If you look at traditional media such as newspapers and magazines just now it often feels like everything is about coronavirus. The National Library of Scotland as you would expect will collect the newspapers, official publications and magazines that appear during the pandemic and when they are published the inevitable books that will chronicle this […]
Tag: politics

The Fight for Fife
Guest Blog Post by Matthew Fellion As a volunteer in Archives and Manuscript Collections, Matthew Fellion has been listing the records of the North East Fife Conservative and Unionist Association (NEFCUA), which the Library acquired in autumn 2017. Acc.13853 is part of the Library’s modern political manuscript holdings, which include records of Scottish political parties, […]
Pamphlets – social media before the internet
My name is Rachel Scott, and I am a librarian and postgraduate student at the University of St. Andrews; I have just completed an internship with the Rare Book Department. Part of my internship has been to help audit pamphlets, including a vast collection of pamphlets bound by the Advocates Library, usually in related subjects […]
A satire about a Prime Minister
We have bought an very unusual satirical broadside (AP.6.213.06): it attacks the unpopular Prime Minister John Stuart, third Earl of Bute (1713-1792). It’s written in the form of a letter from Beelzebub, or the Devil, to the Earl of Bute. At the top is a portrait of Lord Bute, which, unusually, is not a caricature but is a faithful representation of […]