Home University of Edinburgh Library Essentials
December 16, 2025
On trial: Paris Peace Conference and Beyond, 1919-1939
Thanks to a request from HCA staff the Library currently has trial access to Paris Peace Conference and Beyond, 1919-1939 from British Online Archives (BOA). The Paris Peace Conference was a meeting of Allied diplomats that took place in the aftermath of the First World War. Its purpose was to impose peace terms on the vanquished Central Powers and establish a new international order. This fascinating digital primary source database gives you access to official and personal papers relating to this conference and the treaties that came from it.
You can access this database from the E-resources trials page.
Access is available on and off-campus.
Trial access ends 17th March 2020.
The First World War gave rise to a complex system of alliances and antagonisms. The various treaties imposed by the Allied powers in its aftermath settled conflicts with Germany, Bulgaria, the Ottoman Empire (later Turkey), Austria, and Hungary. Paris Peace Conference and Beyond contains documents that cover the treaties of Versailles, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Neuilly-sur-Seine, Trianon, Sèvres, Lausanne, and Locarno, as well as the foundation of the League of Nations. Read More
Spotlight on: Archives of Sexuality and Gender
It’s LGBT+ History Month in the UK and there are a number of events being run around the University by the Staff Pride Network and the Students’ Association. However, if you’re interested in delving into the archives to find out more about LGBT+ history in the UK then the Archives of Sexuality and Gender may be just the place to start.
Archives of Sexuality and Gender spans the 16th to the 20th century and is the largest digital collection of primary source materials relating to the history and study of sex, sexuality and gender. Documentation covering social, political, health and legal issues impacting LGBT+ communities around the world is included, as well as rare and unique books on sex and sexuality from the sciences to the humanities.
This extensive resource is made up of 3 databases, LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940 Part I, LGBTQ History and Culture Since 1940 Part II and Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century, which between them cover 54 collections that are international in their scope and coverage. But I want to highlight those collections that specifically look at LGBT+ history in the United Kingdom.
Gay Activism in Britain from 1958: The Hall-Carpenter Archives
Spanning the period from 1958 to 1990, this collection chronicles the activities of the Albany Trust, an organisation that was initially focused on decriminalising homosexuality and increasing social acceptance of gay people. The Albany Trust centered its work on counseling services, research, and public education, helping to steer society and the law away from older, traditional ideas regarding homosexuality. Read More
Edinburgh Research Explorer Statistics: January 2020
African and South Asian newspaper archives: on trial
*The Library has now purchased access to African Newspapers, Series 1. See New! African Newspapers, Series 1 1800-1922*
Thanks to a request from UncoverEd I’m pleased to let you know that we currently have trial access to 3 digital newspaper archives from Readex covering African and South Asian titles. The 3 databases are African Newspapers: The British Library Collection, World Newspaper Archive: African Newspapers, Series 1 1800-1922 and World Newspaper Archive: South Asian Newspapers 1864-1922.
You can access all 3 databases via the E-resources trials page.
Access is available both on and off-campus.
Trial access ends 13th March 2020. Read More
Training researchers for a software and data-intensive world with Edinburgh Carpentries
This is guest post from Giacomo Peru and the EdCarp Committee (https://edcarp.github.io/committee/). Sections of this post were published previously on the EPCC blog.
EdCarpLogo
The Edinburgh Carpentries (EdCarp) is a training initiative, which offers the Carpentries computing and data skills curriculum in Edinburgh. The workshops train researchers on fundamental skills needed for conducting efficient, open, and reproducible research. The EdCarp team comprises staff and student volunteers from across disciplines, academic units, and career stages.
Since 2018, EdCarp has organised 25 workshops across the academic institution, training over 300 staff and students in data cleaning, manipulation, visualisation and version control methods using tools such as R, python, Unix shell, Git, SQL and OpenRefine. Courses are free to participants and are oversubscribed very quickly. We are now rolling out our 2020 schedule and announcing workshops.
EdCarp are working to establish collaborations with other organisations, external and internal to the university: the Scottish Funding Council, the Institute for Academic Development and the Data Driven Innovation programme.
EdCarp can work with your academic unit or doctoral training program to help promote the fundamental data skills that your colleagues need.
A crucial aspect of EdCarp and their training model is the participation and voluntary commitment of the community, where trainees go to become helpers, helpers to instructors and so on. EdCarp are always looking for new people willing to help, in any capacity; please sign up here if you would like to be kept updated and/or get involved: https://eepurl.com/gl4MsX.
The UTREES Database: University Theses in Russian, Soviet, and East European Studies 1907–
The UTREES database is the database form of the UTREES project which originated with the print form in 2008, compiled and edited by Gregory Walker and J. S .G. Simmons. It lists details of over 5,800 doctoral and selected masters’ theses from British and Irish universities from 1907 onwards, covering research relating to Eastern and Central Europe, Russia, and the area of the former USSR, including Central Asia, the Caucasus and Siberia. The database is continuously updated and is freely accessible.
The editor of UTREES has just announced today the good news that, under an agreement with the British Library, UTREES has now begun to provide access to the full text of many of its listed theses by means of links to the BL’s massive EThOS database which provides the full text of thousands of UK Higher Education theses.
- Access eThOS: http://ethos.bl.uk (registration as members of UoE is required for full-text access)
A high proportion of theses on UTREES already have entries on EThOS. Editor Gregory Walker says:
“… we’re now working to attach links from one database to the other. We’ve already connected all relevant theses added since 2008 (about 2,300 of them), and links to the remaining 2,000-odd will be added in the coming months. For more details, please see the ‘Access to Theses’ section on the UTREES website…. We hope that this enhancement process will be of real benefit to users of UTREES, and will welcome any comments or queries. Please contact me [Gregory Walker] at gpmwalker@btinternet.com“.
For more comprehensive searches of theses awarded in your subject area, use ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global:
A visit from the data jungle: My internship in research data management
This is a guest post from Dr. Tamar Israeli, who completed a work/study internship with the Research Data Support team last Autumn. A link to her report is available below.
Recently, there has been a rumor in Israel that research data should be managed. As a librarian and information specialist working in an academic institution, I decided to check if this was true.
When looking for a place for an internship on the role of the library in research data management (RDM), I was happy to find out that the University of Edinburgh RDM support team has a good reputation. I remember enjoying very much my visit to Edinburgh 30 years ago so I was very happy to get Robin Rice & Martin Donnelly’s kind invitation so I could boldly go where… I had already been before.
During September 2019, I worked with the RDM support team, attended some of the staff meetings and participated in one of the RDM trainings. As part of my internship we carried out a small scale study. The purpose of the study was mainly to understand what are the barriers that prevent researchers from using tools and services provided to them by the university when collaborating with data.
For that purpose, I interviewed six researchers from different schools and disciplines. The researchers were open and cooperative and the interviews were very interesting and insightful. If you’d like to learn about the way researchers collaborate and what influences their decision to use a particular tool or service, here is a link to our report: http://dx.doi.org/10.7488/era/2
Many thanks to the support team for their invitation and warm hospitality. It was one of the most pleasant months of my life.
Tamar Israeli
Librarian and information specialist
Western Galilee College
New to the Library: Bayeux Tapestry Digital Edition
Following a successful trial in semester one I am pleased to let you know the Library now has a subscription to the Bayeux Tapestry Digital Edition. This online version allows you to scroll through the entire Tapestry and zoom in on the Tapestry to the level of the actual weave.
You can access the Bayeux Tapestry Digital Edition via the Databases A-Z list and the Digital primary source and archive collections guide. You can also access it via DiscoverEd. Read More
Lyell Notebooks: Progress Report
Collection Curation
Since their arrival, the focus has been on a range of preliminary tasks to get the notebooks ready for digitisation, consultation and exhibition.
Exhibition
The first exhibition of Lyell’s notebooks
The first free public display of the Lyell collection is currently on at the University of Edinburgh’s Main Library on George Square, on the 6th floor in the Binks Exhibition Wall of the Centre for Research Collections (CRC). The volumes selected include a journal of a European tour of made by Lyell and his parents in 1818, an 1828 examination of the 1822 eruption of Vesuvius and an illustration of geology of Prosen Village (close to the Lyell family home at Kinnordy, Kirriemuir) in 1874. The exhibition also features an engraved portrait and a selection of geological specimens.
The exhibition also features a notebook which contains the description of shells sent to Lyell by Darwin, alongside the shells themselves. The shells and the geological specimens are part of a wider collection of around 100 stone artefacts (axes, spears and arrow heads), three meteorites, 25 fossils, 25 rocks. These were generously donated to the University in 1927 by the Lyell family (along with a significant collection of Lyell’s papers, now held in the CRC) and are held at the University’s Cockburn Geology Museum. Although the shells were already well known to us, finding documentation about them in the notebooks was a very exciting discovery.
The exhibition runs until 26 March.
Cataloguing
The notebooks fall into 5 series, the largest of these being Coll-203/A1, the principal scientific notebooks. The other series are Coll-204/A2 – travel journals, Coll-203/A3 – scientific journals / manuscript notes, Coll-203/A4 – Madeira and Canaries and Coll-203/A5 – Indexes. While full cataloguing will take some time and require to be resourced separately, skeletal catalogue entries for the first series has been created by repurposing a much earlier inventory. Some rudimentary entries have also been created for the volumes in the other series to allow them to be given unique identifiers, which are essential for managing digitisation, consultation and exhibition.
These catalogue records are not yet online but will be in the near future, once the notebooks are available for general consultation.
Conservation & Preservation
Notebooks shelved awaiting boxing
While primarily in pretty good condition a full conservation survey has been undertaken and work identified. In particular a good number the spine labels, which are an essential part of the materiality of the notebooks, are particularly fragile and will require some specific intervention.
Each notebook will require its own ‘book shoe’ after which they will then be boxed for efficient storage and retrieval. In the meantime, the notebooks have been temporarily shelved in sequence until this work can be carried out.
Digitisation
Two volumes have been selected as initial exemplars for digitisation. The first volume comes from the scientific notebooks and contains, “Geological notes and observation; Notes on modern causes”. The second is from scientific journals and contains some drafts of letters from Lyell to Charles Darwin.
A more ambitious plan of digitisation is currently being initiated, prioritising, in the first instance, the most physically robust volumes that require no or little intervention by a conservator.
Juliette Lichman working on Lyell digitisation assessment
Lyell in Context – New Post
The CRC is currently advertising an exciting new post: Project Archivist (Climate Change). This puts Lyell firmly in context, identifying his papers not solely as a record of his own life and work and of the history of his discipline but recognising its significance in terms of understanding our planet. Neither does Lyell stand in isolation. Crucial connections and interactions between him, his contemporaries and his successors run through a range of our collections and properly identifying and making these available for research is a high priority. Vital to understanding the Earth and its needs is understanding its history. This innovative post will scope out how Lyell’s papers and other collections here can play an important role.
As well as focussing on the collections, the Project Archivist will also have a responsibility to liaise with academic and other researchers and stakeholders and to establish and develop a cluster of research interest in and around the collections as a means of identifying the collaborative basis of future projects.
For further details on the post: https://www.vacancies.ed.ac.uk/ Vacancy Reference 050984
If you have any questions regarding the Lyell collections please contact in the first instance Rachel Hosker, Archives Manager and Deputy Head of Special Collections, at Rachel.Hosker@ed.ac.uk or to discuss the fundraising campaign or future funding needs; David McClay, Philanthropy Manager, Library & University Collections at david.mcclay@ed.ac.uk
Professor Richard Fortey on Lyell
Lyell expert and enthusiast
Professor Richard Fortey is one of the most authoritative and engaging experts on the importance of Charles Lyell. A welcome supporter in the Lyell notebook campaign, he has recently been interviewed by Professor Brian Cox for the joint BBC and Royal Society series People of Science. Watch here for a persuasive account of Lyell’s scientific significance: People of Science
We’d also recommend Richard’s fascinating article on Lyell and deep geological time for the Geological Society (of which he is a past President): Lyell and Deep Time
Collections
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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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