‘’The light of enchantment on heather and lochan, the curler’s call, the fragrance of green bog myrtle, slow silence enfolding all’’ Bee Keeping in the North (1946) (Intertitles on silent film) Scotland’s great outdoors features in many memorable films – think of the brooding mountains of Glencoe in ‘Skyfall’ or the breathtaking Aberdeenshire village of […]
Author: Staff Writer
21st Century Periods
In early 2020, following the Government’s Period Poverty Bill and the subsequent Let’s Call Periods, Periods campaign, we committed to supplying free sanitary products in our buildings. By happy coincidence, General Collections curators Dora Petherbridge and Jan Usher had been working with Professor Bettina Bildhauer and Dr Camilla Mørk Røstvik of St Andrews University, who […]
Celebrating Scottish Publisher Legacies at the Edinburgh Book Festival
The weekend saw the launch of the Edinburgh Book Festival 2020, an online pageant of literary events about the latest page-turners including several events by authors signed to Scottish publishers. From Canongate to 404 Ink and other greats in between, publishers are essential to keeping the National Library of Scotland’s catalogue full of the latest […]
Pressing forward
At the National Library, we delight in seeing the reactions of visitors to our exhibitions, in welcoming people to our reading rooms, and constantly turning the page on materials that make up the nation’s permanent collection. It’s a privilege to share in the discoveries made by people visiting the Library that help us all to […]
A Library placement
Hi there! My name is Tara and I am an Information and Library Science MSc student at the University of Strathclyde. From January to March I was on a student placement at the National Library of Scotland. This was a fantastic opportunity for me to gain some real work experience and put theories from my […]
eResources at the National Library of Scotland
What are eResources? eResources (electronic resources) are materials in digital format. These include things like electronic journals, e-books and online databases. Our eResources cover a wide of range of subjects, from history and social sciences to newspapers and business resources. The Library pays subscriptions for these eResources, which in turn, enables us to offer them […]
The Forth & Clyde Canal: Reservoirs, wrangles and rorts, by Professor Paul Bishop
The Forth & Clyde Canal, which crosses Scotland from the Firth of Clyde in the west to the Firth of Forth in the east, was begun in 1768 and completed in 1790, and was the greatest engineering project that Scotland had undertaken to that time. Professor Bishop gave the recent Scottish Local History Forum Annual […]
Pithy People: 150 years of the People’s Friend
When talking about my research into the popular magazine the People’s Friend the typical response I receive is, ‘my granny used to read that!’ For many Scots, this is their primary association with the People’s Friend and for me it is no different. My grandmother, born in Edinburgh in 1928 to Italian-immigrants, was a regular […]
The International Style of Muriel Spark: Sparkiving in Japan
February 1st 2017 would have been Dame Muriel Spark’s 99th birthday. What it will be is the beginning of a year-long countdown to her centenary, signalling a series of events and activities that will celebrate the life and writing of one of Scotland’s greatest 20th Century writers. And while we at the Library are busy […]
Catching the eye of Martin Scorsese
You’re not quite sure what to expect when you seal an envelope addressed to Hollywood film director, Martin Scorsese in New York. Enclosed was a letter from the National Library of Scotland asking him to support our Moving Image Archive campaign. I wasn’t too hopeful but you just never know so I posted it and […]