Author Archives: universitycollectionsvolunteers

All you need is library love

As Valentine’s Day approaches this weekend, we want to let all students know that their library loves them!

We were down in the Library Foyer today handing out origami hearts that we made this week, and inviting students to give it a go:

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Origami is a great way to take a break from studying, and it only takes six minutes of quiet activity to relax you. The hearts are so easy that you could make a couple in that time! You can find the instructions for the bigger hearts here, and the little bookmark hearts here.

These students all had a great time doing it!

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If you do make a heart, take a photo and show us on Facebook or Twitter! Make sure to follow us as well, because we will be posting about more fun events in the Library Foyer in the coming weeks! Library love is all around!

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Mockingbirds and Cuckoos

The library’s most borrowed books are all textbooks. Of course it is important that our library acts as a resource, but what can it offer you after you have completed your reading from Davidson’s Principles and Practice of Medicine? Certainly, we have more than textbooks here!

We compiled a list of some novels and autobiographies that the library holds. From Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl to Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, this list is full of great, thought-provoking reads:

  • Junot Diaz, The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (PS3554.I259 Dia.)
  • Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated (PS3606.O38 Foe.)
  • Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl (DS135.N6 Fra.)
  • Joseph Heller, Catch-22 (PS3558.E476 Hel. )
  • Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (PS3561.E667 Kes. )
  • Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (PG5039.21.U6 Kun.)
  • Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird (PS3562.E353 Lee. )
  • Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (DT1949.M35 Man.)
  • George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London (PR6029.R8 Orw.)
  • Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture (QA76.2.P38 Pau.)
  • J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (PS3537.A426 Sal.)
  • Kathryn Stockett, The Help (PS3619.T636 Sto.)

We were in the foyer of the Main Library today asking students which book on the list they found most inspiring. To Kill a Mockingbird was the clear winner, while One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Catch-22 were tied for second place, closely followed by The Catcher in the Rye.

Do you agree? Tell us which of these books you find most inspiring! Haven’t read them? It only takes six minutes of quiet reading to relax you, so borrow one from the library and start today! You never know what might come from it.

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What can your library do for you?

Did you know that reading is one of the best ways to relax? Even as little as six minutes of quiet reading can be enough to make a difference! The type of reading that people do in this library is usually more geared towards study than relaxation, but taking some time to have a break is really important.

That’s why we’re going to be popping up in the Main Library foyer in the next few weeks and months, running short activities to inspire, relax, distract, and motivate anyone that is using the library. We know how hard and stressful it can be to be a student, and we want you to know that the library is here for you!

One of the things we’ll be starting with is a little distraction activity – we’ve made a few examples already:

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Want to come and have a go? You can make some friends like these in the Main Library foyer on Wednesday, February 10th. Keep an eye on our Facebook and Twitter for other fun distractions!

Google Scholar – who is referencing us?

This is a guest blog post from Laura Keizer, one of our volunteers working in the Centre for Research Collections.

Archives are delightful places. Working in such a place regularly puts you in touch with a motley crew of visiting researchers who merrily toil away to complete diverse portfolios of original research. We help out where we can, provide documents, answer queries, and generally solve all sorts of interesting little mysteries. But despite our best efforts, we don’t often get to see where their local research takes the visitors afterwards, making the precise impact of the archive sometimes difficult to gauge.

This is where I came in. Having volunteered at the CRC for the past couple of months, I have attempted to trace the outcomes of research undertaken within these walls through reference analysis in Google Scholar. By examining and cataloguing every single digitised publication mentioning our university library for 2013, a handy account of authors, articles and associated archival sources appears (although itself absent of alliteration). Continue reading

Graduate Trainee – month one

Alice has recently started as our new Graduate Trainee – here she tells us about her first month based at the Centre for Research Collections (CRC).

As the first Graduate Trainee at the CRC, I feel that it is important to keep a record of how the job role is being developed and hopefully give future trainees an insight into what working here is like. I am now one month in, and have nothing but great experiences to report.

Keeping to the initial schedule, the first month has consisted mostly of inductions with all the different areas of the CRC and learning about all the procedures for the front desk and reading room.

The inductions have all been fascinating. The collections here are so varied and caring for them involves so many different areas of expertise that I have had the opportunity of meeting people with incredibly diverse backgrounds, all equally friendly and very welcoming.

Centre for Research Collections Reception Desk, Main Library, October 2008. Continue reading

A Famous Economist and His Library Collection

Jamie, our Marketing and Outreach Intern, gives an update on his progress.

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I have passed the halfway point of my internship here at CRC; I feel like time is flying by too quickly but at the same time feel like I have been here and part of the team much longer than four weeks. I’ve started to get really stuck into my work as the Marketing and Outreach Intern preparing presentations, writing reports, doing research amongst other things. Although busy the majority of time with those things I still enjoy the pleasure of dipping my toes into some of the collections and discovering some very interesting pieces on my way. As part of my university degree I study Economics (yes students do actually study sometimes), and I am sure many of you are aware of Adam Smith; for those of you who are not there’s no need to worry as I’ll give you a little background information.

Adam Smith (1723-1790) is often referred to as ‘the father of modern economics’. He was the author of ‘The Wealth of Nations’ which is one of his most well-known works and is one of the first books regarding modern economics. He studied at the University of Glasgow and Balliol College, Oxford before giving lectures at the University of Edinburgh. Continue reading

My first week as an intern and how it led to the destruction of a city

Jamie started as an intern at the Centre for Research Collections last week, here he tells us about his first few days.

I have just finished my first of eight weeks as a Marketing and Outreach Intern with the CRC, and what a week it has been.  After a quick induction the first week has been filled with a mixture of meeting all of the fascinating people working in the department as well as gathering and researching ideas for some of the projects I am going to be working on.

 
Since I have started, my mind has been blown at least once a day by the interesting things that everyone is working on, and the more this happens the more eager I have been to make my internship successful so we can share some of the stories I have heard with everyone else!

 
On that subject, here is a little bit more about what I’m doing.  As a marketing and outreach intern I’m looking over some of the existing strategies as well as researching, and possibly creating, new ones.  Basically I’m looking at ways in which to reach out to more people and let them know about the department and give them a better understanding about what everyone does.  I am finding it quite exciting because I get to meet and discuss with everyone all about their roles so I can have a better idea of how to promote everything.  By this point you are probably wondering how this led to the destruction of a city.                        [Just one of many scenes of devastation included in the photo album of Caen]

Well, it started with all the news surrounding the D-Day Anniversary, I started asking around to see if anyone had information about a collection relating to this that we could post to our Facebook and Twitter pages.  I was directed to a photo album in the collection showing pictures and postcards of the city of Caen in Normandy.  The city of Caen was first attacked on D-Day by the allies, but initial assaults were unsuccessful and the battle for Caen ended up waging on for most of June and July.  During this battle Caen suffered from heavy bombing and destruction of a lot of its buildings.  The photo album I looked through was mostly before and after pictures and it was sad to see many beautiful buildings on postcards and then next to it a photo of the same spot but with nothing more than a pile of rubble.  The album had been presented by a Professor John Orr, who was a professor of French here.  In the catalogue book there was another entry that was a collection of telegrams and newspaper clippings from John Orr, so I decided look for more information behind the Professor’s link with Caen.  Going through this collection I found out that Professor Orr was the Chairman of the Edinburgh-Caen Fellowship, and worked hard on getting the people of Edinburgh to donate food, money and emergency items to Caen following the destruction of their homes.

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[Two images showing before and after the assaults]

I could go into a lot more detail on what I found out about the Professor and Caen but I think that I’ve given enough for a taster.  If you want to find out more you could pop to the Centre for Research Collections’ Reading Room in the Main Library and take out the album yourself and read all about these important events in our history.

I am sorry to disappoint those of you looking to find out how I caused the destruction of a city! If you haven’t realised, it was about how my internship led on to finding out about Caen. I am a little clumsy but have never done anything like destroying an entire city… yet.  I hope you’ve enjoyed my first blog – hopefully they’ll let me do another one…

Thank you for reading, and thank you to DIU for supplying the images.

Jamie

Maori Moko – Capturing the New Zealand Collection

An update from the CRC Cataloguing Interns Beth and Fiona

Moko or tatooing is a crucial part of Maori culture, reflected in many of their carvings and art work, and early examples of this practise are amazingly well preserved in some photographs and drawings in Major-General Robley’s 1896 work:  Moko, or Maori tattooing, one of the many fascinating books in the New Zealand Collection.

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The draughtsman of Captain Cook, Sydney Parkinson, was first to draw the Maori tattoos in 1769, capturing their intricate designs and an art which was to decline rapidly with the arrival of the European missionaries and settlers who disapproved of the practise. In recent years, however, it is making a comeback using modern tattooing methods, and in this work we can see how these tattoos were made from the earliest times. NZ4

The Moko process was extremely painful, and would produce a raised scarring with charcoal black staining, as can be seen in some of the photos of the Chiefs. The tools used were a chisel called the Uhi, made from bone, tooth, or later iron, dipped in charcoal, and driven into the skin with the tap of a mallet called He Mahoe. On occasion the Uhi would pierce the skin and Robley describes seeing a Chief’s pipe smoke coming out of such a wound in the cheek.

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The most exhaustive description in English of a Maori tattooing, was that of John Rutherford, who was captured in 1816, along with several of the crew of his ship, the Agnes. He was one of the first westerners to be tattooed and gives a detailed description of this painful 4 hour process: we can see his extensive tattoos in his portrait. Facial tattoos were particularly important, and not just confined to the men: women often had at least some decoration around their mouth and such tattoos, in men and women, were designed to highlight and enhance their natural features as well as to display their status.

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Within Maori culture, at that time, a person was so defined by their tattoos that these came to represent who they were and there are several examples of Maori chiefs signatures which consisted of drawing of their own facial tattoos, as can be seen in several facsimiles of treaties reproduced in this work.

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Library Placement Student

Stefanie has been working with us for a few weeks on a placement as part of her PG course in Library and Information Studies at Robert Gordon University.  Here she tells us about her experience of working with the Scholarly Communications Team.

I arrived for my placement with the Scholarly Communications Team filled with elements of isolated theoretical knowledge and the notion that the library profession was undergoing drastic changes. In the course of the placement learned much about the applicability of my course modules, the profession and my future professional goals.

The opportunity to work with PURE from the very first day gave me the impression that I could positively contribute to the team’s daily work rather than being a distraction. The correction and updating of metadata may not be the most exciting duty but I enjoy detail-oriented work and it is a very vital part of information management and library work. It was a task that allowed me to work largely independently following the initial introduction. Additionally, the digitization project provided a nice counterpoint to the PURE task. Much library work seems to be centred on comparable projects with staff often working on several such projects at any given time.

At the start of the project, its purpose and goal were clearly explained, I was introduced to the relevant staff members and given an introduction to the equipment. This was quite useful as it provided the necessary information for a successful start but left me free to test my project management skills. Guidance and support in my PURE tasks and the digitization project were also just one question away giving me the confidence to apply the theoretical skills acquired throughout the course modules in a practical manner.

Dominic did a fantastic job arranging personal interviews with numerous staff from Research & Learning Services as well as Library & University Collections. I learned so much through these interviews that I could feel an entire report with it. The information and knowledge that everyone so willingly shared with me (Thank you!) has contributed immensely to my newly constructed view of the expanding rather than changing role of the library profession. Every interview echoed different bits and pieces of the theoretical knowledge from my course modules. This truly stressed the fact that no one is just a cataloguer or a metadata specialist. For a large information/library department such as the University of Edinburgh’s IS to work effectively, everyone must make use of numerous different skills and be willing to work across departments on various projects whilst still accomplishing the routine day-to-day tasks of the official job title.

I want to thank everyone for their time and generosity throughout my placement. The placement has made it possible for me to realize that I do not have to choose one particular aspect of the information management and library profession. The knowledge acquired on the course joins well with my previous education and experience opening the doors to wide variety of possible positions in the profession with many more opportunities awaiting in the form of small and large projects.

I can only hope that I was able to return the favour in small part and contribute positively to the work of the Scholarly Communications team.

CRC Cataloguing Interns

Beth and Fiona have recently started as cataloguing interns in the CRC, and tell us about their first experiences…

Thesis cataloguing comes with its perils, for a start, until the beginning of February we were both blissfully unaware of the horror of the unnumbered page.  Few sights can strike fear into the heart of the intrepid rare books cataloguer quite like erratic pagination!

However, we are glad to report that this internship is not exclusively page counting, and every now and again something, or someone, truly exceptional comes along.

Among the hidden gems of the past couple of weeks, we found a 1930’s PhD thesis in physics that was submitted by a woman named Gladys Isabel Harper.  A woman submitting a thesis in 1930 may not be particularly unusual, especially thanks to the progressive thinking in Edinburgh at that time, but this woman’s career certainly took an exceptional trajectory and one that even by today’s standards would appear highly impressive.

Born Gladys MacKenzie, she was the daughter of an iron founder and teacher from Edinburgh and was educated at Craigmount School in the city.  She graduated with an MA in 1924, with a first in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy (now known as the physics department).  As part of her PhD on J-phenomenon in x-radiation, Gladys submitted an article co-written with E. Salaman during her time at Newnham College in Cambridge where she was appointed a lectureship in 1926.  In 1929 she resigned her post at Cambridge and married Wallace Russell Harper (PhD) who was a fellow physicist and published two books in the subject in 1961 and 1966.

Gladys’ PhD was granted in 1930, after she was married and while she was working in the natural philosophy department at Edinburgh University with Charles Glover Barkla, who won a Nobel prize for his work in a the field of x-radiation.  Together, they wrote two articles published in Philosophical Magazine in 1926.  The final leaf of Gladys’ PhD is a letter from her to the librarian at Edinburgh University stating her address in Bristol University where she was a lecturer in the department of Physics until 1947.

As we continue our quest to organize the intellectual heritage of EU, we may get shudder at the thought of chemistry PhD students who apparently had only a loose idea of how page numbers work (hint: they generally go up, one at a time), but it’s all worth it to make the work of people like Gladys Isabel Harper visible to more students today.