Home University of Edinburgh Library Essentials
April 6, 2026
On trial: East African Newspapers
*The Library now has permanent access to this resource. See New! East African Newspapers.*
Thanks to a request from staff in HCA the Library currently has trial access to East African Newspapers from EastView, featuring key newspapers from the region from the 1940s to the early 2000s.
You can access the East African Newspapers via the E-resources trials page.
Trial access ends 2nd April 2023. Read More
New! Roper iPoll
Following a successful trial last year I’m happy to let you know the Library now has a subscription to Roper iPoll provided by the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research at Cornell University.
You can access Roper iPoll via the Databases A-Z list, DiscoverEd and relevant Subject Guides and Databases by Subject pages.
Roper iPoll provides U.S. and international public opinion polls and datasets from 1935 to the present. Surveys cover any number of topics including, social issues, politics, pop culture, international affairs, science, the environment, and much more. Includes the major academic, commercial and media survey organisations. You can search for datasets by keyword, country, surveying agency, timeframe and type of sample. Read More
Documenting I.C.28
Last summer, I spent five days photographing the skeleton of William Burke to document recent conservation as a record for future collection care. The remains had been conserved and cleaned for the first time since the 1800s and the skeleton was going on display at the National Museum of Scotland for their 2022 exhibition “A Matter Of Death and Life“. I also photographed the life and death masks of Burke, Hare and Robert Knox (“the man who buys the beef”).
E-Resource trial: Skills for study
As we’re midway through the second semester, many eyes are turning to assignments and thinking ahead to final exams. Did you know that we’ve recently secured a trial of the interactive resource Skills for Study?
Based on the bestselling The Study Skills Handbook by Stella Cottrell, Skills for Study offers an interactive and personalised solution to help students hone their academic skills while developing skills required by employers:
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Each of the modules comes complete with exercises, activities, and module assessments along with supplementary videos, articles and blogs. We know how popular the Study Skills Handbook is for students from a range of disciplines, so here’s how to access this interactive resource:
- Visit the Skills for Study website and sign in with your university login. You’ll be asked to register the first time you do, so follow the instructions on this student guide for single sign-on (pdf).
That’s it, it’s that easy! More information about the trial is available on the E-Resources trials page. Our trial ends on the 24th April so have a good look before then, and if you want to offer any comments on this or any of our other E-Resource trials then please consider filling in the trial feedback form.
LGBT+ History Month: LGBT+ legal resources
It’s LGBT+ History Month in February so we wanted to highlight some resources in our collection that are relevant to anyone looking at the history of LGBT+ rights.
We recently purchased Justice After Stonewall: LGBT Life Between Challenge and Change, a new title published in January 2023 and edited by the School of Law’s own Dr Paul Behrens, along with co-editor Sean Becker. From the abstract:
Justice After Stonewall is an interdisciplinary analysis of challenges and progress experienced by the LGBT community since the Stonewall riots in 1969. […] This book breaks new ground by bringing together experts from politics, sociology, law, education, language, medicine and religion to discuss fields as diverse as same-sex marriage, transgender students, the LGBT movement in Uganda and LGBT migrants in the Arabian Peninsula, conversion ‘therapy’, and approaches to LGBT matters in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. What emerges is a rich tapestry of LGBT life today and its consideration from numerous perspectives.
Based on thorough research, this book is an ideal text for students and scholars exploring LGBT matters. At the same time, its engaging style makes it a particularly valuable resource for anyone with an interest in LGBT matters and their reception in today’s world.
Did you know that legal database HeinOnline also have a database on LGBTQ+ Rights? From the title page:
This collection charts the gay rights movement in America, showing the civil rights codified into law in the 20th and 21st centuries, as well as the inequalities that still exist today. All titles in this collection have been assigned one or more title-level subjects relating to their scope, and are further divided into six subcollections, whose areas of focus constitute Marriage and Family, Employment Discrimination, Military Service, AIDS and Health Care, and Public Spaces and Accommodations. A separate subcollection, Historical Attitudes and Analysis, presents books, pamphlets, reports, and more from the 18th century through the mid-20th century. Content in this subcollection includes accounts of individuals criminally tried for their sexuality to attempts to find a medical cause for homosexuality.
This collection is rounded out by a curated list of Scholarly Articles selected by Hein editors, as well as a Bibliography of titles to launch your research outside of HeinOnline. Finally, an interactive timeline, incorporating documents from HeinOnline with other media from around the internet, plots out an overview of LGBTQ rights in America from 1950 to the present day, helping to demonstrate the relevancy of the content within the database to the real-world events to which they are connected.
If you are interested in finding out more scholarly resources for LGBT+ research you may be interested in our Gender and Sexuality Studies Subject Guide, which has been developed by the Librarian team along with one of our former EDI interns. The guide is separated into pages for Gender Studies, Queer Studies, and Student Support, as we hoped to provide resources both for those looking to find academic resources and seeking local communities across the University of Edinburgh. While this guide is not law-specific it may provide resources for further reading to support the issues faced when dealing with LGBT+ rights in a legal setting.
As ever if you would like to discuss support for your research please contact us on law.librarian@ed.ac.uk to make an appointment to discuss your topic and how we can help.
Behind the Lens: LGBT+ History Month
February is LGBT+ History Month and this year’s theme is #BehindThe Lens. This aims to celebrate “LGBT+ peoples’ contribution to cinema and film from behind the lens. Directors, cinematographers, screen writers, producers, animators, costume designers, special effects, make up artists, lighting directors, musicians, choreographers and beyond.” (LGBT+ History Month, 2023)
To help you learn more we’ve pulled together just a small selection of Library resources that will allow you to start to look ‘Behind the Lens’.
Books and more books (we are a Library after all)
Films, TV, documentaries, etc.
Doing your own research
Books and more books (we are a Library after all)
Why not start with The Oxford handbook of queer cinema as an introduction. This hefty tome covers a wide variety of topics including silent and classical Hollywood films, European and American independent and art films, post-Stonewall and New Queer Cinema, global queer cinema and new queer voices and forms.
New queer cinema: A critical reader considers the filmmakers, the geography, and the audience of New Queer Cinema. While Queer cinema in Europe brings together case studies of key films and filmakers in this area. Sapphism on screen: Lesbian desire in French and Francophone cinema focuses even more specifically on films made by male and female directors working in France and other French-speaking parts of the world. In a queer time and place: Transgender bodies, subcultural lives is the first full-length study of transgender representations in film but also art, fiction, video and music. Whereas LGBTQ film festivals: Curating queerness pays homage to the labour of queer organisers, critics and scholars. Read More
‘Nothing is Here for Tears’: Helen Cruickshank Bids Farewell to F. Marian McNeill
This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the death of folklorist F. Marian McNeill on 22 February 1973. Edinburgh University Library holds the manuscript of a memorial poem written by her close friend Helen Cruickshank on the day of McNeill’s death. Today we publish a blog by Ash Mowat, a volunteer in the Civic Engagement Team, introducing our Helen Cruickshank Papers (Coll-81) and celebrating the friendship between Cruickshank and McNeill (with additional material from Modern Literary Collections Curator Paul Barnaby). Read More
On trial: British Online Archives collections
*The Library now has permanent access to Britannia and Eve, 1926-1957 and The Tatler, 1901-1965. You can access these either from Newspapers, Magazines and Other News Sources or the Databases A-Z.*
Did you know the Library currently has trial access to a number of databases from British Online Archives?
British Online Archives are one of the U.K.’s leading academic publishers. Their goal is to provide students and researchers with access to unique collections of primary source documents. Their databases cover 1,000 years of world history, from politics and warfare to slavery and medicine.
At the Library we currently have trial access to 7 databases from BOA. All can be accessed from the E-resources Trials page:
Britannia and Eve, 1926-1957
Trial ends: 3rd March 2023
William Drummond’s ‘Flowres of Sion’: A Unique Copy of a Major Work
This year marks the quatercentenary of the publication of Flowres of Sion (1623), an important volume by William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585-1649), one of Scotland’s major 17th-century poets and one of Edinburgh University Library’s greatest benefactors.
William Drummond of Hawthornden
An alumnus of Edinburgh University, Drummond started collecting books shortly after he graduated in 1605. He assembled a superb private library, which ranged widely across the fields of literature, history, geography, philosophy, theology, science, medicine and law. From the mid-1620s, he began gifting works from his library to his alma mater, eventually donating over 600 volumes. Drummond thus provided Edinburgh University Library with some of its greatest treasures, including two Shakespeare quartos and works by Ben Jonson, Edmund Spenser, Michael Drayton (a close friend of Drummond), and Sir Philip Sidney.
Drummond’s also donated copies of his own works, including a unique copy of the first edition of Flowres of Sion (De.4.53), along with the revised and expanded second edition of 1630 (De.4.113).
Digital Research Services: How we can support your research
[This is a guest blog post by our new DRS Facilitator Sarah Janac. The Research Data Service is one of a number of digital research services at the University of Edinburgh.]
Many researchers rely on digital tools and computational methods for their work, and, for this, the University offers several state-of-the-art facilities. However, it is easy to get lost in the sheer number of tools and providers. Digital Research Services are here to help.
Who are Digital Research Services (DRS)?
Digital Research Services offer a single point of access for all things digital research across the University. We connect researchers with the digital tools and services from Information Services and other providers. We make it our priority to deliver tailored support so that researchers get the best use of the resources out there.
We love the research lifecycle!
The research lifecycle is the cornerstone of our work. We collaborate with service providers from Information Services Group and beyond to support you in all stages of your research and anticipate challenges which might come up. For instance, we can support you in developing your funding application, ensuring you fully cover the costs related to the digital aspects of your project. We can help you devise a plan for storing your data properly and share it with your collaborators. We can support you in finding the research computing services required for analysis. We will help you think about archiving your data and making it accessible to other researchers, utilising trusted repositories. Finally, we can also support you in the dissemination of research outputs.
How do we support you?
First of all, our website offers a one-stop shop for digital tools, training and events. You can browse through the different tools that the University offers, see if there is relevant training and read up on case studies describing how these tools have been used by researchers before.
If you have specific questions or require tailored support and advice, you can get in touch with one of our team members. We are a small team of 3 people, each with expertise for one of the three colleges:
- Eleni has a background in digital humanities. She has been a research facilitator for a number of years now and is the first port of call for researchers at the College of Art, Humanities and Social Sciences;
- Andre has a background in civil engineering, both in industry as well as in academia. He is there to support researchers in the College of Science and Engineering;
- Sarah has academic and hands-on experience in the medical field. She is here to assist with queries from the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine.
We work closely with technical experts of various service providers and have contacts across the University. This means that if we can’t answer your question ourselves, we will find someone who can.
Finally, we have a range of exciting events coming up! These can help you further your digital skills, grow your network and exchange ideas.
Upcoming events in Semester 2
Early Career Researcher Forum
The Early Career Researcher Forums provide a platform to exchange ideas, develop a network and explore opportunities on topics relevant to digital research. Members of the forum can propose a theme and lead discussions based on their research interests. These may include: the creation of digital management plans; use of various digital tools and resources; data storage/preservation/sharing; publication of research outputs; open publishing; etc.
The forum is open to Early Career Researchers and PhD students at the University across all schools – the aim is to encourage interdisciplinary dialogue and networking. The Research Facilitation Team will be present to help lead the sessions. Sign up here.
Digital Research Ambassador Internship Scheme
After a successful run in the previous years, Digital Research Services are planning another fully funded internship scheme. We will be matching interns – postgraduate students with strong digital research, data and computing skills – with host projects across the University.
- As an intern, you will bring in data and research compute expertise, contributing to digital skill development and project planning. In addition, you will gain hands-on interdisciplinary research experience.
- As a host, you will get support and gain new perspectives in using digital tools and services. You will develop additional dimensions to your digital research plans and inspire a new generation of researchers.
If you would like to take part, please register your interest here so we can plan accordingly. More information, including previous projects, can be viewed here.
Lunchtime Seminars
The seminars are open to all, and will cover a wide range of themes and research services. They will help you gain awareness of digital research services, learn the fundamental aspects of the digital research life cycle and discover the challenges and opportunities of data and computing services.
There is a mini networking session immediately before each lunchtime seminar.
The themes for Semester 2 are as follows:
- Organise and Store |30th March 2023. Book your place here
- Publish, Share and Preserve | 28th April 2023. Book your place here
- Interpret and Analyse | 17th May 2023. Book your place here
Keep in touch!
You can also stay up to date by joining our mailing list and following our Twitter and LinkedIn pages.
Link to our website: Digital Research Services at the University of Edinburgh
Link to our brochure: DRS Facilitation – UoE Digital Research Services Brochure DIGITAL.pdf – All Documents (sharepoint.com)
Sarah Janac
Digital Research Services Facilitator
Information Services
Collections
Hill and Adamson Collection: an insight into Edinburgh’s past
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Cataloguing the private papers of Archibald Hunter Campbell: A Journey Through Correspondence
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Projects
Cataloguing the private papers of Archibald Hunter Campbell: A Journey Through Correspondence
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Archival Provenance Research Project: Lishan’s Experience
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