Lighting the Past: Historical ABCs
While cataloguing the Reserve Collection, I came across a little gem of a spelling book. It contains four separate publications which have been bound together, each dating from the early 18th century, and they can…
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Special Collections Visiting Scholars – Lang and the Works of Tolkien
Sharin Schroeder spent two weeks in our reading room in July as part of the 2014 Visiting Scholarship Programme. In this fascinating blog post, she explains how studying our Andrew Lang collection helped her research…
52 Weeks of Historical How-to’s, Week 49: How to Write a Whaling Report
When you are known as the whaling archivist here at Special Collections, it can be difficult to come up with a historical how-to which will not horrify or disgust readers. How to skin and transport a seal? No, too…
Highlights from the Reading Room: Memoirs of Richard Lovell Edgeworth
As part of my research for Maria Edgeworth: A Political Biography (to be published by Pickering and Chatto in 2017), I have spent a few very pleasurable days reading the Memoirs of Richard Lovell Edgeworth (1820),…
Highlights from the Reading Room: Burgh of St Andrews Trade Guilds
My research on life in medieval and early modern St Andrews has given me the opportunity to work at the new Special Collections Reading Room in Martyrs’ Kirk. To the right when one enters the building is the beautiful…
TREASURES OF THE LIBRARY PODCAST: Moira Mackenzie describes the Bustan of Sa’di
In the summer of 2013, the University Library set out to capture the reactions of academic and library staff when encountering their favourite items from the Special Collections Division. For this project, authors for…
TREASURES OF THE LIBRARY PODCAST: Dr Martin Milner on D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson’s personal copy of On Growth and Form
In the summer of 2013, the University Library set out to capture the reactions of academic and library staff when encountering their favourite items from the Special Collections Division. For this project, authors for…
Treasures of the Library podcast: Professor Lorna Milne on Francklyn’s Observations of the slave trade
In the summer of 2013, the University Library set out to capture the reactions of academic and library staff when encountering their favourite items from the Special Collections Division. For this project, authors for…
52 Weeks of Historical How-To’s, Week 1: Special Collections Ghost tour
T’was a dark and stormy night….no, honestly, it really was….when a gallant band of Special Collections and friends set out in full costume, accompanied by an even more gallant, because they didn’t have to be there,…
Lighting the Past: The St Andrews Collection
Last week the Lighting the Past team finished cataloguing the non-folio items of the St Andrews Collection. With some 2315 bib records and 3926 item records, this is the largest collection to date catalogued by the…