The Scottish Book Trade Index is now fully searchable! The new version has all the information from the old one, but you can now combine searches rather than looking for one word such as a name or trade. You can, for instance, find out how many booksellers there were in Brechin in the 18th century […]
Tag: history
WWII AIR RAID PRECAUTIONS
The next Scottish Local History Forum Annual Lecture will be held in the Library on 13 February, when Professor Niall Logan will be talking about Duping the Luftwaffe. There is an accompanying display in the Library which showcases items relating to this, as well as to civil defence and air raid precautions. With another war […]
Halloween in the National Library of Scotland
It was one of those blustery days, Halloween was approaching and the wee man wanted me to accompany him guising. I had my trepidations; when we were kids everyone in our street knew each other, in fact we grew up within a few miles radius – it wasn’t a big deal knocking on doors a […]
The Ivy Now
If you would like a peek behind the scenes of one of London’s most famous restaurants, look no further than “The Ivy Now” for a highly entertaining culinary read.
100 documents that changed the world : from Magna Carta to WikiLeaks
We are surrounded by documents in our everyday lives and, of course, not all documents are in themselves important or worth saving. However, some, be they an ancient scroll of papyrus, a letter, a contract or a 140-character tweet, can have a huge and lasting impact on the world.
Lost Glasgow: The Changing Face of Charing Cross
Earlier this year plans were unveiled to cover a stretch of the M8 motorway at Glasgow’s Charing Cross – to ‘heal the wound’ (as the Herald calls it) opened up in the city as the road was constructed in the 1960s. The National Library of Scotland’s Moving Image Archive (housed here at Kelvin Hall) holds more than […]
Surviving Emotions
One of the best things about working with archives is finding records that give a real sense of the personality of the writer. There are many examples of this throughout the John Murray Archive, an archive that spans over two hundred years. The letters written to the successive heads of the publishing house regularly take a personal […]
The Empire Exhibition 1938
The Empire Exhibition 1938 The Empire Exhibition ran from May to October 1938 at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow. King George VI with Queen Mary officially opened the Exhibition on the 3rd of May 1938 2017 marks seventy-nine years since the Exhibition. Reflecting on current political and social economic trends perhaps we can identify, more than […]
Sausages, steam trains and biplanes : Showcasing 100 years of Scotland on film
Most people when they think of films probably think of the latest blockbusters showing at the cinema; fantastic stories far removed from everyday life, and rarely showing anything of Scotland. What many people don’t realise is that for four decades the National Library of Scotland’s Moving Image Archive has been collecting and preserving all kinds […]
On the burning of books
The burning of a book is a powerful action – especially when the act is carried out in public. The book may be burnt for many reasons but whatever the reason, it is a strong statement. In On the Burning of Books, Kenneth Baker explores famous moments throughout history when books have been burnt for […]