Tag: Innerpeffray Library
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 […]
Wild Words and Spooky Happenstance: A Festival Diary
Republished with permission from The Library of Innerpeffray Blog From Thursday 7 to Sunday 10 September 2023, Innerpeffray Library hosted its third annual Festival of Reading, celebrating the theme of Wild Words. Authors, poets, storytellers, musicians, artists, and readers met in and around the historic location of Scotland’s first free lending library. On Thursday evening, […]
Hallowe’en Reading
Happy Spooky Season to all our loyal readers! Having just come back from the USA, where Hallowe’en is everywhere throughout October, I thought I would see what kinds of spooky reading events I could find in our dataset. A quick keyword search in our new digital resource (soon to be fully open to the public!) […]
Ted Powell Lecture at Innerpeffray
On 4th October I had the honour of giving the Ted Powell Memorial Lecture to the Friends of Innerpeffray Library. Ted Powell was a former librarian at Innerpeffray, and I was delighted to discover from his widow after the talk that he had been a great advocate of the Innerpeffray’s borrowers’ registers, and regularly urged […]
A Visitor to Innerpeffray Library: Rupert Vardon de Burgh Griffith
Reposted with permission from the Innerpeffray Library blog: https://innerpeffraylibrary.co.uk/visitor-vignettes-lieutenant-rupert-vardon-de-burgh-griffith/ Almost exactly 124 years ago, on 22nd August 1899, one of my favourite signatures was entered into the Innerpeffray Visitors’ Books by a young visitor to the library. Every time I come across this page, I am delighted all over again that Alice Mary Griffith allowed […]
A Library Tour of Manchester
Reposted with permission from the Innerpeffray Library blog Back in December 2022, I headed to Manchester for a whirlwind day tour of some of its prestigious libraries! On the day I was lucky enough to take part in a tour of Chetham’s Library and spend a little time researching at the Portico Library. Unfortunately I […]
Forgotten Bestsellers: George-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon’s Histoire Naturelle (1749-88)
In our series on Forgotten Bestsellers, we have tended so far to focus on works of fiction, which I fear may perhaps have given loyal readers a slightly false impression of the genres most often borrowed from our libraries. In fact, although fiction does become very popular in the early nineteenth century, it is not […]
More Creative Work Inspired by the Books and Borrowing Project
This week, we’re happy to present the second of our Highly Commended Creative Writing Competition entries – i.e. works inspired by Books and Borrowing project materials. This week it is a short story, written by Virginia Crow. Virginia is an award-winning historical fiction author who grew up in Orkney, and now lives in rural Caithness. […]
Books, Books, More Books (and some Borrowers)! Two Library Excursions at the Books and Borrowing Conference
Today is the last day to register for the Books and Borrowing conference in April – don’t miss out, and make sure to sign up now at Reading and Book Circulation, 1650-1850 | University of Stirling Online Shop. We are excited to announce that there will be two excursions during the Books and Borrowing conference, […]
Announcement: Books and Borrowing Creative Writing Competition Winner!
We are delighted to announce that the Winner of our Creative Writing competition is Helen Hutchinson, whose short story ‘Taking Flight – A Victorian Tale’ was inspired by the Borrowers’ Register from Innerpeffray Library pictured above. Our judge, Daisy Hay, on awarding Helen the prize, commented: This is a beautifully evoked and moving story that […]