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July 28, 2026
New books for Social and Political Science: March 2015
Thanks to recommendations from members of staff and requests via RAB from students the Library is continually adding new books to its collections both online and in print. Here are just a small number of the books that have been added to the Library’s collections in March 2015 for Social and Political Science.
Polarization and Transformation in Zimbabwe : social movements, strategy dilemmas and change by Erin McCandless (e-book)
Unexpected Alliances : independent filmmakers, the state, and the film industry in postauthoritarian South Korea by Young-a Park (shelfmark: PN1993.5.K6 Par.)
The neoliberal regime in the agri-food sector : crisis, resilience, and restructuring edited by Steven A. Wolf and Alessandro Bonanno (shelfmark: HD9000.6 Neo. Also available as e-book.)
The great humanists : an introduction by Jonathan Arnold (e-book) Read More
A knot better!
I am writing this on the very last day of my work placement here at the University of Edinburgh. I have had an amazing six weeks learning about caring for the historic musical instrument collection. Many of the things I have learnt can be applied to other kinds of collection material but some things are very instrument-specific. So I thought I’d talk about some of those.
For example, I have learnt how to make frets from gut (the same material used for early strings) for 17th century string instruments. This involves using a special knot to tie the gut round the fingerboard, making it as tight as possible and sliding it to the right position, then burning the ends so it won’t unravel (and so it looks really neat). Fire is something I never thought I would use in conservation, so this was awesome!
New frets on a archlute – the knots are on the back of the fingerboard, at the top, where they would be least disruptive to the player
How to tie the fret knot. Image from Gamut Music Inc.
There is a mathematical equation for positioning the frets on the fingerboard in order to achieve perfect semi-tones. However, these instruments are not in playing condition, so it doesn’t matter too much about the precise positioning of the frets. You may ask, why put them on in the first place, if they are not needed for playing? For the same reason you’d take plastic strings off a baroque instrument and replace them with new gut strings: the instrument should be made to look complete and correct so the viewer understands how it works, and how it should look. It should look as if it could be played, and if it were played it would sound authentic. But let’s not get started on authenticity of sound…
New frets on an archlute – front view
Many of these instruments did have frets, and most people wouldn’t know (I didn’t) but it makes a lot of difference to the sounds they would have made. Also they did not have nylon in the 17th century!
However, it’s not just about using the correct materials, but using them properly and wasting as little as possible. So when I put strings on a baroque guitar, the strings which have been made (by Gamut, an early music string maker) have a few extra inches that are not needed. These few inches can then be used to make frets, for example. The knots at the bridge of a guitar or lute can be tied in many different ways, but the way we do it here is so that all the ends point downwards (when the instrument is held as if for playing) and are tucked away behind the bridge. Beautiful!
Baroque guitar with new gut strings, detail of bridge. Check out that inlay!
Last week I did a short presentation to show the CRC staff what I have been doing during this placement, which I rounded off with before and after images of the head of an instrument called a viola da gamba – the first string instrument I had the pleasure of working with. And the loveliest, I think. In Southampton I volunteer at the SeaCity Museum, working with their objects conservator who likes to personify things in the collection, describing a piece of newly consolidated Murano glass as ‘a lot happier’, or a rusty medieval sword as ‘not very well’. I think this can be applied nicely to the viola da gamba. She looks great for a 319 year-old, and genuinely seems happier with her new strings.
Viola da gamba before cleaning and re-stringing
Viola da gamba after cleaning and re-stringing
Post by Harriet Braine, Preventive Conservator Student Placement
Risk Registers
Today, I added a number of risks related to Open Access to the University’s Information Services Group Risk Register. The risks were around loss/reduction of funding for Open Access and non-compliance with RCUK and REF Open Access policies.
The purpose of this exercise was to make sure that risks are formally documented to library management, and also to show that we have thought about mitigation, and identified individuals responsible for these risks. As mentioned in earlier posts, we have included more detailed risk registers on School implementation plans. We are now thinking about whether it would be appropriate to encourage Schools and Colleges to include similar items in their organisational documentation.
We’d be interested to hear if other Universities have taken a similar approach, and if this has had any impact in raising awareness or on planning for OA implementation. Please get in touch if you’d like to discuss this more, or have anything to feed back.
New data analysis and visualisation service
Statistical Analysis without Statistical Software
The Data Library now has an SDA server (Survey Documentation and Analysis), and is ready to load numeric data files for access by either University of Edinburgh users only, or ‘the world’. The University of Edinburgh SDA server is available at: http://stats.datalib.edina.ac.uk/sda/
SDA provides an interactive interface, allowing extensive data analysis with significance tests. It also offers the ability to download user-defined subsets with syntax files for further analysis on your platform of choice.
SDA can be used to teach statistics, in the classroom or via distance-learning, without having to teach syntax. It will support most statistical techniques taught in the first year or two of applied statistics. There is no need for expensive statistical packages, or long learning curves. SDA has been awarded the American Political Science Association Best Instructional Software.
For data producers concerned about disclosure control, SDA provides the capability of defining usage restrictions on a variable-by-variable basis. For example, restrictions on minimum cell sizes (weighted or unweighted), use of particular variables without being collapsed (recoded), or restrictions on particular bi- or multivariate combinations.
For data managers and those concerned about data preservation, SDA can be used to store data files in a generic, non-software dependant format (fixed-field format ASCII), and includes capability of producing the accompanying metadata in the emerging DDI-standard XML format.
Data Library staff can mount data files very quickly if they are well documented with appropriate metadata formats (eg SAS or SPSS), depending on access restrictions appertaining to the datafile. To request a datafile be made available in SDA, contact datalib@ed.ac.uk.
Laine Ruus
EDINA and Data Library
Fairbairn Archive Mystery Item of the Month
One of the elements of archival work I have always enjoyed is the opportunity to get to know a collection really intimately. In order to generate intelligible finding aids for researchers, it is important to get a good overview of a collection: to understand how records relate to each other and to learn all that you can about the format, creator, use and date of an item. Luckily, this is often pretty easy but sometimes an item comes along which presents a bit more of a challenge.
Challenging items bring out an archivist’s inner Sherlock Holmes. Minute clues are forensically examined in the hope of cracking the mystery. However, some challenges are easier than others and today I would like to ask for your help with a mystery I have been unable to solve so far.
The item in question is a six-line, rhyming poem on a suitably psychoanalytical theme.
My familiarity with Ronald Fairbairn’s papers means that I know this item is in his handwriting*. However, I have no real idea as to the author of this poem. Is this an original Fairbairn composition or is it something he merely transcribed?
Knowing the answer to this mystery will be invaluable as it will help to ensure Fairbairn’s papers are catalogued to the highest possible standard. So, can anyone out there help?
*By now, I can read Fairbairn’s hand pretty easily, but just in case it proves a little tricky, here’s a transcription of the poem:
Remember well what Freud hath said-
We want to take our mums to bed.
And, since they always utter “no”,
We feel we’ve nowhere else to go.
Hysteria doth thus emerge
Through failure of the sexual urge.
A Traquair Treat
As there were several separate requests recently for images from the splendid ‘Song School St Mary’ manuscript by Phoebe Anna Traquair, we decided the time was right to digitise the book from cover to cover, replacing some fairly mixed quality old digital images and preparing it for the LUNA Book Reader http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/109unz . This item is one of my favourites (yes, I know I have many…), and it is a beautifully illuminated, vibrantly coloured, jewel-like treasure. Although made in 1897, Traquair created this on vellum, which adds to the impression of exquisite quality. Read More
Unwrapping the Martin Hall Collection
This January we began cataloguing work on the MR Collection from New College Library’s Special Collections. This sequence contains much early and rare material, and carries the shelfmark MR because at one time these books were housed in the Martin Hall in New College.
Image courtesy of Paul Nicholas
We were really excited to find this lovely item, Historia apostolica illustrata : ex actis apostolorum et epistolis Paulinis. Published in seventeenth century Geneva, the author Louise Cappel writes about the works of the apostles, and Paul in particular. What’s immediately striking about it is that it is covered with a vellum wrapper (waste parchment) with beautiful manuscript lettering.
Image courtesy of Paul Nicholas
While further research is required on the wrapper, it appears to be a medieval liturgical text. The back cover (pictured) is in honour of St. Nicholas, with his name appearing in the line with the musical notation.
Christine Love-Rodgers – Academic Support Librarian, Divinity
Paul Nicholas – Funk Cataloguer
Elizabeth Lawrence – Rare Books Librarian
March Update from LOCH
I realise we’ve been a bit quiet recently, so it is high time we posted an update to let you know what we have been doing over the last few months! The good news is that we now have a case study and a number of related documents which we are pleased to be able to share with you. We hope that these documents will provide some inspiration and assistance in planning and gearing up for Open Access in the next REF.
ARMA Good Practice Event
Last week Janet Aucock and I attended ARMA’s Good Practice Exchange event, at which we presented St Andrews and Edinburgh Universities’ approaches to preparing for OA in the next REF. St Andrews are adopting a more central approach with the library taking ownership for all the administration, whilst here at Edinburgh, we are adopting a more decentralized approach, with more work being carried out in Schools and Colleges. We’ve made St Andrews and Edinburgh’s slides available, as well as our planning checklists.
Open Access Implementation Case Study – College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine
Anna Krzak, Edinburgh’s Open Access Administrator in CMVM has kindly put together a case study looking at the specifics of implementing the REF OA requirements in the context of medical sciences. Hopefully this will be of use to other Universities. If you have any comments about this then please contact either anna.krzak@ed.ac.uk or dominic.tate@ed.ac.uk and we would gladly discuss this work further.
Communications Best Practice – Example Emails
Here at Edinburgh, we are starting to contact academics about the new requirements, and you might be interested to this exemplar draft email, which is intended to be sent to all staff in the College of Medicine. This second example email was sent to all staff in the School of Mathematics.
School Implementation Plans & Job Descriptions – Humanties & Social Sciences
The University of Edinburgh is in the process of agreeing implementation plans within many of its Schools to agree locally how the new OA requirements will apply, and to details the processes needed to make this happen. We’re delighted to include here an example School Implementation Plan, drafted by Jacq McMahon (Research Officer in the College of Humanities & Social Sciences). This College is also starting to think about what resources will need to be put in place to manage any additional workload. At present the College is considering employing new Open Access Facilitators to work in Schools and in co-ordination with the Library’s Scholarly Communications Team. A (draft) job description is also available.
Resource List:
ARMA Good Practice Event:
University of Edinburgh Slides: https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/10009
St Andrews University Slides: https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/10015
Discussion Points and Planning Checklist: https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/10014
College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine Open Access Implementation Case Study:
https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/10010
Exemplar Emails:
College of Medicine: https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/10012
School of Mathematics: https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/10011
Example School OA Plan and Risk Register (Humanities & Social Sciences): https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/10013
OA Facilitator Job Description: https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/10016
Get fresh with Taylor & Francis journals
The Library currently has trial access to over 140 “young” journal titles (between 3 and 7 years old) via the Taylor & Francis Fresh Collection. You can access this collection via the E-resources trials page at www.ed.ac.uk/is/databases-trials and the individual journal titles will be added to the E-journals A-Z list.
Taylor & Francis are showcasing their newest titles in the Fresh Collection including Africa Review, African Journal of Science, Technology, Innovation and Development, Celebrity Studies, Contemporary Italian Politics, Critical African Studies, Global Discourse, International Critical Thought, Journal of Development Effectiveness, Migration and Development, Resilience: International Policies, Practices and Discourses and South Asian Diaspora.
You can access a full list of the titles from all subject areas at Fresh Collection Title List (pdf).
Trial access is available until 31st December 2015. We would welcome feedback on these resources as this helps with making the decision on whether individual journal titles should be considered for subscription or not.
Caroline Stirling – Academic Support Librarian for Social and Political Science
Saying Goodbye to Dr. Coffin
This week, we say farewell to our conservation intern, Samantha. To mark the end of her 10-week internship working on the Thomson-Walker collection, we put some questions to Samantha to find out more about her time working on the project:
- Why did you decide to apply for the internship at the CRC?
When I graduated last June I decided to make a career plan. This included at least one year of work experience, which would allow me to put my education into practice, strengthen my skills set, and improve areas of weakness. This need to develop had been my main ambition when applying for opportunities. However this particular internship intrigued me for a couple of other reasons. I was interested in the idea of working for a University conservation studio and how this might compare with working for a museum for instance. Inviting also was the prospect of leading a big project during the first phase of conservation; when you train as a conservator it is unusual to work on a large collection independently and so this was an excellent opportunity to do so.
- What did you expect from the internship? Has anything surprised you?
I thought I would be working solely on the Thomson-Walker collection, but I very quickly recognised that this was not the case. I would indeed be occupied with the Thomson-Walker collection on a daily basis, however I would also be giving tours, supervising volunteers, teaching taster days, writing blog posts and assisting with an exhibition, which was a pleasant surprise.
- Tell us about what you’ve learnt over the past 10 weeks.
I now know how to survey a collection and create a project proposal. Creating a programme of conservation and preservation that doesn’t just benefit one print but over 2000 felt very daunting 10 weeks ago. But by taking small steps, and keeping in mind that my approach would have to be interpreted by interns after me I have been able to get through it by staying methodical, and making vigorous notes and to do lists!
- Can you describe for our blog readers a typical day within the CRC conservation studio?
The conservation treatment of the Thomson-Walker collection included removing old backing boards and using a carboxymethyl cellulose poultice to remove tape and adhesive. As this poultice is essential to the treatment I would prepare the CMC the previous evening and construct the poultices as soon as I arrived at the studio the following morning. Once these were ready I began the treatment. Because of the demanding nature of the project, I worked on a number of prints simultaneously, aiming to conserve and rehouse around 10-15 per day. Whilst this is going on I might assist with a tour of the conservation studio, discussing the project with visitors and giving demonstrations. And then during the second half of the day a volunteer would help me to create archival folders to rehouse prints that I’d previously conserved. The CRC has a number of dedicated volunteers, usually students with an interest in conservation wishing to gain experience before embarking upon a relevant degree. This partnership has been very successful for the Thomson-Walker collection, as it has allowed me to conserve more prints, whilst a volunteer has gained new skills and experience.
- What have you enjoyed most about your time with us?
Working within a University. I was unsure how this would compare with my previous experience of working within a museum or archive setting, but the difference has been huge. One of the main objectives of the CRC conservation studio is to make their collection more accessible and fun. I have really embraced this ideology during my time here, and hope to be an advocate of such aims during my future career. Working in such an open and exciting atmosphere has also done wonders for my confidence.
- What have you found most challenging?
Creating a rehousing programme for the Thomson-Walker collection. This wasn’t just difficult because of the sheer number of prints but because they are all completely different sizes! I started out by wrestling with measurements, conservation catalogues, budgets, time restrictions, calculations, and ordering forms. Once this was all worked out I could relax a little. That was until my order arrived…then I had to make sure that all those calculations had been correct and actually get the project underway.
- What shall you miss about the internship?
As an intern, it is not always possible to be self-directed, and projects aimed for interns are typically already set up and ready to go. For this reason I shall miss the independence I have experienced whilst working on the Thomson-Walker collection. I have enjoyed creating and following my own rules.
- Do you have a favourite print?
Yes! I recently discovered a print of Dr Albert Isaiah Coffin (1790–1866). Whilst the print itself isn’t spectacular I found the name rather amusing and decided to do some 
research on the American herbalist. It turns out that Dr Coffin was a man ahead of his time and has even been called a revolutionary. Instead of paying extortionate fees for a conventional doctor, Dr Coffin advocated that one should learn the secrets of medical botany and be their own doctor. In the north of England, Coffin delivered lectures to working people and set up botany societies where people could meet to learn and discuss medicine, as well as sharing problems and tips. This idea was nicknamed, “coffinism.” In a way I feel that Coffin’s aims are echoed within the CRC conservation studio…well not quite, but we do offer conservation taster days!
- What advise would you give to the next intern working on the Thomson-Walker collection?
The conservation studio is currently a very exciting place to be working for all of the reasons I’ve mentioned above. Take advantage of all the extra activities on offer. Work hard but play harder!
From all of us in the conservation studio, and the CRC as a whole, we would like to thank Samantha for all her fantastic work, and wish her the best of luck in her future career. In the meantime, we will be sure to keep you updated on how the Thomson-Walker project developments….
Post by Samantha Cawson, Conservation Intern
Collections
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Projects
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