Countdowns!

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

You know the story of the shoemaker and the elves? He goes to bed, exhausted, and wakes to find the little elves have done all his outstanding work? Oh, I wish!

Technically, my book is meant to be finished by the end of July. I’ve written quite a bit of the last chapter, but it goes without saying that that’s not the end of the process!

  • Writing the conclusion;
  • Tidying the introduction;
  • Checking the whole thing – for content, and also against the style guide;
  • Converting footnotes to endnotes;
  • Sorting the bibliography…

I’m also handling the comms for an international congress – it begins on 31 July.

Of course, there’s also the day-job to be done! And domesticated things don’t just stop. Garden hedges grow regardless of everything. Aargh!

And I have a whole magazine issue to proofread ASAP. (This task was accepted on my behalf – literally nothing to do with me!)

Daily Countdown

Now, the book deadline has been engraved on my brain for a long time. I’ve also known the congress date quite a long time. But believe it or not, it’s only just dawned on me that both dates coincide, and that therefore 38 days’ countdown for one thing would be 38 days for the other. Strange how the realisation suddenly makes it all the more stressful! All I can do is keep doing what I can. A colleague asked me the other day, what were my plans for this summer … ?

‘Finish a book’, I whispered. One way or another!

Alas, I don’t feel indomitable today. More like, a bit hopeless, faced with the mountain in front of me.

Home from Stirling – after the Conference

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Stirling University Campus - photo from Pixabay

Conference: Reading and Book Circulation, 1600-1800

I am just back from a fabulous library history conference at the University of Stirling. Even better still, I was the lucky recipient of a generous bursary from the CILIP Library History & Information Group, meaning my attendance was fully funded.

I had many pages of notes to read through and reflect upon before I wrote my report – so many excellent papers to think about. My AHRC networking grant not so long ago was about music in libraries ca.1790-1836, and although I’m currently writing about more recent music publications, it was very interesting to see what else was happening whilst “my” legal deposit library music was being accumulated in libraries in England, Ireland and Scotland.

‘Claimed from Stationers’ Hall’ frock makes a comeback for the conference!

And of course, there was the networking. After the pandemic, lockdown, working from home, hybrid working and so on, it was quite a treat to be able to spend time with kindred spirits for two whole days!

My report will appear in the LIHG Newsletter in June 2023 – it’ll appear online on the LIHG pages hosted by CILIP. This might mean that only members can read it, but maybe I can write a summary of it to share here, once the whole report has gone live.

Image of Stirling University Campus by 昕 沈 from Pixabay

I won a Bursary!

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Exciting news. Thanks to CILIP’s Library and Information History Group, I shall be attending a fascinating conference in Stirling soon!

Books and Borrowing 1750-1830.

The conference is 17-18 April in Stirling, and the programme for ‘Reading and Book Circulation, 1650-1850’ is on their Events page:- borrowing.stir.ac.uk/events/

My interest in this topic

It’s of special interest to me because of my work on music borrowing at the University of St Andrews in the days of the old Copyright Libraries: I examined the borrowing habits of two particular women, Miss Elizabeth Lambert and Mrs Bertram, and contemplated the changing readership over the three and a half decades under examination. This work led into my successful application as Principal Investigator of an AHRC postdoctoral research network, the Claimed From Stationers’ Hall network (2017-2018) investigating music surviving from legal deposit in the old copyright libraries.

Read about Song-Collector Alexander Campbell, in ‘Thirsty Work and Other Heritages of Folk Song’ Conference Papers

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I’ve just received my own copy of a new publication by Ballad Partners, Thirsty Work and Other Heritages of Folk Song, which contains my most recent Alexander Campbell article: ‘Alexander Campbell’s Song Collecting Tour: ‘The Classic Ground of our Celtic Homer’. There’s a section on Campbell and his musicianship – an entirely new angle which I spent some time contemplating during lockdown.

The book is Ballad Partners’ third book of Folk Song Studies.

I have just catalogued a copy for the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Library – I listed the contents there, so I’ll repeat the list here for your interest. If you would like to purchase a copy of the book, please visit the Ballad Partners’ website. (I’m unconnected with the publishers – I am just one of the contributors!)

CONTENTS

Thirsty work: traditional singing on BBC Radio, 1940-41 / Katie Howson — From Tyneside to Wearside: in search of Sunderland songs / Eileen Richardson — Sam Bennett’s songs / Elaine Bradtke — Newman and Company of Dartmouth and the song tradition of Newfoundland’s South Coast / Anna Kearney Guigne — Railwaymen’s charity concerts, 1888-89 / Colin Bargery — Picturing protest: prints to accompany political songs / Patience Young — ‘That is all the explanation I am at liberty to give in print’: Richard Runciman Terry and Songs from the Sea / Keith Gregson — Drawing from the well : Emma Dusenberry and her old songs of the Ozarks / Eleanor Rodes — Alexander Campbell’s song collecting tour : ‘The Classic Ground of our Celtic Homer’ / Karen McAulay — ‘Don’t let us be strangers’ – William Montgomerie’s fieldwork recordings of Scottish farmworkers, 1952 / Margaret Bennett — ‘No maid in history’s pages’ : the female rebel hero in the Irish ballad tradition / Therese McIntyre — Who is speaking in songs? / David Atkinson

CILIP Copyright Conference, 18 May 2022

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

SHAMELESSLY sharing this call for papers, word for word. Maybe one of the Claimed From Stationers Hall networkers might feel inspired to talk for five minutes?

“Speaking at a conference is a big step on your career journey & lightning talks are an ideal way to dip your toe in the water. We’re searching for speakers for 5-min lightning talks CILIP’s Copyright Conference (18 May, online).”

Here’s the link for more info.

The deadline is 1 April 2022. (No kidding.)

Spread Too Thin?

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

This is another of my cross-posts from the Facebook Glasgow Music Publishers page. But I’ve updated the update!

Apologies for the silence here. In recent weeks, I’ve given two conference papers (one on Stationers’ Hall music, and one on old Scots songs and a Lowland pipe tune); I gave another talk (about Scottish song-collector Alexander Campbell) last Sunday late afternoon. Was I happy with my talk? Yes, until I had given it! This self-doubt is really quite a handicap.

I have just had the luxury of a long weekend, but – well, it hasn’t been luxurious. As well as the Sunday talk, there was the usual domesticity and the church organist duties. We expected the roofer to start work today, too, but it rained – and you don’t remove a VERY large skylight in the rain! Not to worry – I turned one of my conference papers into a journal article and submitted it this evening. I’ve just realised I’m a coward. I submitted an article to a journal I’ve not submitted to before, and now I’m struggling NOT to judge it too harshly, probably before the editor has even checked their email inbox!

I really do have to get back to work on a book chapter – although neither it nor the rest of this frenetic activity has been about Glasgow music publishers! (I just hope their ghosts aren’t feeling neglected, or heaven help me come Hallowe’en!)

Chapter in EFDSS Conference Proceedings

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Dr Sue Allen has just alerted me to the very recent publication of the EFDSS conference proceedings we both contributed to. We each have a chapter in this great new folk song publication, from new publishing co-op The Ballad Partners. Only £12 plus p&p online from EFDSS Folk Shop:-

Old Songs, New Discoveries

  • Sue’s tweet gives pagination for the contents of the book, here.
  • Vaughan Williams Memorial Library catalogue entry here.
  • ISBN: 9781916142411.

So, suddenly there’s a new entry for our CFSH bibliography, too … 👍 (Now uploaded as the 7th Edition!)

  • McAulay, Karen, ‘National Airs in Georgian Libraries’, pp.104-114

Silence in the Pecha Kucha

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I’ve already mentioned that I would be attending Icepops 2019 at the University of Edinburgh yesterday – a conference about copyright literacy, and providing appropriate training to students, researchers and other staff colleagues.

(Icepops = International Copyright-Literacy Event with Playful Opportunities for Practitioners and Scholars).

My challenge was to deliver a Pecha Kucha which mentioned my research into historical legal deposit music, and ALSO touched on library user education into matters pertaining to copyright.  ‘Silence in the Library: from Copyright Collections to Cage’, did just that.  I have never spoken about John Cage’s controversial piece, 4’33” before.  Neither have I deliberately inserted six seconds of silence into a format DESIGNED for brevity and concision!  If you Google how many words you can fit into 20 seconds, you’ll find it’s just 60 words.  That’s if you don’t use long words!  So giving up a third of a slide to silence was, I felt, a calculated risk, but how else was I to demonstrate what you might hear during a silent episode?!  All went well, and my calculations worked out – what a relief!

The conference was about a playful (lusory) approach to copyright education.  In that regard, I discussed how Cage’s piece – silent though it was – still has copyright in the concept, and how students could be encouraged to contemplate how intellectual property can reside in the most unlikely situations – whilst also pointing out that 4’33” cannot be performed or even hinted out without dire legal consequences.  You don’t believe me?  I’ll put my presentation on our Pure institutional repository, and you can follow the references for yourself!

I mentioned playing the piano during the evening social?  Oh boy, did we play?! I wasn’t alone – there was also a clarinet duet, and I staggered through a piano duet, unknown to both of us, with one of the (multi-talented) clarinet duo.  The same clarinettist, on clarinet, kindly gave the premiere performance of a piece I’d recently written. That was definitely a first – I’ve never had an instrumental composition (as opposed to an arrangement) of my own performed publicly before.

Definitely an out-of-the-ordinary conference, then.  I seem to be making a habit of this!  Better get back to the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, now …

Networking Again: Forthcoming Engagements

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

In a strangely sychronistic way, the different topics I’ve focused on as a researcher are now intertwining and demanding to be considered alongside one another.  My forthcoming engagements are a perfect example of this!

Next week I’m going to see the Copyright Collection at the University of Aberdeen.  That’s directly related to the Claimed From Stationers’ Hall network activities.

The following week I’m sharing a Pecha Kucha at Icepops 2019 (an ‘International Copyright-Literacy Event with Playful Opportunities for Practitioners and Scholars’, in Edinburgh).  In 20 slides each lasting 20 seconds, I’m combining historical research, intellectual property, and modern academic librarianship, in ‘Silence in the Library: from Copyright Collections to Cage’.  Rabbits on pianoAnd I’ll be playing the piano, purely in a background music capacity in the evening!  Nothing scholarly about that part – I cannot call it practice-based research in the least.

 

A Fifth collection Gow pub Gow Shepherd title page
Paratext? In music? Assuredly!

July will see me speaking about paratext at the International Society for Eighteenth Century Studies congress in Edinburgh (‘Reading Between the Lines: Paratext in National Song and Fiddle Tunebooks of the Georgian Era’), and also having some vacation!

By August, hopefully my next grant application will either be taking shape, or have been submitted. Exciting times.

September, talking about songs in the Napoleonic era at a conference held at King’s College London: the British Commission for Military History’s War and Peace in the Age of Napoleon conference.  My talk is entitled, ‘Napoleon’s Songs: the Artistic Responses of Composers and Performers to Contemporary Current Affairs’.

And in November, I’ll be talking about Scottish song-collecting at the Centre for Scottish and Celtic Studies at the University of Glasgow: ‘Scottish Song Collecting in the Context of Cultural Heritage: “A Mission of National Importance” (to quote Alexander Campbell)’.

By then the dedicated Stationers’ Hall issue of Brio will be hitting your letterboxes, too!