
Note, also used in this post: ‘Obituary: Jacobus Louw Potter FRCP FACP, physician’, Alison Shaw, The Scotsman, 28 May 2015
2016 Library and University Collections calendar: Cities of the World
The 2016 Library & University Collections calendar is out now, offering a fascinating insight into how the world looked at the dawn of the modern era.
Featuring maps, city plans and illustrations from the sixteenth century Civitates Orbis Terrarum, it contains an incredible diversity of content ranging from an engraving of London at the time of Shakespeare through to stunning illustrations of the great American capitals of Mexico City and Cusco on the eve of the Spanish conquest.
Mexico City and Cusco
Some cities are more recognisable than others; the magnificent harbour of Rhodes Town shows the city’s mighty fortifications that still stand to this day, while the African cities of Mombasa and Sofala bear almost no resemblance to their present appearance.
Rhodes Town
Priced £8 and spanning a fifteen month period from October 2015 to December 2016, the calendar can be purchased online at http://www.giftshop.ed.ac.uk/2016-Calendar.html and in person from the Visitor Centre, the Centre for Research Collections and the Main Library helpdesk. The images can also be viewed online in high resolution on our dedicated calendar collection page: http://collections.ed.ac.uk/calendars.
The Civitates Orbis Terrarum is just one of thousands of items in our collection which have not yet been fully digitised. If you would like to talk to us about supporting our digitisation activity, please email the Development Officer for Library and University Collections at alumni@ed.ac.uk.
Fabienne Hess: Hits and Misses
The exhibition Hits and Misses by Swiss London-based artist Fabienne Hess opened in the Talbot Rice Gallery on Thursday 31st July. Please try and catch it; it’s on till 3rd October.
Why is a Digital Developer blogging on an art exhibition, you might well ask? Well, Fabienne’s work is heavily informed by technology, and is particularly interested in the debris kicking around on people’s computers, but she was also hugely interested in doing something with our vast digital image archive, served up by the LUNA platform at images.is.ed.ac.uk.
Her main point of contact in the Library was Neil Lebeter, curator of the Art Collection. Neil says:
“I was first contacted by Stuart Fallon at the TRG about working with Fabienne back in February. The three of us met after work one day to have a quick discussion about Fabienne’s other projects and initial thinking for her exhibition at the gallery. She first explained about a project involving printing the contents of her computer recycle bin onto a huge piece of fabric and then asked about the variety and number of digital images in the University’s collections. It would be fair to say that my initial reaction to the prospect of printing all publicly available images onto a huge piece of silk was of amazement and fear in equal measure. We’d never really done anything like this before, but I thought that we had to at least try. Particularly given conversations in the L&UC Cross Cutting Groups and the notion of freeing up our digital assets, this seemed perfect and very timely. It has taught us a lot about our collections – not least that they are very beige when looked at en masse!”
Fabienne’s main exhibit is fascinating: it comprises large collages of our images, carefully and deliberately arranged, and printed onto huge drapes, which take up a whole room. It looks magnificent, as these photographs prove, but this is just part of the collection, and not necessarily the part that piques her interest most. Once I started talking to Fabienne it was clear there was more to this work!
Dolly on Display
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....