Home University of Edinburgh Library Essentials
December 16, 2025
Works of King James I & VI now on display at New College Library
Serenissimi et potentissimi Principis Iacobi, Dei gratia, Magnae Britanniae, Franciae, et Hiberniae Regis, fidei defensoris, opera …
New College Library DPL.25
New on display in the entrance to New College Library is the Works of King James I of England and VI of Scotland edited by James Montagu, Bishop of Winchester, and Dean of the Royal Chapel.
With an engraved portrait of Prince Charles (later King Charles I), and later the Royal Coat of Arms this contains James’ paraphrase of the apocalyptic books of the Bible, as well as works on royalty and church and state.
The volume has a vellum binding covered in a stamped gilded decoration of scattered flowers around a central image of a wild boar.
Part of the Dumfries Presbytery Library, the volume is inscribed Ex Libris Johannes Hutton. Dr John Hutton, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh, became the first Treasurer of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (1681–82), and Court Physician to King William III and Queen Mary (1688–1702).
Later he was also MP for Dumfries Burghs (1710–12) and when he died in London, in November 1712, he gave as a bequest his library of 1,500 volumes to the Presbytery of Dumfries. Much of this is preserved as the Dumfries Presbytery Library, now kept in New College Library.
This item was recently catalogued online as part of the Funk Cataloguing Projects.
New books at New College Library – January
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.
Currently in the display is Disability studies and biblical literature edited by Candida R. Moss and Jeremy Schipper. This was a recommendation from Biblical Studies at the School of Divinity, Edinburgh University.
Also new is Celluloid sermons : the emergence of the Christian film industry, 1930-1986 by Terry Lindvall, purchased to support courses in film, religion and ethics.
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.
Winter vacation is coming at New College Library
New College Library Christmas tree in Funk Reading Room
New College Library will close on Friday 21 December and reopen again on Thursday 3 January. More details on opening hours for all University of Edinburgh Library sites over the holidays are available at : http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/library-opening
Reserve books can be borrowed from 11am 21st December, to be returned by 10.30 on Monday 14th January.
Wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
The wood-walls of Scotland : a Christmas Carol
The wood-walls of Scotland : a Christmas carol, from the Fife Sentinel, with additions. Edinburgh : W. P. Kennedy … etc., 1844. New College Library F.a.12/13
New College Christmas Carol Service is taking place today at 5pm in the Martin Hall, led by members of the New College community and with singing from the New College Choir. Here’s a Christmas carol from New College Library’s collections.
This pamphlet, The wood-walls of Scotland, was originally published in the newspaper the Fife Sentinel. It contains a carol that would have been sung to a popular hymn tune, inspired by the verse from Psalm 132 “Lo, we heard of it at Ephratah: we found it in the fields of the wood.” Published after the Disruption of 1843, the carol is celebrating the outdoor services held to accommodate congregations who had separated to form the new Free Church of Scotland.
“On hill-side and green valley
Our wooden temples placed
The faithful, round they rally
The Gospel-standard rais’d”
Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology Online Archive
The Scottish Evangelical Theological Society have agreed to allow biblicalstudies.org.uk to host the on-line archive of the Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology (SBET). All issues of the journal, which began in 1983, will appear on the site ten years after publication. A new volume will be uploaded each week until volume 20 is reached.
Volumes 1 – 9 are already available online and include articles by Nigel M. de S. Cameron, David F. Wright, Carl F.H. Henry, A.T.B. McGowan, Derek Kidner, Geoffrey Grogan, Alan Millard and Gerald Bray.
The Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology is also available in print at New College Library at Per S.
The Scottish Bulletin of Evangelical Theology is edited by Dr. David Reimer, from the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh, and published by the Scottish Evangelical Theology Society in association with Rutherford House.
To fast or feast? Celebrating Christmas in the eighteenth century
A discourse concerning the lawfulness and right manner of keeping Christmas and other Christian holy-days, by way of question and answer : intended for the use of a charity-school. London: Printed for, and sold by H. Hills, in Black-fryars, near the Water-side, 1708 New College Library Z.851/3
Many folk will be going to Christmas lunches and parties this week – including New College Library staff. Outside our office window the Edinburgh Christmas fair is in full (and noisy) swing, celebrating the season.
This eighteenth century pamphlet, A discourse concerning the lawfulness and right manner of keeping Christmas, gives an eighteenth century view on seasonal celebrations. It takes the form of a dialogue between a master and scholar, prefacing the discussion with the quotation of Bible texts that urge sincere and temperate behaviour. It unpicks the theology of Christmas from an early eighteenth century Anglican point of view, negotiating the scriptural and historical justifications of the observance of Christmas as a holy day and the contemporary differences in practice with other Protestant Churches. The author looks back on the abolishment of Christmas celebrations (including plum pudding) under Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan regime after the English Civil War. It is possible both this period and the Restoration of 1660 may have been within the author’s living memory.
This book is also available online to University of Edinburgh users via Eighteenth Century Collections Online, where it can be read online in full.
This item is from New College Library’s Z Collection, currently being catalogued as part of the Funk Cataloguing Projects at New College Library.
Festival Prayers for Hanukkah
Shaar Bat Rabim Mahzor Helek Rishon : ke-minhag kahal kadosh Ashkenazim. Ṿinitsiʾah : Stamperia Bragadina, 1716-[1731/32. New College Library Dal-Chr 9(1)
The Mahzor Ashkenazim is an example of a mahzor, or festival prayer book, for Ashkenazi usage, published in Venice in the early eighteenth century. Its large size makes it likely that it was intended for synagogue use rather than personal prayer. The Encyclopedia Judaica (available online to University of Edinburgh users) notes that mahzorim, which originally developed in medieval south western Germany, started to appear in the Ashkenazi communities of northern Italy in the fifteenth century.
This item is part of the Dalman-Christie Collection, catalogued as one of the Funk Cataloguing Projects at New College Library. The Dalman-Christie Collection was transferred to New College Library in 1946 from the Church of Scotland Hospice in Jerusalem. With thanks to our Hebrew Cataloguer, Janice Gailani, for helping to identify this item.
This opening shows festival prayers for Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights.
New on display – The Nativity in twentieth century art
The Bible in 20th century art / introduced by Nicholas Usherwood. New College Library sfYF 67 BIB
New on display in New College Library’s Funk Special Collections Reading Room, is The Bible in 20th Century art. It is opened to show a painting of The Nativity by Bernard Buffet (1961), the original of which is held in the collection of the Vatican Museum.
Tips for getting copyright right
I’ve had some questions about copyright recently so thought I’d share a few tips …
1. All reproduction from published material is subject to copyright law. The UK Copyright Service provides a really helpful factsheet.
2. 70 is the magic number – In UK copyright law, copyright for literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works lasts 70 years from the end of the calendar year in which the last remaining author of the work dies. For instance, as Aldous Huxley died in 1963, his works will not be out of copyright until 2033.
3. While downloadable versions of publications can be found freely available on the internet, always check the source and its terms and conditions. Some websites hosted outside of the UK provide materials that potentially violate UK law. Unfortunately if it looks too good to be true – it probably is.
4. The University of Edinburgh has signed up to a licensing scheme which allows photocopying from publications for individual research and study. This means copies can be made of up to a chapter, entire article or 5% of the publication, whichever is the greater.
5. The University of Edinburgh ereserve service has a licence to allow the scanning of book chapters and journal articles to be made available to classes for teaching purposes. It is the only legal route for scanning published materials to make them available to groups at the University.
6. More information can be found at the University of Edinburgh’s Copyright Service, including a contact e-mail address for enquiries.
New books at New College Library – December
New on the shelves this month is The lost world of Genesis One : ancient cosmology and the origins debate by John H. Walton. This title was purchased to support the new MSc in Science and Religion here at the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh.
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.
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.
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