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December 15, 2025
Would you like to be the next LexisNexis Student Associate?
Each year our major databases recruit for a new Student Associate to fill the role of training and peer support. LexisNexis have announced they are currently looking for a student at the University of Edinburgh to fill this position for the 2023/24 academic year. Please see the attached flyer for more information:
LexisNexis Student Associate Job Advert
The closing date for applications is 17th July, applications can be submitted in the form of CVs at the following link: https://bit.ly/3IyxXDO
Good luck!
Critical Approaches to Libraries (CALC) 2023
I attended the CALC Conference on 24th and 25th May and can thoroughly recommend this annual event to other professionals interested in critical librarianship. The gathering was welcoming and introduced the day by stating “we will operate within a spirit of liberation at this conference”. If you have not heard of CALC before, their website states that “The Critical Approaches to Libraries Conference aims to provide a space to discuss all aspects of critical practice in libraries and librarianship including (but not limited to) decolonisation, critical pedagogy, equality, diversity and inclusion in library work and the representation of marginalised groups in the workforce, academia and literature.”
The 2 day conference was packed with a diverse range of topics and speakers, so I can only highlight a few here. At the end of the blog post I have included links to further reading.
Some of my key take-aways were:
- When designing a support resource for ebook accessibility question your assumptions about students understanding of platforms, and co-design courses with students.
- When investigating library ‘decolonisation’ initiatives there is no such thing as “neutral”. Be clear about your positionality and privileges. Find actionable recommendations to solve a problem (move beyond critiquing, to action). Look at Algorithms of Oppression book (on DiscoverEd).
In the Day 1 conference Keynote: Decolonising bibliographies, referencing and citational practices Dr Gurnam Singh shared so many important reflections for where we find ourselves right now, such as:
- “Enlightenment belongs to humanity not to Europe!”
- “Colonialism is an economic endeavour and is still happening”.
- “Critiquing the canon means exposing the othering and silencing of people”.
Dr Singh discussed the various types of colonisation to be aware of such as settler colonisation, extractive colonisation, and plantation colonisation.
(Colonialism is generally classified by one of five overlapping types according to the practice’s particular goals and consequences on the subjugated territory and its indigenous peoples. These are: settler colonialism; exploitation colonialism; plantation colonialism; surrogate colonialism; and internal colonialism.)
Dr Singh then went on to compare the fixed hierarchies of arborescent thought versus rhizomatic thought’s interconnected multiplicity and networks of thought, which rejects fixed categories and sees connections and dialogues.
Some of his comments might be challenging to some people, such as “Citation rankings are monetised and racist, and so therefore is the REF [Research Excellence Framework]”. It is true that currently citation rankings perpetuate certain dominant authors and global voices, which position Western discourse as the most “valid” or important. Dr Singh said “When an article has 10 authors you just know its gaming the citation rankings – its fraud. The publishing industry is colonial – it’s based on colonial attitudes.”
“Decoloniality is about building a new humanity not going back to a “purer” time. This isn’t a specialist subject, its about being human. Maybe AI could release us to be humans and not robots?”
Other topics covered by other speakers included multilingualism in public libraries; using reflective practices to extend the impact of teaching in libraries; developing collaborative cataloguing codes of ethics; setting up Library Decol Working Groups in academic libraries; exploring working class roots of library staff and their experiences in the mostly middle class populations of HE library staff; being a neurodivergent librarian in HE; using critical race theory in medical curriculum decolonisation work; and using the Homosaurus for cataloguing in a public library consortium.
We were encouraged to develop the attitude that everybody brings something to the workplace – a richness of their own, rather than making assumptions about the limitations of people based on their assumed backgrounds, identities, or experiences of “othering”.
I can thoroughly recommend attending this very affordable and welcoming conference!
Jane Furness
ECA Academic Support Librarian
Further reading links:
The recordings of the sessions will soon be uploaded to the CALC Conference site:
https://sites.google.com/view/calcconference
If you are interested in the topics raised at the Conference these links will be useful to explore:
Future Learn course on Anti Racist Technologies https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/anti-racist-technologies
Cataloguing code of ethics:
https://www.uwtsd.ac.uk/library/support-for-staff/collection-development-policy/cataloguing-code-of-ethics/
https://sites.google.com/view/cataloging-ethics/home
https://homosaurus.org/
Journal of Information Literacy article on working class library staff experiences: https://journals.cilip.org.uk/jil/article/view/20
Critical Race Theory book: Knowledge Justice (on DiscoverEd):
https://discovered.ed.ac.uk/permalink/44UOE_INST/7g3mt6/alma9924550010502466
Critical Race Theory definition:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/critical-race-theory
CRT awareness: https://www.uksg.org/newsletter/uksg-enews-534/navigating-whiteness-and-reflecting-identity-vocational-awe-and-allyship
Neurodivergent librarians supporting each other: https://neurospicylibraries.flarum.cloud/
One neurodivergent librarian’s experience: https://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2017/neurodiversity-in-the-library/
CALC conference on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqB_9b3mgcJ0yu8cHK9kIoQ
Books, Boxes and Bugs! A day in the life of a Collections Care Technician at the Centre for Research Collections
Welcome to our new Day in the Life Series! The Conservation and Collections Management team recently recruited three new members of staff. In this series each of our new team members will give you an insight into life behind the scenes at The University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Research Collections. In this post, our new Collections Care Technician Robyn Rogers discusses what she has been up to since joining the team in March. Expect two more posts in this series, as we introduce our Appraisal Archivist and Archives Collection Manager, Abbie Hartley, and our Collections Management Technician, Jasmine Hide.
My first three months at the Centre for Research Collections have been jam packed – I have installed an exhibition, couriered a loan to the V&A Dundee, cleaned one hundred linear metres of rare books, and rehoused over seventy collection items – and that’s just a small selection of what I’ve been up to! On an average day you might find me jet setting across campus to move a harpsichord at St Cecilia’s Hall, or vising our offsite repository, the University Collections Facility, to clean some especially dirty books, before finishing the day in the Conservation Studio making some phase boxes. I feel fortunate to have worked with many fascinating collection items so far, from a Bible that had been rescued after falling down a well, to 60s pop stars’ microphone of choice. This demonstrates what I love about being a Technician working in cultural heritage – our work focuses on preventative collections care, as opposed to interventive treatment, allowing us to work with an exciting breadth of collections material.
The Book Surgery Part 2: Bringing Everything Together
In this blog, Project Conservator Mhairi Boyle her second day of in-situ book conservation training she has undertaken with Book Conservator Caroline Scharfenberg (ACR). Mhairi previously undertook a Maternity Cover contract at the CRC within the Conservation Department.
In the previous blog, the examination and initial steps in spine repair and board reattachment of two volumes from the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies (R(D)SVS) were described. The first blog in this series can be found here.
After my first session with Caroline, I sat down and pored over all my notes and the millions of photos I had taken. The amount of thought, precision and care that goes into book spine linings and repairs that will eventually be hidden and concealed shows how complex even in-situ book conservation steps can be. After jotting down my notes into a coherent order and cross-referencing everything with Caroline, I came back to the studio a few weeks later refreshed and ready for a full day of training and collaboration.
In this session, Caroline and I focused on making spine pieces and hollows, and examined how to reattach cracked book boards in different ways. One of the things I like most about working in Conservation is that we are constantly adapting and evolving techniques, tailoring them to the objects we are currently working on. This is exactly what Caroline demonstrated to me: informed by our initial examinations of both volumes, we tailored the treatment steps for each book based on its size, weight, and particular areas of weakness.
Copyright Insights and Collaborative Exploration: A Visit to Leiden University and KU Leuven Libraries
Last month, I had the incredible opportunity to go on an Erasmus+ visit to Leiden University Library and KU Leuven University Library to meet with colleagues and discuss about copyright, the second publishing right as existent in the Netherlands & Belgium, Open Access and Plan S issues and, generally, about research support services that our libraries are offering academics.
Leiden University is one of the oldest and largest universities in the world. It was founded in 1575 and its library has a collection of over 7 million items, including books, journals, manuscripts, maps, and photographs.
“Leiden University Library, Centre for Digital Scholarship” by Eugen Stoica, The University of Edinburgh is licensed under CC BY 4.0
During my visit, I had the pleasure of engaging with colleagues from Centre for Digital Scholarship, especially with Erna Sattler (copyright librarian), and had very fruitful discussions about copyright research funding issues and requirements. I talked about Edinburgh’s Research Publication and Copyright policy and I learned how the Taverne amendment helped them make many of their publications available Open Access. I also had many interesting discussions with colleagues from CDS regarding the Library research support services that we offer to academics. These services cover research data management, research software, institutional repository, open access and scholarly communication, copyright, licensing and so on.
I was surprised to learn that at Leiden, library’s budget is formed from schools’ contributions and consequently when the library management are requesting an increase of their budget, they must justify it. The library will present (green) OA to schools as an alternative to traditional (expensive) academic publishing and as an option to reduce publishing costs, trying to motivate schools & researchers to adopt (green) OA. On the other hand, Edinburgh Library (which is funded from university central accounts) is the principal driver for pushing schools & researchers towards OA and being compliant with their research funders’ requirements.
KU Leuven will celebrate its 600th anniversary in 2025, making it one of Europe’s oldest universities. It has a very large and important academic library, with a collection of over 10 million items.
“KU Leuven University Library” by Eugen Stoica, The University of Edinburgh is licensed under CC BY 4.0
At Leuven, I had meetings with Hanne Heirman, Head of Policy Implementation, Library Central Services and Sara Decoster, Open Science Officer. The discussions were centred around the same topics – copyright research funding issues and requirements. Just like the Netherlands (and other five European countries), Belgium had a similar amendment introduced in the copyright legislation in 2018.
While these amendments to the copyright legislation are incredibly useful, allowing them to make public all research outputs publicly financed, in my view there are also a few disadvantages. Firstly, there is an embargo – 6 or 12 months from publication. Secondly, the benefits granted by the amendments come into force after publication, forcing libraries to concentrate all their attention and resources to dealing with works that were already published. Thirdly, researchers are not really motivated to make their research available OA, knowing that the library will do it anyway, based on the copyright amendments.
In the UK, REF2015 regulations required research outputs to be made available OA in order to be eligible for REF; this forced libraries, and indirectly researchers, to focus their attention towards the future, to make sure that they will publish their outputs in such a way that they will be eligible for REF. Also, research funders are requiring that all research they are supporting to be made available OA, usually under a CC BY license.
I was very impressed with the work that is being done at both Leiden University Library and KU Leuven University Library. I am grateful for the opportunity to have met with my colleagues and to have discussed these important issues.
I believe that the work that we do as copyright librarians is essential to the advancement of research. We help to ensure that authors are able to protect their intellectual property rights and that researchers have access to the scholarly literature that they need to do their work. I am delighted to see that we are all committed to continuing to work to promote Open Access and to ensure that research is available to everyone.
New feature: Sharing DataVault data with an external user
By popular demand, the Research Data Service is pleased to announce the arrival of a brand new feature: the DataVault Outward Staging Area (DOSA), a free-of-charge benefit to DataVault depositors.
What is a staging area? Somewhere your data can be held temporarily, on the way to somewhere else. Just like a traditional staging post for stagecoaches, as shown in this engraving.
Imagine: your multi-terabyte dataset is safe-and-sound in your vault, you’ve cited it in a paper you’ve just published, and an external researcher has asked you for a copy. What will you do?
Simple: send a request to IS Helpline (or data-support@ed.ac.uk) asking us to create a DOSA folder for your data.
We’ll then use DOSA to give temporary (two months) external access to a copy of your deposit, using a Globus FTP endpoint. We’ll retrieve a copy of your data to the folder. And we’ll provide you with the Globus endpoint, which you send to the researcher. They may need to install some software to get the data. Alternatively, for datasets under 500 GB, we suggest a DataSync link will be more suitable. We set that up and provide it to you in the same way as the Globus endpoint. The difference for the end user is they can use the DataSync link (+ password) from their browser. Let us know if you have a preference for a Globus endpoint or a DataSync link (otherwise we’ll decide automatically based on the size).
Workflow: We retrieve your deposit to your DOSA folder. We provide you with either a Globus endpoint or a DataSync link, to provide to your external person who made the request.
The DOSA is part of our networked active data storage, DataStore, but separate from the other staging area we provide for users making a new deposit (‘the DataVault staging area’), for the inward route.
Since 2016 researchers have been archiving data in Edinburgh DataVault. The DOSA is available for any DataVault deposit, old or new.
DataVault Outward Staging Area (DOSA): Sharing data with an external user
Not sure you’ll remember the name of the service? Worry not! I have a mnemonic device for you: just remember that a ‘dosa’ is an Indian savoury pancake. What’s not to like?
Pauline Ward
Data Repository Operations Officer
University of Edinburgh
From Plagues to Progress: Looking at A Century of Edinburgh’s Public Health
Over the last few months, our team has been working on digitising the Lothian Health Service Archive’s collection of Annual Public Health Reports for the City of Edinburgh. Comprising of 74 bound volumes of reports recording the public health of Edinburgh’s residents from 1865 to 1973, these documents are an absolute goldmine of information just waiting to be utilised by academics and researchers, covering everything from birth, death and disease rates to specific aspects of public health that were overseen by the City authorities, like infectious diseases or sanitation. Read More
New trial to Oxford Historical Treaties
Oxford Historical Treaties (OHT) is the premier resource for historical treaty research and home to the full text of The Consolidated Treaty Series, the only comprehensive collection of treaties of all nations concluded from 1648 through 1919. Available via the Oxford Public International Law platform, OHT is cross-searchable with Oxford’s leading public international law resources and benefits from a modern, intuitive interface and sophisticated functionality.
Access Oxford Historical Treaties
The trial runs until 16 June 2023. Please provide any feedback on this trial via our feedback form:
Hello from your new (part-time) Law Librarian
Hi! My name is Anna and I am a new Academic Support Librarian supporting Law. SarahLouise and I are job-sharing – I take the start of the week and SarahLouise the latter but you don’t need to remember that. Just email us at law.librarian@ed.ac.uk if you have any questions.
I am a third-generation librarian (!) and I moved here from De Montfort University in Leicester. Professionally, I am interested in the critical aspects of information literacy, particularly issues of bias and source reliability. I am also interested in how AI will impact all aspects of information literacy. Personally, I love walking and photography and can’t wait to explore all the beautiful Scottish landscapes.
I look forward to working with you all in the coming months.
5 things to remember if using the Library this summer
The summer vacation period officially started this week! And while many of you are probably thinking the last thing you want to do is use the Library over the summer break, there will be a large number of students who will need to (or just want to) use the Library during the summer vacation period to continue with their studies or research.
So if you are one of the many who is planning on using Library facilities or services over the summer then read on. And for those of you who are not planning on doing this, we’d recommend you read on anyway (particularly if you have not returned books you have borrowed from the Library).
1) The Main Library and all our site libraries remain open throughout the summer vacation period.
Opening hours and staffed hours will be reduced in many libraries so check the opening hours website before you visit and follow the Library on social media for any updates – Instagram, Twitter, Facebook. Read More
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....