I’ve been listening to Cal Newport’s book, Slow Productivity: the Lost Art of Accomplishment without Burnout, on Audible. I’ve taken my time over it – appropriately – and I’m approaching the end of it. Because I haven’t finished completely, what I’m writing here today can’t really be described as a review, so much as a first impression.
But why, you might ask, would anyone less than two months away from retirement age, decide to read a book about productivity at all? It’s a good question! I think I was both intrigued by the title, and fascinated by the different paces at which different people work. There are times when I achieve a lot – but not usually at a frenetic pace. I don’t throw myself into tasks at fever-pitch, unless a deadline is creeping up on me. On the other hand, I do tend to have so many things on the go, that going slow feels impossible. (And I’m worryingly obsessed about accomplishment and achievements! That’s how I was raised.)
The main thrust of the book is that we ‘knowledge-workers’ should be more deliberate, allow ourselves time to do things well, factor in holidays, breaks and slower-moving spells, and not take on too much. That we’re not like factory workers on an assembly line, and aren’t generally required to produce so many units of whatever-it-might-be, per hour, day or week. Newport’s historical examples are inspiring, underlining his message, but some suggestions have no application to any role I’ve ever occupied. Pay someone to do some part of my work? If I was self-employed, possibly. However, the only time I’ve ever done that, was getting my first book indexed professionally. Librarians don’t outsource their work. (Neither do 0.3 of the week researchers!) Similarly, if you own a business or are freelance, you can deliberately decide to make a little less profit in exchange for a longer, more intentional route towards a high-quality product/performance act/whatever. People employed in any kind of academia can choose to seek a promoted position or not (depending on circumstances, of course), but it’s not about profitability directly affecting one’s own pocket.
Obsess over Quality
However, the suggestion to look at your role and focus on the ‘core activities’ that will have the most impact, is certainly sensible. As I’ve mentioned before, cataloguing barely-used jazz CDs is a soul-destroying task, mainly because it has such little impact. I hardly needed an Audible book to endorse that sentiment, but there it was.
Impactful Librarianship
As I did the ironing one night last week, listening to my book, I think that’s what prompted me to make sure my final weeks of librarianship would have a bit more impact than that! I’ve thrown myself back into tracking down music by BIPOC composers, and it certainly passes the time more quickly than other tasks I could mention!
My aim is simply to make it possible for students to find more diverse repertoire, should they feel so inclined. My efforts won’t result in a massive listing – there are less than a thousand such items tagged in our catalogue, and our budget isn’t huge. It’s not just about getting the materials in – but I won’t be the one devising ways to get it known about and borrowed, after 28 June 2024.
Yesterday, a highlight was discovering one particular new acquisition was already on loan to a second borrower. Result! That in library terms, is impact.
And Impactful Research
As for slow productivity? I need to finish reading Newport’s book and then consider how to apply the best suggestions to a semi-retired existence. At the time I’m posting this, it’s a Wednesday, and I have my research hat on. I have a book review to do, and then I’ll look at my list of projects … because I’m not retiring from research! Far from it.
Friday was a great day. Or should I say, Friday afternoon was a great afternoon?
A short research visit to the Mitchell Library was followed by discussion of my forthcoming RCS research contract – to enable me to continue researching part-time after I leave the library – followed by a trip to Glasgow Uni for the launch of the Books and Borrowing Database. It’s a fantastic resource, and I’ve watched the project with interest. (website: https://borrowing.stir.ac.uk/)
A bit of networking over a glass of wine and some cheese straws, then I headed home with a distinct lightness in my step. It wasn’t just the glass of wine! I felt as though I’m finally adjusting myself into who I’m meant to be.
I like to think I’ve been a good librarian. I do believe I have. But if I am honest, I chose librarianship because I couldn’t see myself as an academic. I am an object lesson in not writing oneself off at the age of twenty-four. If you’re like I was, or you know someone like I was, tell yourself/them to have more self-belief.
I’m giving my annual lecture on Scottish song books tomorrow. Just shows that I can lecture. Indeed, I’ve read countless papers over the past two decades.Â
Just think how many books I needn’t have catalogued, if I’d been braver and more determined at twenty-four. (I’m still cataloguing them – feeling a bit pressured, if I’m honest!)
On the other hand, how many intriguing enquiries I’d have missed, not to mention unexpected surprises amongst the book and music donations … there have been some advantages.
Image: Wikipedia picture of Hereford Cathedral Chained Library
There was a time long ago, whilst I was doing a postgraduate librarianship diploma in Aberystwyth, when we all had to go on a week’s study tour. I went to Sheffield, staying with friends, and visiting various libraries with my classmates.
A visit to some archives enchanted me. I can’t remember if they were regional archives or university ones, but those heavy bindings, scrolls, and all the modern accoutrements of white tapes, book cushions and weighted ‘snakes’ – not to mention the questions of conservation and restoration – certainly seemed irresistible in that moment. I would love to have known that conservation was in itself a career. I didn’t know.
On the other hand, I was forced to acknowledge that more legal conveyancing and inheritance documents survive than mediaeval music manuscripts. And some materials looked unmistakably grubby when they reached the archive. Besides, I was already on track for librarianship rather than archives.
Dusty Old Deans
I was half-amused, half-annoyed by a pearl of parental wisdom:-
You don’t want to be an archivist, dear. All you’ll meet is Dusty Old Deans.
Admittedly, I had not so long before been researching mediaeval music and visiting cathedral libraries. I hadn’t encountered a Dean, dusty or otherwise, whom I hadn’t found charming.
So many archives, so little time!
Anyway, I had no reason to visit archives for a couple of decades, until I recommenced researching. I’m no longer a mediaevalist. But Victorian and early 20th century archival materials have turned out to hold their own appeal. Archival correspondence is intriguing, even when it’s conveniently in legible typescript. The biggest attraction of retirement from librarianship is the opportunity of far more research, and hopefully many more hours in archives.Â
I wonder if there’s anywhere I could learn to do conservation …. ?
MOT cancelled on April Fool’s Day; it really was …
I took myself off on a library visit, looking for a peaceful, fruitful day. (Yes, yes, I know – I’m a librarian, and I already work in a library 3.5 days a week. However, researching in a different library is an entirely different experience.)
It was peaceful, though I could have done without the six miles’ walking in the rain! But –
I found nothing related to my research question!
The trouble was, I had to read a lot of stuff, to eliminate it. Having researched music for so long, however, I was enchanted to read about paper pulp, factories, shipping and personnel in Nairobi, Cape Town, India, Toronto … yes, it was 1946-7, and the links were strong.
Then there were paper and bookbinding cloth shortages. Lots of allusions to both.
But was it a wasted journey? On the face of it, I made no progress, but – as you see – I gathered contextual information. From now on, I won’t be parroting those facts, but alluding to situations I’ve witnessed through perusal of correspondence. That does count for something. And I learned a handful of names that I might one day encounter in a musical context.
Oh, and apart from getting drookit (drenched) and walking six miles (thanks, Fitbit), I did get my peaceful day in a library.
It’s hard to believe now, just how much more women composers were discriminated against in the past. Today, they’re still struggling for equal recognition, but not as much as when Boosey said he would only publish ‘little songs’ by a woman. It’s not as though there’s a feminine style of composition. We don’t arrange our crotchets and quavers, chords and rhythms in a uniquely feminine way.
I concede that a composer might say their piece was inspired by some aspect of being a woman. Life experiences can inspire any composer. Yet, there are as many experiences as there are people on earth. I don’t think a woman’s music is inherently distinctive, any more than her trumpet playing or any other art-form would be.
Why must we stereotype people? On the face of it, I’m a very conventional, married librarian and mother of three. I look boringly conventional, I freely admit it. Yet I am also the breadwinner, and did a PhD at the second attempt, working full-time throughout. I’ve carved a parallel career as a scholar. Is that conventional? Does it fit the stereotype of a boringly conventional information worker?
Dancing to my own tune
And I’m about to retire from librarianship – but not from research. I’m not going to fit any stereotype of a pensioner, either. (Daytime TV and bingo sessions have absolutely no appeal for me – I might explode if anyone tries to categorise me into those particular boxes!) I have a second monograph and two book chapters to see published before or as I move on with my research plans.
This is Fleshmarket Close in Edinburgh. It’s an absolute killer! I hadn’t ventured up those steps for some years – I swear they’ve got worse – and although my bags weren’t heavy, I was ready for a breather 1/3rd of the way up, and 2/3rd, not to mention at the top! Fitbit says I’ve put in my steps quotient, but annoyingly didn’t count how many flights of stairs I ascended, which is ironic.
But I was on a mission, and I did reward myself with a cuppa when I got to the University Library.
It’s good to go to a different place to study. (The library, I mean, not the cafe …) I think that in itself puts one in a frame of mind to come up with fresh ideas.
It was something of a scoping exercise. Now I need to sit and think about what I found, and its potential as a future research project. Tomorrow will doubtless see me writing away until I get my ideas in order.
I’ll leave you with a couple of publisher’s rejection letters – nothing to do with music or my research. I just stumbled across them, and smiled:-
Publisher to naive would-be authors:-
‘Dear Madam, […] For a book of merely 43 pages, 370 illustrations is excessive …’
Or this one:-
‘Thank you for offering a MSS on Cats and Reptiles. I regret that neither subject would be likely to suit our programme which is chiefly school and expository’.
I wonder if the author ever DID get their MS accepted somewhere?!
Few people in Glasgow knew that I had an unfinished first PhD guiltily lurking in my past, when I announced I wanted to do a PhD. It would actually be my second attempt. I’m told that someone (an academic?) asked that memorable and somewhat hurtful question, ‘What does a librarian want with a PhD, anyway?’
Chained to the shelves – Wimborne Minster Chained Library (Wikipedia)
I realised with a jolt, yesterday morning, that I would be retiring from librarianship exactly fifteen years to the day, since I submitted my thesis to the University of Glasgow. I never managed to cease being a librarian in order to become a full-time academic, because I had family responsibilities in Glasgow, and the chances of a full career-change without relocation were limited, to say the least. However, if I entered librarianship with the unfulfilled expectation of soon having a PhD from Exeter, and the aspiration to become a scholar-librarian …. well, I did achieve the latter aspiration. After getting the Glasgow PhD, I became partially seconded to research three years later, and I’ll continue as a part-time researcher when I’m unshackled from the library shelves.
I don’t know who it was that queried whether a librarian actually needed a PhD, more than twenty years ago. It’s probably a good thing I don’t know! However, if I could show that individual how I’ve just spent my afternoon, then maybe they’d begin to understand.
The other day, an academic colleague said they were putting a student in touch with me, to advise them about resources for a project. This afternoon, I was working from home as a librarian, so I decided to spend the time finding suitable resources for my enquirer. I had in mind a lever-arch file from my own research activities, that I knew was in my study-alcove.
Subject Specialist
[Scottish] ResearchFish
The more I thought about the query, the more things I thought of suggesting. I looked at my own monograph, for a start, along with a couple of essay collections that I’ve contributed to. I compiled a list, mostly but not entirely from the library catalogue. (I tweaked a few catalogue entries whilst I was at it. What does an academic want with a library qualification?, one might ask!) I The family balefully eyed the dining-room table that they were hoping to eat off, as I moved aside the ancient and modern books that were gaily strewn across its surface. However, I’m fairly content that I’ve done my preparation to help with the query. I’ve also enjoyed an afternoon in the company of old friends – the compilers, authors and editors of all those books!
A Value-Added Librarian
Listen, I wouldn’t have known any of those resources if I hadn’t done that PhD. I wouldn’t have known what the arguments were. I wouldn’t have known how nineteenth and early twentieth century song-collectors viewed their collections, nor the metaphors they used to describe them, nor which collections might be of particular interest. I wouldn’t subsequently have collaborated on The Historical Music of Scotland database. And if I hadn’t gone on researching, I wouldn’t have known about some of the more recent materials, either.
I kennt his faither! (A Scot knows what that means)
There might have been times when others wondered who I thought I was, but I am absolutely certain that it has come in useful!
I’ve written quite a bit about women in musical history, so I’m adding something to the top of this post every couple of days during Women’s History Month – mostly flashbacks to women musicians I’ve researched, but some other discoveries too. (I’ve been shifting things around to a more chronological order, but I’ve always added the new bit first!) You’ll find more musicians than composers in this posting, just because of my own recent research.
Sometimes I look at the history of women musicians from the point of view of good library provision for our readers, whilst at other times my own research interests are foremost. It just depends on the day of the week, because I currently occupy two roles in the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. For 3.5 days a week, I’m a librarian. For 1.5, a postdoctoral researcher.
15. The Ketelbey Fellowship
It’s a whole year since I learned that I had been awarded the first Ketelbey postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of St Andrews. Scholar Doris Ketelbey was a significant figure in the history of the department. I felt highly honoured to have been the first Ketelbey Fellow from September to December 2023.
14. Representation of Women Composers in the Library
I couldn’t resist adding the open access article I published about my EDI activity in our own Whittaker Library:-
It’s a privilege to shape a library collection, so I’m pleased to have just ordered and catalogued several relevant books this month.
Susan Tomes, Women and the Piano: a History in 50 Lives (Yale University Press, 2024) Read more about it on the publisher’s website, here. In actual fact, it’s the fourth title by this author that we now have in stock. So if readers like this, they might like the earlier three, too!
Margaret C. Watson, Women in Academia : Achieving our Potential. (Market Harborough : Troubadour, 2024). Not a book about women in history, but very much for women in the present day!
Gillian Dooley, She played and sang: Jane Austen and Music (Manchester University Press, 2024). Back to history again.
Women and Music in Ireland / ed. Jennifer O’Connor-Madsen; Laura Watson & Ita Beausang (Boydell Press, 2022)
Moreover, there’s a new Routledge book coming out this summer – I have ordered it for the Whittaker Library. Of course, I may have retired from the Library by the time it arrives. This just means I won’t need to catalogue it! I’ll still be a part-time researcher, so I’ll be able to read it:-
It’s some years now, since a single-minded schoolgirl decided action was necessary. In 2015, Jessy McCabe noticed that Edexel had no women composers in the A-Level Music syllabus, and successfully petitioned to rectify this, via Change.org. I found out about her impressive initiative when I was beginning to start serious work on building up our library collection to include more music – contemporary and historical – by women and people of colour.
Jessy is now a Special Needs teacher. I’m sure she’ll go far.
11. Forgotten Women Composers
Part of academia entails sharing research outcomes beyond the ‘ivory walls’. It’s called public engagement, and that’s the opportunity I seized when my old friend The People’s Friend magazine commissioned me to write a feature back in 2020.
The sound of forgotten music: Karen McAulay uncovers some of the great female composers who have been lost from history’, in The People’s Friend, Special Edition, 11 Sep 2020, 2 p. (Dundee : D C Thomson). I blogged about it at the time (here).
10. Late Victorian Women Musicians
Since my more recent research has focused on the late Victorian era and the first part of the twentieth century, you’ll not be surprised to find that I found some interesting Scottish women musicians of that era! They are forgotten today – but I’ve done my bit to raise their profiles!
Newsletter article, ‘‘Our Heroine is Dead’: Miss Margaret Wallace Thomson, Paisley Organist (1853-1896)’, The Glasgow Diapason, March 2023, 10-15. (You can find this article in full on this blog)
‘An Extensive Musical Library’: Mrs Clarinda Webster, LRAM, Brio vol.59 no.1 (2022), 29-42 (a late Victorian head teacher who founded a music school in Aberdeen, and later did a national survey of music in public libraries – which she presented to the Library Association!)
In October 2023, I pondered about Mr *and Mrs* J. Spencer Curwen (amongst others) in another blog post, when I remarked upon early twentieth century attitudes to folk song.
9. In Praise of Music Cataloguers! Introducing Miss Elizabeth Lambert
Before I started the Claimed From Stationers’ Hall music copyright network, I had spent some months researching the wonderful late 18th and early 19th century music copyright collection at the University of St Andrews. A key resource was the handwritten catalogue in two notebooks, largely compiled by Miss Elizabeth Lambert (later to become Mrs Williams, when she married and moved to London.)
I just love the fact that this earnest young woman (I’m going out on a limb here, but I’m pretty sure she must have been earnest!) created a useful resource which would help everyone get maximum use out of the music repertoire that other libraries were less than impressed by. So we had Elizabeth cataloguing the collection, and numerous men and women, friends of the professors, making use of it. I blogged about her, and eventually wrote an article for the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society, mentioning her again.
‘A Music Library for St Andrews: use of the University’s Copyright Music Collections, 1801-1849’, in Journal of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society no.15 (2020), 13-33.
The library’s copyright collection of music was a boon for middling class women like headmistress Mrs Bertram, her teacher daughters and their pupils. It does lead one to wonder if they had a harp at the school. I checked their borrowing records for more evidence. They certainly borrowed several volumes which included harp music.
7. Students but not at University? Educating Young Women
It’s time to turn to piano teacher Mr T. Latour. I’d like to refer you to my June 2018 blog post about women in St Andrews using pedagogical musical material in the early 19th century. Possibly the self-same young ladies attending, or having attended Mrs Bertram’s school?! The illustration features a young woman – probably just approaching or about marriagable age – at an upright piano. The abundant floral arrangement atop the piano (quite apart from sending shivers down the housekeeper’s spine every time the young pianist played too enthusiastically) suggests a well-to-do household. Following Latour’s instructions, the pianist has elegantly flat hands …..
T. Latour – Ladies’ Thorough Bass
Latour advises on the seating position, and how to hold ones hands elegantly
6. Not my work – but very timely for WHM 2024]
I’m not posting anything relating to my work today, but I saw mention of a great new article by Dominic Bridge the other day, so I thought I’d share details here. It’s a fascinating read. The Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies is part of the Wiley Online Library:-
Back in 2018 when I was awarded the AHRC networking grant for the Claimed from Stationers Hall network, I drew up a list of women composers from the Georgian era. There were more than one might have expected – perhaps they only composed a handful of pieces, in many cases, but nonetheless – they composed. You can find the list on a separate page on this blog, here. And you can read more about it in the blogpost I wrote in July 2018,
This lady ran a girls’ school at St Leonard’s in St Andrews. This was NOT the famous and long-established private school that has long stood there, but an earlier enterprise. And Mrs Bertram and her daughters subsequently moved to Edinburgh, to the disappointment of parents of daughters in St Andrews!
The photo portrays a Mrs Bertram of Edinburgh. Chronologically, she could well be ‘our’ Mrs Bertram, and a scholarly bent is suggested by the pile of books at her hand.
2. The Accomplished Ladies of Torloisk
I almost forgot about the musical Maclean-Clephane ladies of Torloisk, which is a stately home on the island of Mull. But how could I forget about them, considering I published a lengthy article about them some years ago?! Luckily, a book of letters by Sir Walter Scott crossed my library desk, and even though it didn’t contain those particular letters, this did remind me of his musical friends in Torloisk!
Karen E. McAulay, ‘The Accomplished Ladies of Torloisk‘, International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, Vol. 44, No. 1 (June 2013), 57-78
Today, I’d like to introduce a woman composer who predates most of the individuals I’ve encountered. Professor James Porter applies his considerable intellect to produce this in-depth article:-
‘An English Composer and Her Opera: Harriet Wainewright’s Comà la (1792)’, Journal of Musicological Research Feb, 2021. Published online: 16 Feb 2021.
My research has been on hold whilst I recover from eye surgery. Firstly, a UK ‘fit note’ says you’re unfit to work (and research is work); and secondly, my good eye soon tells me if I’ve placed too many demands on it. It’s weird to look at a computer screen when one eye is compensating for the other one (that doesn’t fully focus and has an obstruction in the form of a black gas bubble).
So, no research reading, though I have bought a couple of books for later. But that doesn’t stop me thinking. I can’t help doing that.
The other evening, I started a very short list of potential research directions. I can’t proceed with any of them until (a) I am back at work, (b) I can get to various libraries and archives, and (c) I get the go-ahead to drive.
Each potential direction requires me to venture along the path to see what’s round the corner. Not just, whether there’s enough to research, but whether there might be an interested audience for it. For example, there are two Scottish women musicians I’d like to know more about – a Victorian and an Edwardian. One never was a big name, except in her locality. The other did enjoy fame, but she is virtually forgotten today.
Or, two Scottish music publishers with religious inclinations. Does anyone care today, apart from me? I’m interested in what exactly they published; and whether they ever interacted in any way. But is anyone else interested? (I had these hesitations about my mediaeval music research, decades ago. It was possibly one of the reasons it foundered.)
In any of these topics, I have to place the subjects into their social and cultural context, if I am to demonstrate relevance or significance in the grander scheme of things. My motivation is to examine what these individuals and firms’ music and activities tell us about the era in which they lived and worked.
But then there’s the question of impact. I don’t have to so much as open my laptop, let alone a book, to start worrying that I haven’t yet come up with a mind-blowing angle that will knock the world’s socks off! Moreover, there is no conceivable way I can make any of my research relate to climate change; saving the earth’s resources; social good or benefit to health.
And so I sit, blurrily gazing into the middle distance, reflecting! I have the go-ahead to return to work on Monday. Blurrily!
I find myself looking at the various strands of my research that I’m considering pursuing, and asking myself sternly, ‘Does this have significance? Is anyone going to benefit from my finding out more about this, as opposed to that, or maybe the other … ?’ Why do I want to pursue these various aspects? What might the outcomes tell us?
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 