Author: Alex Deans
Library Lives: Books, Borrowers, and Beyond: Innerpeffray Library, Saturday 22 May
The Books and Borrowing Project is pleased to announce the project’s first public event, to be held at the famous Innerpeffray Library on 22nd May at 2pm. This free online event will highlight Innerpeffray’s unique Borrowers’ Register and the stories it can tell about the library’s books and borrowers. Come along to find out about […]
Jane Porter and the Historical Novel before Waverley
“The war which had desolated Scotland was now at an end. Ambition seemed satiated; and the vanquished, after passing under the yoke of their enemy, concluded they might wear their chains in peace. Such were the hopes of those Scottish noblemen who, early in the spring of 1296, signed the bond of submission to a […]
The World in Print: Borrowings of Voyages and Travels
Voyages and travels were among the most borrowed books from Scottish libraries in the eighteenth century and Romantic era. Travel narratives and works of geographical description could encompass an almost limitless range of subjects, reflecting a period that was characterised by colonisation and war, as well as a burgeoning interest in natural history, antiquity, and […]
A year at Westerkirk
Back in July, I wrote about my trip to the evocative Westerkirk Parish Library in Dumfriesshire to photograph materials for the Books and Borrowing project. The process of adding records from the library’s manuscript borrowing register (styled the ‘Kalendar’ by its users) into the database is now well underway, and I recently passed a minor […]
The Road to Westerkirk
With the tentative lifting of Covid-19 restrictions, I was recently able to conduct my first bit of Books and Borrowing fieldwork since the project officially started in June. Thanks to the generosity of the library Trustees (and with suitable precautions taken) I’ve begun to dig into the rich collections of Westerkirk Parish Library, which lies […]