Latest Posts
A Year of Books and Borrowing
It’s been a shamefully long time since I updated readers of this blog on things that have been happening on the Books and Borrowing front. This is mainly because it’s been an exceptionally busy year on many fronts, and, now that our funding from the AHRC is at an end, blogging has taken a back […]
Book Borrowing Surgeons: A Jean Guild Grant from the Old Edinburgh Club
I am delighted to share that I have been awarded a Jean Guild Grant from the Old Edinburgh Club (OEC) for a project to continue the work of Books and Borrowing. I am grateful to the OEC for their support and to the Books & Borrowing Team for their enthusiasm for this new follow-on project. […]
EDITION Spring Lecture 2025
Katherine Halsey (Professor of English Studies, University of Stirling) and Matthew Sangster (Professor of Romantic Studies, Fantasy and Cultural History, University of Glasgow): ‘Towards a True History of Reading Lives: Borrowing in Scotland, 1747-1837’ Chair: Professor Penny Fielding 16:00-17:30, Friday 21 March, Project Room (1.06), 50 George Square, University of Edinburgh Followed by a drinks […]
Time to Celebrate! Report on Books and Borrowing Launch Event
Friday 26th April saw the long-awaited launch of the Books and Borrowing database! Almost all the project team were able to be there, and we very much enjoyed catching up with Alex and Gerry, who have been working elsewhere for the past couple of years, as well as getting the chance to show off our […]
Books and Borrowing Database Launch Event – Friday 26th April, 4pm – University of Glasgow
Dearest Blog Readers, We are delighted to invite you to celebrate the launch of the ‘Books and Borrowing, 1750-1830’ database, which (as you doubtless know if you’re reading this post) archives and interprets borrowing records covering eighteen different Scottish libraries active in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Using formerly unexplored (or underexplored) registers, […]
World Book Day, 2024
Today, 7th March, 2024, is World Book Day! It seemed like a good moment, therefore, for a Books and Borrowing blog, which I’m going to use to update all of our loyal readers on some of the things that have been happening in the past couple of months. The first piece of news is that, […]
Books and Borrowing: A Retrospective
At this time of year, I normally write a blog based on Christmas borrowings from one of more of the libraries represented in the Books and Borrowing dataset. This year, however, I need to write something different. Astonishingly, we are now in the last few weeks of our funded period, and inching ever closer to […]
The Bancroft Chronicles
In November, I was lucky enough to spend a month working as a Visiting Scholar in the English Department at the University of California, Berkeley, as part of my PhD. Whilst there, I spent some time at the Bancroft Library, which is home to the University’s special collections. Established in 1859, the Bancroft Library (pictured […]
The Maga, Murder, and Immanuel Kant: Thomas De Quincey and the Advocates Library
Gloucester Place is an attractive Georgian terrace at the northern edge of the New Town just before the streets drop down to Stockbridge. It’s the sort of street that makes me wish for a large lottery win. At No. 6 is a chic boutique hotel with a restaurant and bar called ‘Blackwoods’. A verdigris plaque […]
Visitor Vignettes: Nicknames
Reposted with permission from the Innerpeffray Library Blog Today’s blog on the use of nicknames in the Innerpeffray visitors’ books is inspired by a recent discovery of a 1965 visitor to Innerpeffray, who signed their entry ‘Littel Elf’! In the Innerpeffray visitors’ book of September 1965, there are a series of entries by the Hall […]