It’s a whole year since I retired from librarianship, and started my new contract as a part-time postdoctoral fellow at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Do I miss librarianship? No, I’m afraid I don’t! And am I going to give a step-by-step account of my first year not being a librarian, able to focus entirely on research? No! (I’ve blogged so much about my research that you, dear reader, have already read countless highlights.)
Along with my research, I did a little maternity cover supervising some undergraduate dissertations – that was interesting and enjoyable, and I was proud to see ‘my’ students graduate this week. (Humour me – I’ve never been able to talk about ‘my’ students before, even if it was only for one module.)
And I took up my IASH Heritage postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Edinburgh in January. Originally planned to be for six months, it has been extended over the summer, so I’m certainly not done yet with Thomas Nelson’s educational music publishing activities.
Help me Determine my Prospective Audience?
Indeed, I’m contemplating what exactly I shall do with all the information I’ve gathered – do I write a scholarly article? Keep going and consider a book as research output? And for whom would it be written? Educational historians? Social historians? Musicologists? If you’re any of these categories – or indeed, some other category – say, a historian of publishing – it would be immensely helpful if you could respond via this blog and let me know in what way it would interest you. Any feedback will help me determine my prospective audience. I’d be really grateful.
I have two follow-on ideas which I am going to pursue this summer, along with some more archival research.
But first – I need a holiday!
I’ve saved up the bulk of my annual leave so that I could take the next four weeks off this July. Family concerns mean I’m not able to consider ‘a holiday’ abroad, or indeed staying away anywhere that involves significant outlay, just in case I had to come back hastily – but a break is called for. Last summer – partial retiree or not – I had a book to nurse through to completion, and the Christmas break was a disaster, with everyone around me succumbing to flu. (I didn’t. But I’m really no Florence Nightingale, so it was tough.) Yes, I definitely need a break.
Know When to Take a Break
I should put my research hat aside for the next four weeks. Apart from the ongoing concerns, my sleeping patterns are messed up with the early rising needed for my Edinburgh research days, and I am beset with insufficient sleep, broken nights and weird dreams.
When I finally wake in the morning and it’s time to get up, almost my first thought is consumed by whatever I’ve been thinking about the previous day.
But who WAS she?
So, this morning’s question was:- ‘But who WAS she?’ Some sneaky Googling turns into a lengthy trawl of deep and darkly forgotten corners of art and music history to track down the composer of some tunes for early years classes. Until it really is time to do something real (the family laundry). And as I get on with daily chores, the little voice says, ‘No, you know some people she was associated with. And that she was a composer. Isn’t that enough? It isn’t. How did Thomas Nelson the publishers know about her, for a start?’ She’s not a major player in my cast list, but I’m still curious about her. Am I capable of forgetting about her until August? I’m not sure that I am!
Meanwhile…
I need to spend some time researching fun things to do that aren’t research-based!
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 