Month: September 2021
The Royal High School of Edinburgh and the University of Edinburgh
I’ve been so delighted to get started with the Books and Borrowing team and have really enjoyed getting stuck in and learning all about the project’s Content Management System (CMS) and what’s been achieved so far. ‘Books and Borrowing’ is a project close to my heart as my PhD focused on the pupil borrowing records […]
William Robertson (1721-1793): Minister, Principal, Historian
This year marks the tercentenary of the birth of a major figure of the Scottish Enlightenment. William Robertson was a leading moderate minister of the Church of Scotland, Principal of the University of Edinburgh from 1762 until 1793, and a famous author of historical works. Robertson’s three major historical works, The History of Scotland (2 […]
Festival of Reading
Last week I spent a delightful few days at the Library of Innerpeffray’s inaugural Festival of Reading! From 8 to 11 September 2021, Innerpeffray hosted eight Tayside writers to celebrate the Past on the Page, in celebration of the 250th anniversary of the birth of Sir Walter Scott. In the run up to the festival, […]
A Comparison of the Borrowings of Different Classes at the Library of Innerpeffray, John Gray Library, Haddington, and Selkirk Subscription Library
In my last blog post, I discussed the Library of Innerpeffray’s exceptional labouring-class borrowing demographic. Labouring-class people were the driving force for borrowings at Innerpeffray as early as the eighteenth century, contradicting narratives claiming that they only began accessing libraries in the nineteenth century, with access previously exclusive to scholarly, aristocratic, and professional elites. The […]