April 2021 is the 250th anniversary of the publication of the sentimental novel The Man of Feeling by Henry Mackenzie in which the naïve Harley, in a series of fragmented episodes, encounters and weeps over the misfortunes of others and falls prey to the artfulness of more worldly characters. The book was a huge success […]
Month: April 2021
Bookplates in the National Library: Who owned books in 18th and 19th century Scotland?
This blog post is about the bookplates collections in the National Library of Scotland and about what it can tell us about the types of people who owned books in eighteenth and nineteenth century Scotland. My name is Bryony Pillath and I am doing an MSc in Book History and Material Culture at the University […]
Automatically transcribing the Marjory Fleming Diaries
This blog post by Joe Nockels explores the creation of the first Library dataset to be generated using the Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology of Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR). As a result we now have an accurate semi-automatic transcription of the diaries of Scottish child author Marjory Fleming (1803-1811). Few historical texts voice the experience of […]
Zoom into Perth and Kinross
The county of Perth, formerly known as Perthshire, sits at the heart of Scotland, and its vast geographic size has seen it called ‘the big county.’ It existed as an administrative county from 1890 until 1930, when it was linked with Kinross-shire which, in direct contrast to its neighbour, is one of Scotland’s smallest counties. The county town is Perth, and a large number […]
Lost Piano Concerto Found, and an Unexpected Musical Connection
A year has passed since National Library of Scotland staff began remote working due to the COVID-19 crisis. The adaptability of the Library’s personnel to their new circumstances and the use of Microsoft Teams, Zoom video conferencing, and the accessing of files and databases through a VPN (virtual private network) has enabled the mission, work […]
ZOOM INTO DUMFRIES AND GALLOWAY
The unitary region of Dumfries and Galloway was created in 1975, following a reorganisation of Local Government in Scotland. It brought together the historic counties of Dumfriesshire, Wigtownshire and the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. Though now part of Scotland, the region was once part of the ancient Northern Brittonic Kingdom of Rheged and later the Kingdoms […]