NLS/Glasgow Science Festival event – Trailblazing Women of Science

Dame Maria Gordon, geologist

As part of the Glasgow Science Festival programme, the National Library’s science curator, Catherine Booth, will be talking at the Glasgow Women’s Library on 17 June at 2 pm about Scottish female scientists who made outstanding achievements against all odds.

This event is free or with a suggested £2 donation, and booking is essential.

The pictured scientist, Dame Maria Gordon (1864-1939), was born in Aberdeenshire and became a prominent field geologist.

The Glasgow Science Festival runs from 9 – 19 June. View the programme and booking details

National Library of Scotland at the Royal National Mòd!

These sound like great events. If you’re attending the Royal National Mòd this year, why not pay the NLS lot a visit?

The Royal National Mod  

The National Library will be at the Royal National Mod in Oban, which runs from 9 – 17 October. We will have a stand in the Corran Halls Marquee from 12 – 16 October.  Come along to meet staff and hear about our collections.

On Tuesday 13 October we will give a presentation about our Gaelic collections, launch the Library’s new online Gaelic rare books resource, and explain how we build modern Gaelic and local collections.   This is a free drop-in event and will take place from 6:00 -7:00 pm at the Great Western Hotel, Oban.

On Wednesday 14 October, we will be running a Gaelic creative writing workshop, in partnership with Moniack Mhor, from 2:00 – 3.30 pm at The Library, Oban High School.   This workshop is a free event but spaces are limited so booking is essential: Book online or call: 0131 623 3734

ELISA’s Winter Warmer social – an illustrated report

My report (with photos) of ELISA’s winter social last month. It’s taken me four weeks to get round to writing it, and some hours to fit all the photos in, but it was a lovely event and a fantastic exhibition. It’s on for another few months still. You should go!

Edinburgh Library and Information Services Agency

Fiona scrutinising a particularly interesting display of Jacobite documents

Apologies for the delay in posting this report – I did mean to do it far sooner. Better late than never though, eh?

Group 1 enjoy after tour refreshments

ELISA’s Winter Warmer social 2015 took place on the evening of Monday the 9^th of February.

Around fifteen ELISA members turned up to the National Library of Scotland, George IV Bridge for a special tour of the Game of Crowns: the 1715 Jacobite rising exhibition, led by Rare Books Curator Robert Betteridge.

I arrived at NLS a little after 5pm to find the first group had already set off on their tour round the exhibit.

I chatted with those left behind and enjoyed the very tasty snacks that were on offer – many thanks to Fiona for organising those…

Once Group 1 returned, me and the rest of Group 2 had our chance to view the exhibition.

Robert kindly gave…

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Celebrating #RLSDay with James Robertson, @AndrewOHagan …and @VeryFineLibrary !

…So, remember that video I mentioned?…

 

Thanks again to @NLSlearn for inviting me to contribute. It was much fun.

Happy #RLSDay !

Mysterious Edinburgh #BookSculptures

The first set of these beautiful sculpted books were left around Edinburgh by an anonymous, library-loving artist in 2011. She later made five sculptures for the Scottish Book Trust, then another series for her own altruistic reasons

I’ve been fascinated by this story since the beginning and made several trips around Edinburgh (and elsewhere in Scotland) to see these wonderful pieces with my own eyes. Here are some of my pics:

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It’s Official! – re-postings from @natlibscot Official Publications Unit blog

Cold War intelligence 
Posted: 07 Oct 2014 02:14 AM PDT
Now available through the National Library of Scotland. A full-text collection of 2,360 formerly classified U.S. government documents (most of them classified Top Secret or higher) which provides readers with the declassified documentary record about the successes and failures of the U.S. intelligence community in its efforts to spy on the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Details on how to access this resource can be found on the NLS Website

The Smith Commission 
Posted: 09 Oct 2014 01:57 AM PDT 
You have an opportunity to have your say and respond to the Commission directly via their website from the 13th October 2014. The terms of reference for the Commission are: To convene cross-party talks and facilitate an inclusive engagement process across Scotland to produce, by 30 November 2014, Heads of Agreement with recommendations for further devolution of powers to the Scottish Parliament. This process will be informed by a Command Paper, to be published by 31 October and will result in the publication of draft clauses by 25 January. The recommendations will deliver more financial, welfare and taxation powers, strengthening the Scottish Parliament within the United Kingdom.

 

Official Publications in the National Library of Scotland

We are curators of the Official Publications collection in the National Library of Scotland (we have over 2 million government and government-related publications). You can find out more about who we are and what’s in our collections on our web pages.