Home University of Edinburgh Library Essentials
April 9, 2026
New books at New College Library – July
New College Library has a regular display of new books at the far end of the Library Hall, close to the door to the stacks.
New in this month is the Oxford handbook of theology and modern European thought edited by Nicholas Adams, George Pattinson and Graham Ward, on the shelf at B803 Oxf.
Also new is Heidegger on death : a critical theological essay by George Pattinson, at B3279.H49 Pat.. This title is also available as an e-book.
These titles were purchased for Theology & Ethics at the School of Divinity, Edinburgh University.
You can see an regularly updated list of new books for New College Library on the Library Catalogue – choose the New Books Search and limit your search to New College Library. Here’s a quick link to new books arriving in the last few weeks. A word of caution – some of the books listed here may still be in transit between the Main Library (where they are catalogued) and New College Library, so not on the shelf just yet.
Online Collections Directory
We have started to publish our online Collections Directory, starting with up to date descriptions of all the main Rare Book Collections.
This is part of a major project to publish a printed A-Z guide to all the University’s heritage collections, from archives and rare books to musical instruments and fine art. There will be further announcements as the project develops.
New exhibition on display on the 6th Floor of the Main Library
Welcome to the Centre for Research Collections’ Display Wall where you can discover some of the hidden treasures from the many different collections we are home to. This short-term exhibition highlights the wonderfully interesting items from museum objects to archives to rare books detailing the relationship between humans and animals.
The exhibition will be on until 26th July, so hurry up and come have a look at the Ceramic model of Sir Walter Scott’s favourite deerhound dog Maida and an image of James Cossar Ewart who is well-known for his cross-breeding experiments with horses and zebras. On display are also a series of folklore items, including a milking song, a charm against foxes, and a protection charm for cattle, a few very interesting animal skulls and a folding anatomical model of a dog.
Here is more information about some of the highlights currently on display:
Leighton, Robert. Cassell’s New Book of the Dog. London, n.d. [c.1915?] Vol.1
This handsomely-illustrated set of books on the dog is dedicated to Queen Alexandra, “who has ever been a true friend of dogs”. It includes numerous coloured and photographic plates of different breeds of dog, and a folding anatomical model at the start of volume 1. This copy is part of the historic War Memorial Library of the Veterinary School, which was transferred to Special Collections in 2011.
Ceramic model by Teviotdale Craft & Design Company of Sir Walter Scott’s much-portrayed favourite dog Maida. Maida (1816-1824) was a (male) deerhound presented as a gift to Scott by Alexander Macdonell of Glengarry. Maida is also portrayed on the statue of Scott in the Scott Monument on Princes St. I’m not sure of the exact date but it would be early 20th century.
This case note relates to Kasyan, one of two Samoyed dogs owned by the surgeon and described by Dott as ‘a canine member of my family’. Dott was a life-long lover of animals, and this correspondence and report demonstrate his determination to know that he could not have done more to save his ailing companion, for both his own piece of mind and the ‘veterinary interests’ involved in Kasyan’s treatment. Kasyan is probably pictured in this photograph from Dott’s biography, guarding young Jean Dott.
James Cossar Ewart (1851-1933) was Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh from 1882 to 1927. Ewart is perhaps best known for his cross-breeding experiments with horses and zebras. This research was published as the book The Penycuik Experiments (1899) and was instrumental in finally disproving the long-held theory of telegony (ie that a sire can influence the offspring of subsequent males). Ewart was also influential in the establishment of a Lectureship in Genetics at the University in 1911, and his reputation ensured that Edinburgh was regarded as a key centre for animal breeding and genetics research.
MANTRA shortlisted
Research Data MANTRA (http://datalib.edina.ac.uk/mantra/) is a free, non-credit course designed for postgraduate students and early career researchers which provides guidelines for good practice in research data management.
(Flickr Image by Soilse – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
In recognition of the work done by Edinburgh University Data Library in developing this open educational resource, MANTRA has been evaluated and shortlisted in a report by the Research Information Literacy and Digital Scholarship (RILADS) project as one of 15 good practice examples designed to enhance information literacy skills of postgraduate students and early career researchers in UK Higher Education
RILADS aims to investigate and report on support available to students, staff and researchers to enhance digital literacy. There are two strands to the project. One is co-ordinated by Research Information Network (RIN) on behalf of Research Information and Digital Literacies Coalition (RIDLs), the other by SCONUL under the JISC Developing Digital Literacies (DDL) programme.
The RIN strand focuses on the identification and promotion of good practice in information handling and data management training and development across the HE and research sectors. The SCONUL strand aims to identify, harvest, and use materials to progress the development of digital professional expertise.
The full report and shortlist are available on the RILADS website: http://rilads.wordpress.com/2013/06/10/rilads-report/
MANTRA, the sole resource on the shortlist that is dedicated to research data management skills, has also been upgraded to Version 2 of the Xerte Online Toolkit, the e-learning development environment used by MANTRA to create the learning materials. This has the ability to deliver content using HTML5 rather than the Flash Player. This has a number of advantages in that you can deliver content to a much wider range of devices, and specifically you can deliver content to devices that do not support Flash.
Watch out for further MANTRA enhancements!
Stuart Macdonald
EDINA & Data Library
New RDM tools and services: awareness raising sessions
The University is investing in a new research driven research data management (RDM) service to cover all the Schools/Research Institutes and Centres in three Colleges. This will allow researchers to comply with funding councils’ requirements for the preservation and dissemination of research data, help them with grant application process, make their research visible and boost citations.
We have already begun talking to research staff in Schools and Research Institutes / Centres to explain these tools and services and how they can benefit from them.
The first School who invited us for a talk was the School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences. The talk was followed by a lively discussion with some helpful comments and suggestions from them.
We are looking forward to talking to research staff in all Schools and Research Institutes / Centres. If you would like us to introduce you to these new tools and services please get in touch with Cuna Ekmekcioglu at cekmekci@staffmail.ed.ac.uk
Cuna Ekmekcioglu
Research Computing Support
Information Services
Dabbling in data visualisation
Data visualisation is a powerful method to either explore or explain your data. A number of online tools have emerged in recent years making it easier for lay people to make their information beautiful, in the words of dataviz guru David McCandless.
Martin Hawksey from CETIS at University of Strathclyde gave a talk to Information Services staff last week on this popular topic. Following the talk, a small group including the Data Library team had a discussion about what sort of training course might be of interest to the University research community.
Martin’s abstract:
There are a number of examples throughout history where visualisations have been used to explore or explain problems. Notable examples include Florence Nightingale’s ‘Mortality of the British Army’ and John Snow’s Cholera Map of London. Recently the increased availability of data and software for analyzing and generating various views on this data has made it easier to generate data visualisations. In this presentation Martin Hawksey, advisor at the Jisc Centre for Educational, Technology and Interoperability Standards (Cetis), will demonstrate simple techniques for generating data visualisations: using tools (including MS Excel and Google Spreadsheets), drawing packages (including Illustrator and Inkscape) and software libraries (including d3.js and timeline.js). As part of this participants will be introduced to basic visual theories and the concepts of exploratory and explanatory analytics. The presentation will also highlight some of the skills required for discovering and reshaping data sources.
Martin Hawksey’s presentation and blog post
Would you be interested in a data visualisation training course? We’d love to hear from you at datalib@ed.ac.uk or in the comments below.
Robin Rice, Data Library
New Cambridge History of the Bible – and more
The online version of the New Cambridge History of the Bible : From 600 to 1450 by Richard Marsden, E. Ann Matter is now available to University of Edinburgh users via the Library catalogue. It joins other Cambridge Histories ebooks which are available via the catalogue, such as the Cambridge History of Religions in America, ed. Stephen J. Stein.
ECA Collection at the Annexe: British Art
A series of articles on the relationship between the Library Annexe and the ECA.
Among the items from the ECA Collection being stored at the Annexe are some stunning examples of British Art that were purchased in the 50s with funding provided by the Carnegie Trust.
Including some works by Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, and Augustus John.
Augustus John poses for the American press on board a ship.
If you are interested in the paintings stored out at the Annexe, the BBC have digitised the collection and made it available on the web page ‘Your Paintings’.
Stephanie Farley (Charlie), Library Annexe Assistant
Encyclopedia of Ancient History Online is now available
The Encyclopedia of Ancient History Online (Wiley Blackwell) is now available to University of Edinburgh users – find it on the library catalogue. If access isn’t clear, try clicking on Institutional Login and entering University of Edinburgh.
This comprehensive collection of twenty-first century scholarship on the entire ancient Mediterranean world covers not only the Greek and Roman civilisations but also the ancient Near East. Over 5,000 original entries span the late Bronze Age through the seventh century CE, from the Book of Daniel to the Dead Sea Scrolls.
An insight into institutional RDM
I attended the Jisc Managing Research Data Programme Workshop in Birmingham on 25-26 March on behalf of the University of Edinburgh and gained a real insight into how other institutions are addressing Research Data Management (RDM) and how well our work has been received. It had participants from all areas of RDM, with good presentations sharing progress made on the subject at their institutions.
What clearly stood out was the compliments on the work we have done so far … this was
mentioned numerous times over the weekend where presenters commented on using our work (such as RDM policy and training) as a starting point for their projects. The ‘Business Cases’ session was particularly interesting highlighting all the important non-technical issues (funding, stakeholders, politics, local culture, etc) that need to be handled sensitively in planning and implementing RDM.
Sarah Jones presented our new DIY toolkit for librarians in the ‘RDM Training’ session. The
toolkit is a self-directed training course, intended to be used by a group of librarians to
build confidence in supporting researchers with RDM. MANTRA modules are used as pre-reading and reflective questions and exercises are used to guide discussion at each face-to-face session. The training materials were well received and are already being reused by other Universities.
It was interesting to discover there was lack of training for IT folk in RDM and a desire to
have this addressed … I reported that we were in the process of producing this at our
University. One institution sent all their RDM staff (IT, librarian, research services, etc)
to the workshop so ‘all’ get a real feel for what is required and appreciate best practices
at other institutions. It was somewhat comforting, but not entirely surprising, to learn
that other institutions have similar challenges to us with RDM.
While the sessions over the two days were informative, the opportunity to network with peers at other places and discuss issues/challenges at the round table sessions and evenings was invaluable and perhaps the biggest plus in attending the workshop. I enjoyed the experience and learnt a lot from it.
You can find out more about the event and access all the presentations and event reports on the event web page.
Abdul Majothi
Head of IS Consultancy for CHSS
User Services Division
Information Services
Collections
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Projects
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