This short blog uncovers the story of Anchor Pensioners 1965, a recent addition to the moving image catalogue, and illustrates how public engagement is key to understanding some of the unique archival material in the Library’s collections. The film came in to the archive a few years ago as a consequence of a house move. […]
Zoom into Highland
Collated by Lucy Church. The Highland Council unitary authority is the largest by area in the UK, covering a third of Scotland’s land area, and 11% of the UK’s. Although it is the 7th largest council in Scotland by population, it has the lowest population density in the country. Its administrative centre is Inverness, but there […]
Collections available for music making
While the National Library of Scotland is a reference-only library and doesn’t lend music, mass digitisation has seen the set up of ‘Special Collections of Printed Music’ on our Digital Gallery. You can browse the different sections of this site or you can search for specific titles or composer’s names. Over the past year we […]
Zoom into Aberdeen City
Aberdeen City sits on the north-east coast of Scotland, north of the River Dee and south of the River Don. Aberdeen is often referred to the Granite or Silver City as the buildings were built with granite that has a high mica content (mica is a natural mineral that is typically very shiny or shimmery). […]
The Spiritualist Newspaper
According to an article in “The Times” published on 26th January 2021 the Covid-19 pandemic has led to a revival in Spiritualism. This is not surprising as historically when people have had to deal with the untimely death of family and friends Spiritualism has made a comeback. Spiritualism is a belief that spirits of the […]
Fishing for films
‘’There are 24 hours in the day and every one of them is for fishing.’’ Beyond the Grampians (1963) Films are often factual historical documents providing evidence, not simply of working practices, but how people lived and what life was actually like. Audiovisual records can contain inherent bias or a particular audience or message that […]
Zoom into West Lothian
Collated by Charlotte James Robertson. West Lothian is one of Scotland’s thirty-two unitary authorities; it is also one of the historic counties. It lies on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth and is predominantly rural, though there were extensive coal, iron, and shale oil mining operations in the 19th and 20th centuries. The old county town […]
Zoom into Renfrewshire
Collated by Jamie McIntosh. The council area of Renfrewshire sits to the south of the River Clyde and is bounded by five other local councils within the central south-west region of Scotland. First emerging as a county in the early 15th century through a land grant by King Robert III, it would then go on to take the form of the historic County of […]
Zoom into Falkirk
Collated by Moray Teale. The Falkirk council area was formed in 1996 when the Central Region was divided into several parts. Falkirk boasts many varied attractions from the ruins of the Antonine Wall, Callendar House and Blackness Castle to the engineering feats of the Forth and Clyde Canal and the Falkirk Wheel. More recently it has become famous for the […]
Henry Mackenzie and The Man of Feeling
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 […]