An entirely new venture for me: I’ve offered to give a talk at the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities Summer School later this month – next week, to be precise! It’s a summer school for all Arts and Humanities doctoral researchers in Scotland. When the opportunity came up to participate, I initially wondered if I had any expertise that I could share, leaving aside my own niche research interests. But then it occurred to me that people seem to enjoy my talks and writing about the process of research, as much as my talks about the research itself, so the obvious thing was to talk about one of my favourite things – bibliography. A lot of people have signed up – I’m so pleased.
Today felt like a good day to get it written, powerpoint and all.
The Gentle Art of Bibliography: a Timely Reminder (Quick Talk)
I might share the talk later, after it has actually taken place. For now, here’s a taster for any Scottish postgraduate researcher deciding which talks to attend!
“Have you ever forgotten where you read something useful? You know the scenario – whilst you’re searching for something, whether on the web, in the library or in a database, you flick past something that’s perhaps only of tangential interest, only to realise later that it was more significant than you thought. Or you’re just killing time, so you’re not in full scholar-mode, and you find something interesting that is so relevant that you just know you’ll be able to find it again? But you can’t.
Isn’t it an awful feeling?”
When I submitted my proposal for this talk, I had to describe the learning outcomes. Here’s what I’m aiming to do:-
Learning Outcomes:- By the end of this session, participants will have a greater understanding of the options available to them, in terms of building, maintaining and deploying a bibliography in scholarly writing. By the end of this session, participants will also understand the importance of starting to build one’s bibliography at the earliest opportunity.
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 
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