After a memorable retiral from the Library last Friday, today (Monday) is a day’s annual leave, and tomorrow is my birthday. It goes without saying, nothing work-related will be happening until Wednesday! That’s when I am officially a Post Doctoral Research Fellow.
Meanwhile – please just imagine me indulging in fine dining and more cake than usual!
Image by Steve Raubenstine from Pixabay
I made the RCS News …. (looking back over 36 years in one job )
Well, after all the waiting and the counting down, the dawn broke on my last day as a librarian. A retirement send-off party was organised for me. Many kind and appreciative comments have been made, and I am very grateful. I’ve definitely got thank you’s to be written! It’s been lovely to learn that my efforts have been appreciated. I’m a bit overwhelmed, to be honest!
Did I shed a tear? No, actually. I had a hankie handy, but I didn’t need it. I knew this day was coming, and I’m ready for my next chapter as a semi-retired post doctoral research fellow. After a long and lazy weekend …
The image? My final stitched countdown square. I’ve done one a week for the past three years, and I finally reached zero! Flowers or fireworks, as you will!
There was a box on the office windowsill – it was full to the brim of jazz CDs only a few weeks ago. On the one hand it was ‘not a priority’ – on the other hand, nothing would happen to the rest of the jazz CD project until this box was shifted. I retire from librarianship tomorrow, and I am cataloguing the last CD out of that box.
Result!
I now know so very, very many jazz artistes’ names. (I’ve catalogued over 2000 jazz CDs in recent years.) However, I can truthfully say I hadn’t heard of Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers until yesterday, when I picked up the CD. Wikipedia informs me she’s ‘an American singer specializing in swing and blues’, and she’s a year older than my youngest sibling. At least I’m cataloguing a contemporary female artiste, which feels a bit more relevant than some of the older guys who have been digitally remastered multiple times on multiple labels!
I’ve been compiling this masterpiece for twelve months. It looks pretty comprehensive, but I’m sure there will be things I consider so run-of-the-mill that I haven’t mentioned them. I’ve done my best. There’s also a document about cataloguing music items, and a final document with examples of things catalogued. Sheet music, CDs, Sammelbander – oh, it’s all there. I can’t download my entire career’s knowledge and experience, but these documents might help.
I hope my successors find these at least slightly useful!
To be truthful, I don’t know what I’ll do at work tomorrow morning. I’ve never retired before. My son suggests it’s probably a bit like the last week at school before the holidays. I’m only semi-retiring, but maybe he’s right. (I should take a Scrabble board with me, then??)
I spent this morning indexing my book, as a scholar. Now to finish off cataloguing Lavay Smith’s CD, as a librarian!
I was all set to blog about the Librarian’s Last Tuesday, but my lunchtime discovery makes all that stuff about library owl mascots and jazz CDs seem rather trivial!
There I sat, half-heartedly eating my sushi, when it occurred to me that I hadn’t yet looked to see if my forthcoming book is advertised on the publisher’s website yet. I practically dropped the sushi in surprise (it wasn’t Boots’s best effort) when…
There was my book looking at me! It’s the first time I’ve seen the title on the cover that I chose a few weeks ago.
I haven’t even seen the proofs yet, and I’m still indexing it, but it’s really exciting to see its outward appearance.
Okay, it was the Performing Arts Librarian’s Last Tuesday. But it was also the last Tuesday before I cease to be a partially-seconded researcher. In eight days I’ll be a part-time Post Doctoral Research Fellow. Still indexing the forthcoming monograph!
You probably know Jenny Joseph’s brilliant poem, Warning? It’s on the Scottish Poetry Library website. The kind of poem you remember from time to time, and laugh wrily.
Well, I thought I’d make a dress. It’d be nice for my last librarianly day. I cut it out this afternoon. At that point, I realised.
I never thought when I chose that fabric … Well, too late now. I’d better get a red hat.
My final days as a librarian are characterised by a combination of exhaustion and adrenaline. This cough is determined to flatten me, but I’m equally determined to plan ahead for pastures new!
I woke, coughing, at 3.30 am yesterday. In broad daylight, no less. I reflected grimly that, whilst I didn’t deny believers their joy at the summer Solstice, I personally would have preferred to have greeted the sun a couple of hours later. I coughed, made tea, and finally got up and read a book.
My decision came back and bit me in the heel later. I needed a wee power-nap at lunchtime. In the evening, I sat down to look at my new, 1951 catalogue (which came packaged in original 1966 wrapping, addressed to the last owner) in daylight … and woke to find myself sitting in the dark. No disrespect to the original compilers; I was just exhausted.
I wasn’t just tired out by coughing and sleeplessness. I’d had so much excitement that I think I was just suffering from an excess of adrenaline followed by the inevitable slump at the end of the day!
All my chickens metaphorically hatched yesterday. I can now relate that, after a long time planning and waiting, I shall be starting my new, semi-retirement role with a new job title, and I couldn’t be happier. I have been promoted in semi-retirement!
As a Performing Arts Librarian, I was partially seconded as a postdoctoral researcher. But you can’t be seconded if you don’t hold the original post any longer, so when I retire, I will have a new part-time contract with a new title and job description. This pleases me enormously.
I’m extremely proud to have just accepted a six-month fellowship at the University of Edinburgh, at the Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities. Between January and June next year, I’ll be researching the archival collection of papers from Thomas Nelson, the Edinburgh publisher. There’s something singularly appropriate about a retired scholar librarian researching an archive in another academic library, particularly such an eminent collection. I’m particularly pleased because one of my strengths is in placing what I’m researching into its wider cultural and historical context, and this massive collection of papers certainly offers plenty of scope for that.
To begin with, there’s that new Audible book I bought the other day – nothing to do with Nelson, but hopefully giving me understanding about significant economic trends that would have impacted their trade. (Just let me stop coughing enough to listen to it …!)
In preparation for retirement from librarianship, I am carefully removing myself from mailing lists; from library reading lists that I set up: and from Whittaker Live!, the library blog I first set up at the Millenium. It’s been a WordPress blog for the past few years. To manage a blog for 24 years must be some kind of a record?
Since WordPress knows me as Whittaker Live!‘s administrator, I appointed a second administrator. I still couldn’t divorce myself from it! Eventually, my successor discovered I was not just an administrator, but also Whittaker Live!‘s owner. And so, traumatic as it is, I had to disown the blog I’ve ‘owned’ nearly a quarter of a century. (It feels like when we had to rehome Fergie, our much-loved cat, three decades ago!)
In the early days, I used to post about useful websites for essay assignments, or about forthcoming concerts. It sounds so naive now, when social media and Google make it easy for students to source that kind of information. More recently, I’ve shared help with referencing; sourcing more diverse repertoire; or the pros and cons of using AI, and ethical considerations.
It’s surprisingly difficult letting go of things in which you were invested – like the blog, or the years I’ve spent making our music collection more diverse. Even if I know I’ve left my imprint on the collection, it will start to recede into history after 28 June. Like a handprint in the sand, time will soon wash it away.
On the other hand, I will not miss the 2000-odd jazz CDs that have been the bane of my existence! I won’t even have finished cataloguing all the jazz CDs. That 2000 is the bulk of them, but certainly not the totality.
But I’m still here! It’ll be lovely only to wear my postdoctoral research hat, and not the library one. Does that sound disloyal? It’s not meant to. I’ve been a librarian long enough.
And of course, I have my own blog here, KarenMcAulayMusicologist.blog, to keep you up to date with my research activities. Keep watching! There’s plenty more in store.
When I am thinking about research directions, in my mind I have an image of a funnel. Getting further and further into an ever-narrowing topic can be enthralling, but I worry that such a narrow topic might not interest a wide enough audience.
Admittedly, there are circumstances when narrow specialism is exactly what you need. An eye surgeon who specialises in one particular part of the eye, is exactly what any prospective patient would hope for.
However, a broader field in my own kind of subject means I am likely to engage with an interdisciplinary audience. It offers more places to share my findings, and more people to interact with. At this stage in my career, I find this quite appealing. I wouldn’t want to end my career as the woman who was the expert in just one songbook, just one singer, or music in one closely defined location.
So, the closest antonym (opposite) that I’ve found to a funnel, is an estuary. I like my research to fan out into different strands over a broader area. For me, I find I’m more likely to generate impact this way. But it’s an estuary, not a garden hosepipe spray! That would be altogether too messy. In other words, research might lead in various different directions, but I try to focus my ultimate writing on one particular aspect at a time. The book currently at the publisher’s has given rise to papers about post-war tourism, Scottish music in the diaspora, and the impact of technology on music publishing for an amateur customer base…
How do you visualise potential research topics? Does consideration of how narrow or broad something is, form part of your deliberations?
I have various ideas to pursue, all starting somewhere in Scotland, but my most promising one is the one that extends beyond Scottish music, and beyond Scotland. Possibly even beyond the UK. Another idea isn’t quite as broad, in one sense, but might throw up some new comparisons. I’m still mulling over this one! The others would be interesting, but don’t offer the same breadth. One in particular is probably too niche to risk giving my full attention to.
Today, my research has been into the first of these ideas. Delving into unlisted source materials has meant a whole DAY not really finding much with any musical connection. On the other hand, the amount of context I’ve discovered is immense. I find it very helpful to know about what was going on beyond the publication of a few specific books. It IS relevant to collect data that tells me who the key protagonists were.
However, I’ll have to try to avoid following up intriguing stories that really DON’T concern me. The lovely old man who chased up the progress of his book in an admirably gentle, diplomatic way? It got to the editing stage, but didn’t seem to get published – no trace of it. But it wasn’t music-related, and has no place in my research. I really must not succumb to the temptation to explore the back story of every human interest story I encounter!
Today’s the last-but-one day of annual leave that I’ll ever take as a librarian. (The day before my 66th birthday will be the absolutely final librarian’s annual leave day.) After that, I’ll be semi-retired, not a librarian, and any annual leave will be as a researcher.
As you know, I’ve been thinking about healthy eating and more home cooking – although, since I’m not passionate about cookery, the less time I spend on it, the better. Tidying the lounge, I found the book I’d bought during the worst of the energy crisis. I had recently bought my first air-fryer – an appliance that a colleague assured me was the best invention ever. Less time means less energy, too.
Hannah Patterson, The UK Brand New Air Fryer Cookbook. 2023 edition. First published by the author in 2022. ISBN 9798360567448
Whilst enjoying my mini-holiday loafing around at home (getting things done, in a leisurely, unstructured way), I used the slow-cooker to cook some chicken. And then pork chops, which were very tasty but looked over-done. Surely, I reasoned, there must be more to it than this!
There is, however, a problem. As Patterson explains, there are different kinds of air-fryers. I knew mine was a small one – I thought it would do for three people – but along with being small, it’s also unsophisticated – much like me. I didn’t know, until I opened her book at the beginning, that what I have is a Cylindrical Basket Air Fryer. As Patterson says,
‘Aside from the noise and the size, another downside is the functionality, as it only has one function.’
Mine isn’t noisy, but I was beginning to see what the problem was. Reading on, I discovered – as I had suspected from the recipes – that ‘basket’ means different things in different air-fryers. Mine is not open like a chip-frying basket. It’s basically a non-stick deep tin. And although there’s a ‘crisper’ – or whatever you call the round removable component that keeps the food off the bottom of the tin/basket – if you put the food on the crisper, it stays dry, but if you remove the crisper, everything is in the bottom and I’d worry about it burning the bottom of the tin.
And it got worse. Many of the recipes needed a baking tray or metal bowl that would actually go in the air-fryer. There isn’t room for either, in my wee machine. (Why did Russell Hobbs make a machine with so many limitations? Can I really only cook chicken or chips?!) Some recipes could be halved in quantity, but I still doubted that the food would fit with room for the air to circulate.
Sometimes, I fear people think I’m terribly negative. I prefer ‘cautious’ or ‘realistic’. Anyway, since I am at home reviewing a cookery book, I thought I’d just go with the flow and be myself. I went through EVERY recipe, and marked the index with whether it was technically feasible in my wee air-fryer. I honestly only marked a very few more that would need too many new ingredients, ingredients I would struggle to source, or that wouldn’t suit the tastes of my slightly conservative family. I haven’t done a statistical calculation, but it’s pretty clear that I’ve ruled out easily half the book – and possibly more than that.
It’s a pity – the book is good value, and the food looks tasty. Perhaps much of it is not in our usual repertoire, but that’s not a bad thing. With some meals, I suspected that the preparation would be longer than I usually spend, partly due to unfamiliarity, or the faff of stuffing or rolling stuff into flattened chicken breasts or steaks.
Anyone got a book of recipes for a small, cylindrical air-fryer with minimal functionality? Until then, I’m off to make a quiche. In the oven.
It’s about work-life balance, but it’s also about adjusting to a changing situation. I have no problem turning off my 0.7 librarian self when I leave the office, but research has always been something that occupies more than the remaining 0.3 of my working life. Last year’s summer annual leave was spent finishing writing a book. Last Christmas, revising it. HOLIDAY? That’s what other folk do!
So, when I find I have more time, what happens? I’ll need to watch this, when I am semi-retired.
I said I was having a day off, a proper day off, didn’t I? So, how did that go? Did I do all I set out to do? Did I keep away from research? No, I did not.
Guilty as Charged.
I finished my audiobook in a leisurely way. (It was Cal Newport’s Slow Productivity – it had to be leisurely!) So far, so good. I even made a note of his three key points:- Do fewer things; Work at a natural pace; and Obsess over quality.
Knowing that I was expecting the postie to collect a parcel this morning, I decided I’d better not laze around in bed reading the book about ultra-processed foods, so instead I went down for breakfast – and there I came unstuck. I opened my phone, headed right for my favourite website (Jisc Library Hub Discover) and started what can only be described as a literature search, for publications by a particular organisation. Oh dear, oh dear. The breakfast disappeared, the piece of paper beside me filled up, and I sent a couple of queries about a publication and an archive. Finally, it was clear that I’d need not only to tweak a paragraph in the paper I’m working on, but also to type up my Jisc Library Hub findings …
By lunchtime, I was disgusted with myself. I hadn’t even managed half a morning away from research! This afternoon, therefore, I went on an outing. I not only got my favourite red shoes repaired (which was somewhat urgent), but – more importantly – I visited Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, and saw the Glasgow City of Empire exhibition.
Having seen the groundbreaking work at the Hunterian Museum (‘Curating Discomfort‘) a couple of years ago, I had an idea what to expect, and I wasn’t disappointed. It’s thought-provoking. I found myself wondering where the donors of some of the exhibits had got their artefacts from, and whether they’d paid a fair price, or been given them … and under what circumstances?
I sat and watched Aqsa Arif’s film installation, ‘The Trophy Cupboard’ (Anam Ki Almari) in which a woman discovers items ‘collected from the Indian Pavilion at the 1888 Glasgow International Exhibition’. I need to go back and watch it again – I think there are deeper layers that I’d find, if I had seen it more than once. I make no pretence at being highly film-literate, as I’ve never studied the medium as an art-form.
There was also another exhibition about Scottish identity in art, but again, I need to go back another time. There’s just too much to take in on one visit.
On the journey home, thoughts of research returned to my head. There’s another sentence that needs modifying. (Will I do that tonight? Do I dare even open the document at this time of night?!) I cooked tea and started a dressmaking project to distract myself.
But before you ask – no, I didn’t get round to riding the bike today! I’m hopeless. So much for ‘practising for semi-retirement’!
Tomorrow’s another day.
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 