Home University of Edinburgh Library Essentials
March 8, 2026
Iconic Photography
Clement Litill’s 1580 bequest charter
Part of our remit in the DIU has been to work through a list of ‘Iconic’ Items from the collection in our spare time. Over the years we have completed the digitisation of some outstanding manuscripts and collections in this way, from the Hill and Adamson photographs (a personal favourite- see http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/jl5w63) to the wonderful Laing Album Amicorum (see http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/6oh338 ). Read More
Open Access in the Next REF – Planning Update
Over the last few weeks. the University of Edinburgh has seen a whirlwind of activity around the Open Access requirements for REF. The Library’s Scholarly Communications Team attended an HSS College Research Committee, which has resulted in appointments to speak at School or subject area departmental meetings to inform academics of the latest requirements and how they will be implemented.
Edinburgh also hosted a meeting of the PURE Repositories Working Group, which is working to finalise the specification for PURE, to build a robust system for the management of the OA requirements in the run-up to the next REF.
I have been starting to think about planning for the implementation of the requirements and have been working with a variety of stakeholders across the University to decide how best to roll out the the requirements and get the academic buy-in and administrative support needed to get to 100% compliance. I’m writing a top-level plan for the University which will outline our overall approach to managing this as a project. In addition, we will visit every School in each of the three Colleges and run through a questionnaire to get a better picture of how things work there. We will use the results of this questionnaire to write up a brief implementation plan for each School, with agreed workflows depending on their needs. These plans will be agreed between the School (or research group, as may be) and the Scholarly Communications Team. We will include milestones and measures for testing performance, which we can use to assess progress over the coming year.
Questionnaire text included below for reference. I’d be interested in any feedback on this approach, so please contact me at dominic.tate@ed.ac.uk.
-Dominic Tate, University of Edinburgh
Implementation of Open Access Requirements for the Post-2014 REF
Planning Questionnaire
| School/Organisational Unit: | |
| Completed by:(Names & Roles) |
Associated Organisational Units
| Please list all the research centres associated with your School. In particular, we are interested in centres or groups which are affiliated with your School but which may not always be represented at meetings or participate in School activities. |
Responsibilities
| Who has overall responsibility for research in your School? How are decisions about research policy made in your School? |
| Does your School have a designated Open Access Champion? Please give his/her name and job title. |
| Which administrative staff are already working with PURE and/or Open Access? Please include names, job titles and particulars of working arrangements (e.g. If part-time, what days do they work? Are they on temporary contracts? Do they work exclusively with PURE/OA or is this part of another role. How many hours are allocated to this work? |
| Do you have any plans to put additional resources in place to support this work? Please give as much detail as possible |
Communications
| What channels are used to communicate important messages in your School? Please think about different formats. Who messages must come from in order to get attention? |
| At which meetings are the REF Open Access Requirements likely to be discussed? When and how often do these meetings take place? Please provide details of any scheduled forthcoming meetings. |
| Do you have any thoughts on how best to convey the message about Open Access in the REF to academic colleagues in your School? |
Use of PURE
| Please describe how you think academics in your School interact with PURE. Do you think academics use the system much themselves? Is it more likely to be administrative staff who use PURE on behalf of academics? Does this differ for different groups (e.g. early-career researchers, more senior staff)? |
| How do think staff in your School feel about PURE? Do they like it? Do they have problems using it? Do they see benefits in using the system? |
Training Requirements – Administrative Staff
| What training will be required for administrative staff in your School? Do they need extra training on using PURE, Open Access, policy details? Will you require additional training for temporary or agency staff? Is high staff turnover likely?Please give as much detail as possible. |
Training Requirements – Academic Staff
| What training will be required for academic staff in your School? Do they need extra training on using PURE, Open Access, policy details, versioning? Please give as much detail as possible. |
Measuring Performance
| How do you anticipate measuring performance against Open Access requirements in your School? What information do you need from the Scholarly Communications Team? |
| What milestones are targets would you like to see set for Open Access in your School? |
Change Management
| Implementation of the Open Access Requirements for REF requires academics to engage with PURE (or a designated proxy) each time a journal article or conference proceeding is accepted for publication. For most researchers, this represents a change in their normal procedures.How do you think we can best achieve this change in your School? |
Workflows
| At this stage, do you have any early ideas as to how the deposit, checking and validation workflow is likely to work in your School? |
Further Information
| Do you have any concerns about the implementation of the REF Open Access requirements in your School? |
| Do you have any ideas as to how to achieve successful implementation of the REF Open Access requirements which are not detailed elsewhere? |
| Do you have any further comments for the Scholarly Communications Team? |
Get the Best from the Library for … Medicine MBChB
MBChB students – want to get the best from the Library for Medicine? A key starting point is the Medicine Subject Guide at http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/subject-guides Start here to explore print and electronic collections, library facilities and library news. Any questions? Your Academic Support Librarian is Sheila Fisken.
Spotlight on featured resources for MBChB Medicine :
UP TO DATE
This resource is highly recommended by the Medical School. It gives evidence based answers to clinical questions quickly and easily. On and off campus access@ http://www.uptodate.com.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/contents/search
BMJ
We subscribe to a wide range or resources from the BMJ:
- BMJ Best Practice
- BMJ Case Reports
- BMJ Learning
- BMJ Journals
ENDNOTE
Register to get an Endnote account to help store and manage your references. Learn how to create reference lists in a variety of styles.
http://www.docs.is.ed.ac.uk/docs/Libraries/PDF/guideEndNoteWebregistering.pdf
Sheila Fisken – Academic Support Librarian, Medicine MBChB
Get the Best from the Library for … ECA
Want to get the best from the Library for subject areas in ECA? A key starting point is the Subject Guides at http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/subject-guides. Start here to explore print and electronic collections, library facilities and library news for Art, Design, History of Art, Architecture and Music. Any questions? Your Academic Support Librarian is Jane Furness (J.Furness@ed.ac.uk).
Spotlight on significant resources for ECA purchased recently:
Music Online Premium Service from Alexander Street Press:
Provides access to 13 music collections,delivering a combined-and constantly growing-total of 860,000+ audio tracks, 1,200+ hours of video, 26,000+ scores, 124,000+ pages of reference material, and 200,000+ playlists to support diverse learning needs.
Pro Quest Art & Architecture Online:
This collection supports scholarship across fine and applied arts through to interior design, industrial design, and landscape gardening. The title list includes: Apollo, Architectural Review, Architects Journal, Art Monthly, British Journal of Photography, Country Life, Eye, Graphis, Ornament and more.
Routledge Performance Archive online:
A resource produced in partnership with Digital Theatre, providing unique access to a wide range of audio-visual material from past and present practitioners of performance.
Jane Furness – Academic Support Librarian, ECA
Trial – RIPM
We have trial access to RIPM (Retrospective Index to Music Periodicals) on the EbscoHost platform until the 11th November.
RIPM offers a unique, searchable collection of complete full-text music journals not found in any library or any other online resource, spanning a period of some two hundred years, from C.P.E. Bach to Berg and Bartok, and from Schubert to Schoenberg and Stravinsky.
Feedback and further info
We are interested to know what you think of this database as your comments influence purchase decisions so please do fill out our feedback form.
A list of all trials currently available to University of Edinburgh staff and students can be found on our trials webpage.
A Picture of Health
On Thursday 30th October from 10am, Louise and Clair from Lothian Health Services Archive (LHSA) will be on the Library Pop desk on the first floor of the Main Library. LHSA is one of the largest medical archives in the UK, holding everything from institutional records of Edinburgh’s hospitals to small personal collections from those who worked inside them.
Including registers and minutes, plans, photographs, objects, audio-visual media and more, our archive documents the history of healthcare in Edinburgh and the Lothians over more than four hundred years (our earliest holding dates from 1594). Our collections trace the social, political, economic and (of course) medical history of our city and are widely used by the general public, students and academics. Our most popular resources come from our Royal Edinburgh Hospital (REH) collections, a psychiatric hospital (‘asylum’) that has just celebrated its bicentenary. Ranging from admission registers to patient letters, artwork and case books, the good recordkeeping of the hospital has led to a wealth of unique sources for students, academics and family historians exploring patient experiences in the nineteenth century.
Artwork by Royal Edinburgh Hospital patient, John Willis Mason, c. 1890s (GD16).
On Thursday, we’ll be focussing on our image collections. As Clair has been cataloguing LHSA’s considerable collection of photographs, she has put together a slideshow of some of her favourites:
Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh Ward, 1895 (P/PL1)
We’ll also be remembering the centenary of the First World War in our display by bringing along a number of collection items. For example, you will be able to see a rare wartime photo album from the Edenhall Hospital for Limbless Soldiers and Sailors (based near Musselburgh) and a scrapbook from nurse Ethel Miller. Nurse Miller worked in the 2nd Scottish General Hospital Craigleith, where she decided to pass around a book amongst her soldier patients to record their memories, verses and sketches. The scrapbook is a real favourite with LHSA staff, and in autumn last year we produced a replica copy that is used in education work:
Page from the scrapbook of Nurse Ethel Miller, c. 1917 (Acc12/20)
So come and see us on Thursday from 10am and we can let you know how LHSA can help you, from historical research to sources for projects and finding your own Edinburgh family history.
Louise Williams, LHSA Archivist
Ladies in the Lords: Chrystal Macmillan Lecture Oct 2014
On Thursday 30th October the Lord Speaker Baroness D’Souza will deliver the Chrystal Macmillan Lecture on the topic of Ladies in the Lords: Women’s Representation in Political Life.
Today there are 189 women in the House but it is only since the 1958 Life Peerages Act that women (as well as those without an inherited title) were allowed to sit in the House of Lords.
We’ve put together just a short reading list of journal articles available online through the University Library that allow you to read about and around this particular topic. So if you are unable to attend the Lecture or just wish to find out a bit more then read on. Access only available to University of Edinburgh students and staff unless otherwise noted. Read More
Get the Best from the Library for … Informatics
Want to get the best from the Library for Informatics? A key starting point is the Subject Guide at www.ed.ac.uk/is/subject-guides-informatics Start here to explore print and electronic collections, library facilities and library news. Any questions? Your Academic Support Librarian is Angela Nicholson.
Featured Recent Purchases for Informatics in 2014-15 include:
Foundations and Trends in Technology
Provides high quality reviews, surveys, and tutorials of significant research topics written by leading authors in their field. Titles include:
Foundations and Trends in: Computer Graphics and Vision; Databases; Human-Computer Interaction; Information Retrieval; Machine Learning; Programming Languages; Theoretical Computer Science; Web Science
Angela Nicholson, Academic Support Librarian – Informatics
Get the Best from the Library for … Business
Want to get the best from the Library for Business? A key starting point is the Business Subject Guide at http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/subject-guides Start here to explore print and electronic collections, library facilities and library news. Any questions? Your Academic Support Librarian is Angela Nicholson.
Featured Library Resources for Business in 2014-15 include
Oxford Handbooks Online
Online Handbooks and Reference for Business and Management from key publishers, including Oxford University Press.
Fame
Fame contain detailed financial information of all UK companies updated monthly with up to 10 years of data. FAME allows you to search by a range of criteria including: location, industry, number of employees, balance sheet items and ratios.
Orbis
Orbis contains comprehensive information on companies worldwide, with an emphasis on private company information. Use it to research individual companies, search for companies by profile, analyse companies. Orbis contains information on both listed and unlisted companies.
Angela Nicholson, Academic Support Librarian – Business
Get the Best from the Library for … Literatures, Languages and Cultures
Want to get the best from the Library for Literatures, Languages and Cultures? A key starting point are the Subject Guides for Literatures, Languages and Cultures – find your subject at http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/subject-guides Start here to explore print and electronic collections, library facilities and library news. Any questions? Your Academic Support Librarian is Shenxiao Tong.
Spotlight on significant resources for Literatures, Languages and Cultures purchased recently:
International Database of Shakespeare on Film, Television and Radio
This authoritative online database of Shakespeare-related content in film, television, radio and video recordings is international in scope, is regularly updated and currently holds nearly 8,000 records dating from the 1890s to the present day.
Izvestiia Digital Archive
Among the longest-running Russian newspapers, Izvestiia was founded in March 1917 and during the Soviet period was the official organ of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Remarkable for its serious and balanced treatment of subject matter, Izvestiia has traditionally been a popular news source within intellectual and academic circles. The database platform offers the option to go to “All Sources” so that you can cross-search the content with the Pravda Digital Archive and other digital resources.
Orlando
Orlando – “Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present” is a dynamic resource for the study of English literature, women’s writing, and cultural history in general. It consists of factual, critical, and interpreted material, with biographical and writing career entries on over 1,000 writers, more than 850 of them British women. It also includes selected non-British or international women writers, and British and international men, as well as more than thirty thousand dated items representing events and processes in a wide range of contexts such as history, science, medicine, economics and law.
Kotobarabia Arab Leaders, Historians and Philosophers Collection
This is an Arabic e-book collection containing approximately 5,000 titles from nearly 1,000 important Arab thinkers, philosophers, historians, politicians, and theologians in the Arab world. Topics cover feminism, modern medicine, political reforms, including the Orabi Revolution, education, arts, religion, and more. The collection includes works by the Four Imams of the Sunni Sect, the Al Azhar Modern Sheikhs; various authors of the Modern Arab Enlightenment, and rare works by the former Egyptian royal family. The database search platform is in English, with printable and downloadable features.
Chinese Periodical Full-text Database (1911-1949)
The database currently consists of eight series, containing the full text of more than 10,000 periodicals published during this important Minguo (i.e. Republic of China) period. it is cross searchable with the Late Qing Dynasty Full-text Periodicals 1833-1911.
Casalini ebooks Collection
The Casalini full text platform (Torrossa) provides access to a selection of 1,867 scholarly e-books from Italian and Spanish academic publishers since 2000 for University of Edinburgh users. The collection consists of 1,188 titles on Italian studies and Italian literature and 679 titles on Spanish studies. The books are in Italian or Spanish and can be either downloaded or viewed online in PDF format. The e-book collection is fully searchable, including by words in the full text.
Oxford Handbooks Online – Literature Module
OHO brings together the world’s leading scholars to discuss research and the latest thinking on a range of major topics. Each Handbook offers thorough introductions to topics and a critical survey of the current state of scholarship in a particular field of study, creating an original conception of the field and setting the agenda for new research. The articles review the key issues and major debates, and provide an original argument for how those debates might evolve.
Oxford Bibliographies Online
Designed to provide authoritative guidance, Oxford Bibliographies is an innovative online reference tool that combines the best features of a high-level encyclopaedia and the best features of a traditional bibliography in a style that responds to the way people do research online.
ARTFL-FRANTEXT
ARTFL-FRANTEXT is the main database of the ARTFL Project (American and French Research on the Treasury of the French Language). It consists of over 3500 transcribed texts ranging from classic works of French literature to various kinds of non-fiction prose and technical writing from the 12th to the 20th century. Genres include novels, poetry, theatre, journalism, essays, correspondence, and treatises. Subjects include literary criticism, biology, history, economics, and philosophy. In most cases standard scholarly editions were used in converting the text into machine-readable form, and the data contain page references to these editions.
Shenxiao Tong, Academic Support Librarian – LLC
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....