Books and Borrowing 1750-1830

Author: Maxine Branagh-Miscampbell

A (Belated) Happy Birthday to Mungo Park!

    Born on the 10th of September, 1771, we had hoped to wish Scottish explorer and surgeon, Mungo Park, a happy birthday on the 252nd anniversary of his birth last month. However, while observing the digital picket of the recent UCU strike action, we decided to wish him a belated happy birthday today instead! […]

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Forgotten Best-Sellers: The World Displayed; or, a Curious Collection of Voyages and Travels

From the moment I began to seriously crunch the numbers on the borrowers’ records of the Royal High School, the unrivalled popularity of two titles came to the fore: Charles Rollin’s Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes and Persians, Macedonians, and Greeks and The World Displayed; or, a Curious Collection of Voyages […]

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Individual Readers at the Royal High School

One of my favourite things about working with library borrowers’ records is getting to know the individual quirks and tastes of specific borrowers. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, the borrowing habits of the boys at the Royal High School began to diversify. Prior to this, a large majority visited the library to borrow […]

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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 […]

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