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 […]
Author: Stewart Hardy
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 […]
Our world-class collections
We’d like to welcome old and new readers to our refreshed National Library of Scotland blog. We’ll be posting a wide variety of regular updates about our outstanding collections. We hold over 24 million items and have much more than books. We also offer maps, films, photographs, manuscripts and archives, music scores, newspapers and much […]