THE NEWSLETTER OF THE FRIENDS OF EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY LIBRARY NUMBER 37 SUMMER 2012 iper . P , Sheila Cannell retires as Director of Library services and Deputy Head of Information Services this summer. Sheila has been involved in Libraries for thirty-six years during a time of rapid and exciting change. The advent of the digital age has already radically impacted on the way Libraries operate and are managed and she has been at the forefront of these innovations. She has organised, overseen and guided the extensive and challenging Development of the Main Library over recent years. An iconic Basil Spence building the Library has morphed into a modern, exhilarating, fit-for-purpose space loved and used by many with a new delight. A typical comment from a student writing about the feeling of proud student ownership when the building opened again was: ‘It’s beautiful and it’s ours!’ Recently on a Sunday morning at 7.30.am a ‘queue’ of 1,600 students waited for entry to the Library watched by bemused servitors who later described it ‘like T in The Park’ . The cynical may wish to ascribe this eager mob as a symptom of exam panic but I prefer enthusiasm as a motivator – or perhaps the excellent coffee in the Café! There is a real buzz and creativity about the building yet it still has areas of reflective calm that those who recall the old ’stacks’ on the upper floor, as I do, will fondly remember. The ‘Library’ monolith on the concourse has become a new icon and a symbol to the media for all news items about Universities in Edinburgh and elsewhere. An alumna of Edinburgh University, Sheila began her career at Heriot Watt, went on to Glasgow University returning to Edinburgh in 1985. She was appointed Director of Library Services in 2003. She has served on countless prestigious Committees involving Research and Digitalisation of Libraries, some at international level, and is a Trustee of Edinburgh City of Literature. Since 2002 Sheila has been the Honorary Secretary of the Friends of Edinburgh University Library and has helped secure, along with the other Trustees, many items for Special Collections. She has also found many interesting speakers as well as facilitating our summer visits to other libraries. Many of you will remember the extraordinary New Hailes ‘non library’, the intriguing Freemasons’ Library, the wonderful portfolios containing text at the Gallery of Modern Art and many more curious and surprising collections of books through the City. Sheila has left a legacy that will always be part of the University. We wish her much joy in her new emerging life and happiness in her travels to India and beyond. Lady Caplan, President, Friends of Edinburgh University Library ‘It’s beautiful and it’s ours!’
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THE
NEWSLETTER OF THE FRIENDS OF EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY LIBRARYNUMBER 37 SUMMER 2012
iper.
P ,
Sheila Cannell retires as Director ofLibrary services and Deputy Head ofInformation Services this summer.
Sheila has been involved inLibraries for thirty-six years during atime of rapid and exciting change.
The advent of the digital age hasalready radically impacted on theway Libraries operate and aremanaged and she has been at theforefront of these innovations. Shehas organised, overseen and guidedthe extensive and challengingDevelopment of the Main Libraryover recent years. An iconic BasilSpence building the Library hasmorphed into a modern, exhilarating,fit-for-purpose space loved and usedby many with a new delight. A typicalcomment from a student writingabout the feeling of proud studentownership when the building openedagain was: ‘It’s beautiful and it’s ours!’
Recently on a Sunday morning at7.30.am a ‘queue’ of 1,600 studentswaited for entry to the Library
watched by bemused servitors wholater described it ‘like T in The Park’.The cynical may wish to ascribe thiseager mob as a symptom of exampanic but I prefer enthusiasm as amotivator – or perhaps the excellentcoffee in the Café! There is a real buzzand creativity about the building yetit still has areas of reflective calm thatthose who recall the old ’stacks’ onthe upper floor, as I do, will fondlyremember. The ‘Library’ monolith onthe concourse has become a newicon and a symbol to the media forall news items about Universities inEdinburgh and elsewhere.
An alumna of EdinburghUniversity, Sheila began her career atHeriot Watt, went on to GlasgowUniversity returning to Edinburgh in1985. She was appointed Director ofLibrary Services in 2003. She hasserved on countless prestigiousCommittees involving Research andDigitalisation of Libraries, some atinternational level, and is a Trustee of
Edinburgh City of Literature.Since 2002 Sheila has been the
Honorary Secretary of the Friends of Edinburgh University Library and has helped secure, along with the other Trustees, many items forSpecial Collections. She has alsofound many interesting speakers aswell as facilitating our summer visitsto other libraries. Many of you willremember the extraordinary NewHailes ‘non library’, the intriguingFreemasons’ Library, the wonderfulportfolios containing text at theGallery of Modern Art and manymore curious and surprising collections of books through the City.
Sheila has left a legacy that willalways be part of the University.
We wish her much joy in hernew emerging life and happiness inher travels to India and beyond.
Lady Caplan, President,Friends of Edinburgh University Library
‘It’s beautiful and it’s ours!’
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Uniting archive material
and contemporary
artworks to celebrate
nursing history in living
memory
A collection of historic nursing andhospital badges held by LothianHealth Services Archive (LHSA,Centre for Research Collections),along with creative responses tothem produced by staff andpostgraduate students at EdinburghCollege of Art (ECA), have formed afascinating installation in the RoyalInfirmary of Edinburgh (RIE) titled‘Unsung Heroes’.
This permanent installation isthe product of two years’ work bythe project partners (LHSA, ECA,Gingko Projects for the RIE andexhibition consultants AmandaGame and Elizabeth Goring),working with noted enamel artistElizabeth Turrell. Funded by theHeritage Lottery, NHS Lothian andthe RIE Volunteers, the project ispart historical, part medical and partartistic, with a strong focus onLHSA’s enamelled badge collection
which dates from the early twentiethcentury right up to the 1990s. Thebadges were the inspiration for staffand postgraduate students from theECA Jewellery and SilversmithingDepartment, who producedbeautiful new pieces for the displayoutside Outpatient Department 3.The installation invites the viewer toconsider the role of objects andimages in shaping identity andcreating meaning through time, andis designed to provide positivedistraction and gentle stimulationfor patients, visitors and staff whilstacting as an orientation point forpeople leaving the outpatient clinic.
Over the course of the projectstudents were invited to seminarsheld at the Centre for ResearchCollections (CRC) where they could view the badges and learnmore about them. A wide selectionof archive material, including
Unsung Heroes
Left. Example of an enameled badges in the LHSA collection
Above. A seminar for ECA students held in the CRC
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photographs, architectural plans andnursing registers, was also presentedto provide some context to nursingin Edinburgh in the twentiethcentury.
In February 2011, a very successful‘Bring a Badge Day’ was held at theRIE where nurses were encouragedto bring along their badges and talkto the ECA students about theircareers. Nurses – both current and
retired – were interviewed abouttheir experiences. Volunteersreceived training in oral historycollecting from LHSA staff and theseinterviews, along with otherscollected throughout the project,will be transferred to the Archive forlong-term preservation. Excerptsfrom the interviews also form part ofthe installation and can be heard viasmartphone technology.
In the autumn of 2011 the displaywall in the CRC housed an interim,temporary display to illustrate theresearch, design and technicalprocesses behind the new artworks,and to demonstrate the ways inwhich archive material can be usedto make tangible links between thepresent and the past. This was also anopportunity for those makers whoseartwork would not be selected forthe final installation to showcasetheir pieces.
The experience of forging linksbetween LHSA and the artistic
community has been an extremelypositive one; it’s fantastic to see thecollections being used in new andexciting ways. The process has alsowidened access and promoted ourcollections to new audiences. Theinstallation in the RIE was launchedat the end of March 2012, and asymposium to disseminate thefindings of the project and reflect onshared successes will follow later inthe year. For more information aboutthe project please see:
www.lhsa.lib.ed.ac.uk
http://lhsa.blogspot.com/
www.facebook.com/lhsa.edinburgh
http://nursingbadges.wordpress.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/49439570@N08/sets/72157625849589925/
Ruth HoneyboneLothian Health Services Archive([email protected])
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The exhibition in the CRC display wall
The redevelopment of the MainLibrary has been a constantbackdrop to my time as Director ofLibrary Services at the University ofEdinburgh. Planning commencedwith feasibility studies in 2003, and, asI write in late spring 2012, the projectis almost complete, with only thework on the Lower Ground Floor tobe completed. The Design Team, ledby Lewis & Hickey Architects, wereappointed in 2005 and constructioncommenced in 2007. The 5th and 6th
floors, the Centre for ResearchCollections, was completed in 2008,the Ground Floor in 2009, with the1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th floors followingalong at about 9 month intervals.
The project vision, which wasdeveloped in consultation with staffand students, declared that the MainLibrary would be transformed forthe twenty-first century, and be:
• An intellectual hub for the University
• The focus of a wide range of activities in learning and research
• More open than accessible• A place where users can engage
and converse with each other and with information specialists
• Flexible to accommodate changes in the future.
The redevelopment has certainlybeen successful, and the Library isbusier than ever, with the greatestcompliments coming from thosewho say that the Main Library bothreflects its past and works for thepresent and future.
Collections
The redevelopment has provided anopportunity to work intensively withthe collections, and these are now ina better and more logical state. Asoriginally envisaged in 1967, thecollections are now more research-oriented as you move up thebuilding, with the Ground Floorproviding all the facilities which afirst year student needs. The creationof the HUB (High Use Books), onthe Ground Floor, has been verysuccessful, now accounting for overhalf of all loans. As students progressthrough their career, they progressup the building and learn more ofwhat it has to offer.
All the books in the buildinghave had to be moved at least twice –once out of the floor they were on,and once back. We estimate thatduring the whole project, we havemoved c.150 linear kilometres ofbooks! But this has provided anopportunity to handle each book,and we have been able to reclassify
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Focus On…Main Library Redevelopment
more books to the Library ofCongress sequences, and check thelocations of books. The logicalsequence of Library of Congressbooks on the 2nd and 3rd floorsmakes it easier for users to find thebooks they need. The sharp-eyed willhave noticed that the aisles betweenthe shelves are wider – this makes itpossible for disabled users tonavigate the shelves more easily.
All this has happened against abackground of rapid change in theways in which books and journalsare used, as more and more becomeavailable in digital form. For theduration of the project we have hadto move some books to the LibraryAnnexe, but we have moved as manyas we can back into the Main Library.The books which will remain in theAnnexe are much less used, andusually available in digital form.
Study space
The redevelopment has seen a hugeincrease in the usage of the MainLibrary, particularly by students,most of which has been achieved byincreasing the occupancy of thespace, by ensuring that the desks are
big enough. We have also increasedthe number of study spaces, fromc. 1750 to c.2200 and also the variety ofstudy space, to suit student needs atdifferent times. We are aware thatmany students will spend hours inthe Library, and may move aroundthe spaces to suit their needs atdifferent times—from traditionalstudy desks, to informal seating, tothe group study pods, to the LibraryCafé. At exam and essay times, thetraditional study desks are mostpopular. The group study pods havealso proved very popular, andsupport developments in teachingand learning methods in the
University, and prepare students forworking with others.
We hear students say to eachother that the Library ‘is the place tobe’. I was a student at the Universityof Edinburgh just after the MainLibrary opened, and I spent much of my time in the Library – it isparticularly gratifying to have beenable to reinstate the Library as aplace which students want to use!
Services
The redevelopment has also createdthe opportunity to provide newservices. Technology now makes it
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possible to provide some of thetraditional services in self-servicemode, eg book loans and returns,allowing the staff at the Helpdesk toconcentrate on the great variety ofenquiries which now come to them.The Meeting Suite on the first floorhas been popular – with the sidebenefit of ensuring that seniormembers of the University makeregular visits to the Library, and seehow well it is being used.
The Special Collections are nowlooked after in a manner morefitting the rare and special materialsin the University of Edinburgh, inwell-managed environmentallycontrolled archive stores. TheCentre for Research Collections on the 6th floor provides a suite of services in purpose designedrooms – reading rooms, digitalimaging, conservation, seminarrooms – located around the archivestores. The Exhibition Room on theGround Floor, supported by theFriends, provides a wonderfulenvironment for displaying thecollections to a wider audience.
While the inclusion of theStudent Services – Careers,Counselling and Disability – in theredeveloped Library was initiallycontroversial, it too has provedbeneficial, seeing vastly increasedusage of these much needed servicesby students.
Keeping going during the project
The project has been hard, butrewarding, work. All services havebeen maintained throughout theproject, with no building closures,
or appeals against exam results, as a result of the project. We have had temporary entrances, noise, dust and dirt, smells, temperature fluctuations, but communications have been key to keeping our userson side. The phased nature of theproject has meant that people havebeen able to see, from an early stagein the redevelopment, what we havebeen aiming for, and we have keptthe support of the student body, and of the University to completethe project, despite the difficultfinancial circumstances whichstarted soon after the constructionwork commenced.
The Building
I often ask myself if Sir Basil Spencewould have approved of the changes,and I think he would. The buildinghas retained its look and feel, andmany of the features, including someof the original 1960’s furniture, still ingood condition. We have created agrander entrance, with the proudand confident LIBRARY sign, and we have succeeded in ‘bringing theoutside in’, in making George Squareand the Meadows more important in the internal visual landscape.
Sheila Cannell
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Below. The Indian Primer, JohnEliot, Cambridge [Mass], 1669, a unique copy of one of the firstAmerican books.
Bottom left. Alexander Flemingpresented this sample of the mouldfor penicillin to the University tocommemorate his Rectorship.
‘From its origins in the sixteenthcentury, the support of enlightenedindividuals has been at the heart ofEdinburgh University Library,making it one of the mostoutstanding library collections inEurope’. MASTERPIECES IIhighlights twenty-two items fromthese Collections, ranging from 9thcentury manuscripts to a mid-20thcentury object. Representing manydisciplines they provide equal fasci-nation for general viewer andspecialist alike.
Three main themes: ‘Ideas andInnovation’; ‘Creativity, Art andDesign’; ‘Technique and Execution’highlight a variety of material withiconic items representing academicresearch and scientific discoveries, aswell as cultures worldwide.
A selection of the earliest itemsillustrates the diversity of theCollections: three carvings of theBuddha, from Ancient Gandhara(north-west Pakistan), superbexamples of Buddhist art from the1st – 2nd century CE. The beautifuland important work, al-Athar al-baqiya, (The Chronology of Ancient
Nations) by the Persian scholar al-Bîrûnî, written originally c.390AH(1000CE), is one of the most iconicIslamic manuscripts in the world.Nearby lie fragments of the Qur’anfrom 9th-century manuscripts whichwere once in the Mosque of Amr inFustat, one of the earliest mosques inEgypt and, indeed, Africa.
A 15th-century Book of Hours,Use of Utrecht, represents the extraor-dinary and beautiful collection ofmediaeval prayer books within theCollections, while a superbly hand-coloured book of mid-17th centurydocuments the history of comets –Theatrum Cometicum, by a Polishscholar, Stanislaw Lubieniecki,published in Amsterdam. Andpublished in London only twodecades later, Sir Isaac Newton’s‘Principia’, Philosophiae naturalisprincipia mathematica (1687).
Four instruments from 16th –18th centuries: a piano mid 18thcentury: a 17th-century recorder
from Amsterdam; a late 16th-centuryviolin, and a clarinet c. 1740,represent the world-class collectionof musical instruments.
Elements of art are highlightedby items so diverse as Japanesepaintings and kimonos, a rarePicasso drawing, shawl patterndesigns and two touchingly beautiful19th-century drawings by, AndrewKennedy, an unknown artist incar-cerated in an asylum. Other 19th-century items include calotypeprints by David Octavius Hill andRobert Adamson.
Into the 20th-century, ‘Feathersof the Leghorn Fowl’ brings togetherart and science in an extraordinaryway with the beautifully executeddrawings of a bird’s plumage by aChinese animal geneticist whileworking on his PhD in Edinburgh.And only slightly later, mid 20thcentury, a tiny medallion-like objectholds a sample of the mould forpenicillin.
MasterpiecesMasterpieces II, Main Library Monday to Saturday 10.00am – 5.00pm closes 7th July
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The Piper is the newsletter of the Friends of EdinburghUniversity Library, and ispublished twice a year.
ISSN 0963-4681
Scottish Charity Number:SC001518
Articles are copyright © the Friends of EUL and individual contributors.
Managing editor:Fiona Graham
Photography:Edinburgh University LibraryDigital Imaging Unit
Design:Mark Blackadder
Print:University of EdinburghPrinting Services
FRIENDS
OF
EDIN
BURGHUNIVER
SIT
YLI
BRARY
Come and join us!
This landmark exhibitioncelebrates the 250th anniversary of the oldest Chair of EnglishLiterature in the world, founded at Edinburgh University in 1762. Ituncovers pivotal events andcharacters in the literary life of theUniversity, and reveals theirmanifold interconnections withwriters and readers in this City of
Literature. Highlights include:letters written by Robert Burnsand Sir Walter Scott to variousEdinburgh professors; previouslyunseen memorabilia from famousformer students; documents of theJames Tait Black Memorial Prize,signed first editions, and lettersfrom distinguished prizewinningauthors.
New Ways to Promotethe University’s Collections
City of Words: Writers, Readers, and Critics in Edinburgh
The Centre for Research Collections has embraced therecent developments in social media to develop itsaudience and communicate to users. Facebook pages
have been set up for the Musical Instrument MuseumsOnline project, EUCHMI, the Torrie Collection, theTalbot Rice Gallery and Lothian Health Services Archive(LHSA) as well as the CRC itself (www.facebook.com).Albums of images have been added to Flickr(www.flickr.com) while blogs – for LHSA(www.lhsa.blogspot.com) and the Towards Dolly project(http://towardsdolly.wordpress.com/) – and tweets(www.twitter.com @lhsaeul) have been written to giveinteresting insights into the CRC’s work. These avenuesare a great way to share images of, and informationabout, the collections, and we hope you’ll take a look.
Please contact Norman Rodger ([email protected]) for further information.
For a membership form, telephone 0131 651 3814or email: [email protected]
3 August – 27 October 2012, Monday – Saturday,10am – 5pm Main Library Exhibition Room (Ground Floor)
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