Home University of Edinburgh Library Essentials
July 3, 2026
Making library data work for us
Image by 200 Degrees from Pixabay
On 2-4 November I attended the LibPMC Conference (International Conference on Performance Measurement in Libraries). The conference content was really varied, including a focus on the needs of stakeholders and communities and actively using qualitative and quantitative data to improve services and the user experience. Here are some highlights.
- But can it last? How the pandemic transformed our relationship with data. Dr Frankie Wilson, Bodleian Library
- Knowledge is PowerBI: How data visualisation helped inform services during the pandemic. Elaine Sykes, Liverpool John Moore’s University
- Using return on investment to tell the story of library value and library values. Prof Scott HW Young, Prof Hannah McKelvey – Montana State University
- Assembling a Virtual Student Library Advisory Board during COVID-19. Prof Chantelle Swaren, Prof Theresa Liedtka – University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
- Charting the Change: Analysing How Online Delivery Made A Difference to Who Is Accessing Academic Skills Programmes. Louise Makin, Academic Engagement Manager, Liverpool John Moores University.
Visit to University of Dundee Library
The past eighteen months have been quite isolating for staff as well as students at academic institutions, and this has meant that opportunities for networking and visiting colleagues from other universities have been in short supply. Recently I was invited to visit the University of Dundee’s Main Library thanks to Kayleigh McGarry, Digital Literacy and Service Development Librarian.
Friday's actually my day off from work and childcare. What did I choose to do with my time to myself? Go on a field trip to another law library, obvs. pic.twitter.com/zed2JYiHUB
— SL McDonald (@brawbukes) October 15, 2021
Although Kayleigh works across all subject areas in Dundee, she and I both have a specialist interest in Law as we previously worked in the Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service Library Service together. The Law collection at Dundee is housed in the Main Library and I was delighted to see a familiar face during my visit!
Bust of Lady Clark of Calton, Senator of the College of Justice and formerly Chairman of the Scottish Law Commission.
While I was interested to view the Law collection, it was also helpful to see how another institution have dealt with the challenges of the pandemic with regards their study spaces, group study rooms, and moving around the library. Most of the actions that have been taken in Dundee are very similar to our own service adjustments in the past year. Students are now able to use most study spaces on a drop in basis just like in our own libraries, and masks are worn throughout the building. The usual hand sanitising procedures and one-way systems are in place, and overall staff reported great cooperation from students during this tricky time. It was a real pleasure to see students back on campus and making the most of the available facilities. I have to confess that I’m quite jealous of the library’s podcast and recording studio, and seeing their makerspace reminded me of the brilliant facilities we have in the uCreate Studios on the first floor of our own Main Library.
Overall I found the visit to be both reassuring – the challenges we’ve faced as staff and students at Edinburgh are not unique, and knowing that other university library services have made similar choices to our own suggests that we’re all doing the best we can under the circumstances – and inspiring, because Kayleigh and I have a plan in the works to further encourage networking amongst our colleagues across HE institutions in Scotland. Hopefully this will be the first of many renewed opportunities for visiting libraries and sharing experiences to come.
SarahLouise McDonald
Academic Support Librarian to the School of Law
Database Trials
After a break in arranging database trials these have now restarted. Two current trials that may be of interest to staff and students alike are:
Policy Commons database:
The Library has taken out a one-year trial subscription to the Policy Commons database, a unique database providing access to nearly 3 million curated, high quality policy reports, briefs, analyses, working papers, books, case studies, media and datasets from thousands of policy organizations and think-tanks world-wide. This talk will cover content and search of the database, including searching for tables and graphs, as well as the facility to upload documents. Access to Policy Commons can be found at policycommons.net.
Off-campus access requires the use of the University’s VPN, or to register for a Policy Commons account using a University of Edinburgh email address.
A demonstration of the database will be held for University of Edinburgh users on Thursday 9th December, 10:00 – 11:00. Book a place at this online event at : events.ed.ac.uk/index.cfm?event=book&scheduleID=51607
Europresse:
The library has access to Europresse for a ten-day trial, until Friday 12th November.
This databases provides access to over 6,200 international publications including journals, newspapers, blogs and magazines. Coverage is international with many of the publications included available in their original language and layout, which differs from many of the news databases we currently subscribe to. The range of available sources includes numerous European national newspapers such as Le Monde, Libération and Le Figaro, along with regional newspapers. English language titles such as The Guardian and The New York Times are also available. Full details are on the databases trials page.
If you try out either of these databases (or any of the databases linked on the trials webpage) we’d be really grateful if you would complete the feedback form to tell us what you think. This helps us get a feel for what has been useful to you and whether we should subscribe. Alternatively you can send us feedback or any ideas for future resources we should trial by email on law.librarian@ed.ac.uk.
Europresse trial – French newspapers and magazines, and more…
The Library has arranged a trial of Europresse for a very limited period, for 10 days until 12 Nov 2021. The trial can be accessed from the Library’s E-resources Trials website, or access the following link directly which requires UoE login:
https://nouveau-europresse-com.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/Search/Reading
Europresse provides access to over 6,200 publications including journals, newspapers, blogs, and magazines. Coverage is international with many of the publications included available in their original language and layout. The database includes numerous European national newspapers such as Le Monde, Libération and Le Figaro, along with regional newspapers. English language titles such as The Guardian and The New York Times are also available. Thematically, Europresse titles cover the Humanities and Social Sciences, Politics, Law, Economics, Finance, Science, Environment, IT, Transports, Industry, Energy, Agriculture, Arts and culture (Lire, Le Magazine littéraire, World Literature Today, Télérama, Rock and Folk…), Health, and event Sports (L’Équipe, France Football, Sport 24…). It also includes some TV and radio transcripts, biographies and reports, images, audio and video content.
As an example, it provides the image version of today’s Le Monde newspaper which is a welcome alternative to the text version of Le Monde via Factiva. Le Monde Historical Archive, which we subscribe to, covers only 1944-1999. 
You can see the full list of publications provided by Europresse here:
https://nouveau-europresse-com.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/Pdf
Please send feedback via the E-resources trial feedback form.
SSSA in 70 Objects: Photograph of Sorley Maclean and Ian Paterson
Sorley MacLean and Ian Paterson in the School of Scottish Studies tea room, Summer 1981. © The School of Scottish Studies Archives, Ref: V_2b_8119
This week saw the 110th anniversary of the birth of Raasay poet Sorley MacLean (26 October 1911 – 24 November 1996) and so today’s blog is a great opportunity to share with you a photograph from the collection that I really like, for two reasons.
Here are Sorley and Ian Paterson, sitting at the tea table in the School of Scottish Studies. Ian Paterson was a native of Berneray and worked at The School of Scottish Studies first as a transcriber and then began collecting fieldwork of his own. In July 1974 and November 1978, Ian recorded Sorley reciting his poems at The School. You can hear these recordings via Tobar an Dualchais by following the Reference links below:
It is an incredible gift to be able to listen to one of our greatest contemporary Gaelic poets reciting his own work in fine, resounding voice.
I like the candidness of this image too; such a lack of ceremony. Two people, taking their ease, caught in a conversation while having a cup of tea. And that is the other thing I like about this image. It was taken in the Tea room at 27-29 George Square, in the School of Scottish Studies building and for anyone who worked, studied or had connections in the building, the tea room and the tea table was a special place indeed.
From special occasions to plain old elevenses, there was always a community feel about that room and you were never quite sure who else would be joining you for your tea. When the Celtic and Scottish Studies department and the Archives moved in 2015 the tea table was much mourned as that hub. We often hear stories from people who have memories of being at the tea table and so we thought it would be great to share some of these here on the blog, along with some more photographs from our collections. If you have any memories of occasions in the tea-room, no matter how long or short the tale, please drop us a line at scottish.studies.archives@ed.ac.uk, or leave us a comment below.
Louise Scollay, Archive & Library Assistant
Open Access Week: Meet the (Scholarly Communications) Team
Theo Andrew was one of the first supporters of Open Access at the University of Edinburgh. He started working with the University Library in 2003 on a couple of JISC projects named SHERPA and Theses Alive!, from which produced the Edinburgh Research Archive, which later became our OA repository and one of the most visited DSpace repositories. His comprehensive experience covers OA advocacy and payments, checking publishers and funders’ policies, dealing with copyright enquiries and FOI requests. Now he is the team manager, coordinating a team of five. Outside work, he enjoys running and rolling dice.
Eugen Stoica joined the University Library in 2007 as REF Publications Officer, a role that he resumed for the 2014 submission. Genuinely interested in OA & Copyright and legal matters in general, he is the service manager for the Library Copyright team. Presently he is the Library’s FOI practitioner and in charge of repository administration. A man of few words, he’s an amateur photographer, enjoys travelling and reading history.
Fiona Wright joined the team in 2012 as a Research Publications Assistant to help with the REF2014 submission. Since then, her hard work and professionalism earned everybody’s respect and got her in charge of the OA payments (worth in excess of 1 million pounds) so publishers and researchers alike should stay on the right side of her. She enjoys travelling, going out with her friends and sharing pictures from the top of Arthur’s Seat on early weekend mornings.
Michael Logan was involved in several projects with the University Library, the most recent being the PhD thesis digitisation project (17,000 volumes scanned and deposited in ERA – our OA repository) so in 2019 when he started working with Scholarly Communications Team he fell right into place. Besides managing ERA and producing incredible infographics, he helped with REF2021 submission and with metadata quality. His quirky sense of humour is matched only by his eclectic taste in music.
Rebecca Wojturska joined our team in March 2020 right at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and for 18 long months she didn’t meet her colleagues in person and never been in the (new) office. Rebecca’s background is in commercial publishing which is a perfect fit for her responsibilities managing and growing our Open Access Journal Hosting service. The latest service development includes a newly created Open Access Book Hosting Service. Her energy and passion for publishing extends outside work as she has her own publishing company focused on Gothic, horror and dark fiction in all formats.
Open Access Week: Download statistics
Introducing Edinburgh Diamond: Library-supported Open Access Books and Journals
Library and University Collections currently offer a journal hosting service, free of charge to staff and students, which you may already be familiar with.
Open Access Week is the perfect time to share that that we have rebranded as Edinburgh Diamond and added a book hosting service to our offering!
The book hosting service will offer much of what the journal hosting service offers: ISBN and DOI allocation, a hosting platform for textbooks, monographs and edited collections, metadata deposits, indexing arrangements, annual reporting, ongoing technical support, guidance on publishing best practice… and more!
Bringing our journal and book services under one umbrella allows us to promote our services as a whole. Edinburgh Diamond does what it says on the tin: promotes diamond open access, transparency, and high-quality research. If you know someone who may benefit from using our service, please put them in touch with Rebecca Wojturska: rebecca.wojturska@ed.ac.uk.
Find out more about Edinburgh Diamond: https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/research-support/edinburgh-diamond
Take a look at our new book hosting site:
https://books.ed.ac.uk/
Transformative Agreements: a new way to ‘Read & Publish’
Open access to research publications is one of the key principles of the open science movement. It is often one of the last steps taken, but thankfully, it is also one of the easier steps for researchers to participate in due to investment in infrastructure and support from universities, publishers and research funders. When you publish your research there are three publishing routes you can follow:
Route 1: Publish in a traditional subscription journal and take responsibility for making the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) OA in an institutional or subject repository. (Also known as Green OA).
Route 2: Publish in a fully OA journal or platform. (Also known as Gold OA).
Route 3: Publish in a traditional subscription journal through a transformative agreement that is available to you via your organisation. (Also known as ‘Read & Publish’ deals).
The University of Edinburgh’s open access preference is Route 1 using our institutional repository (Pure) to ensure that you are compliant with the REF open access policy. If you have access to funding then you can take Route 2 as the costs should be covered by research funders. Route 3 is a relatively new option that Libraries are exploring to lower barriers to participate in open access publishing, and hopefully restrain and lower the total cost of publishing.
Moving towards a ‘Read & Publish’ model
The idea behind a transformative agreement is that it converts subscription expenditure into a publishing fund that makes all research output OA on publication, whilst maintaining access to any paywalled content. If enough libraries sign up this will shift the publishing business model away from selling subscriptions and paywalls to providing high quality open research.
Recently we have seen an explosion of ‘Read & Publish’ deals being offered by publishers, partly due to the Plan S initiative and also due to the activity of Jisc Collections – the UK organisation who has been taking a leading role in negotiating a transition to open access on behalf of UK libraries. In 2020 the University of Edinburgh had signed up to 3 transformative agreements, but in the space of one year this figure has leaped to 21, with an additional 2 pilot agreements being tested.
How to take advantage of a ‘Read & Publish’ deal
Each of the open access agreements are slightly different due to publishers demands, but generally speaking the process is simple:
- The corresponding author has to be affiliated with the University of Edinburgh, either as a staff member or student. Normally only original research or review articles are covered by the agreement.
- Check if the journal you are publishing in is part of a ‘Read & Publish’ deal. A handy searchable list is available here: https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/research-support/publish-research/open-access/read-and-publish-journals
- Upon submission, identify yourself as an eligible author, and then the request should automatically be passed to the Library for approval.
- Select an open licence – we recommend Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) as this will ensure you are compliant with any relevant research funders open access policies.
You can contact the Scholarly Communications Team (openaccess@ed.ac.uk) for more information about publisher ‘Read & Publish’ deals available at Edinburgh, or you can visit these dedicated webpages: https://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/research-support/publish-research/open-access/request-apc-payment/publisher-discounts
Unveiling the new Open Access policy at UoE
For Open Access Week 2021 we are pleased to announce a brand new Research Publications & Copyright Policy that will make it even easier for researchers from the University of Edinburgh to make their publications open access.
Earlier this month the University Executive approved the Research Publications & Copyright Policy (2021) which details our approach to the new open access requirements of major research funders from 1 January 2022.
The Research Publications & Copyright Policy (2021) can be read in full on the Information Services web pages, but the key details are outlined below:
- The University of Edinburgh confirms staff members retain the copyright to scholarly works they produce (which is the opposite of UK employment law which states that employers own the copyright to works produced in work time).
- To help comply with funders and other open access requirements, members of staff grant the right for the University of Edinburgh to make manuscripts of their scholarly articles publicly available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence upon publication.
- This policy will begin on 1st January 2022, and will apply to journal articles and conference proceedings.
This new policy is in line with major organisations including UKRI and the Wellcome Trust and will allow all researchers to make their work open access immediately regardless of their funding situation. Support for implementation of the new policy is available through library research support staff. Any questions or comments regarding the policy can be directed to the Scholarly Communications Team at openaccess@ed.ac.uk.
Collections
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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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