Last Jazz CD to Catalogue – Penultimate Librarian Day

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

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!

Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers

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!

And the Handover Document(s)

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!

A Social History of Amateur Music-Making and Scottish National Identity … being Advertised by Routledge!

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

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…

A Social History of Amateur  Music-Making and Scottish National Identity

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!

Coming soon …

Jenny Joseph: ‘When I am an old Woman, I shall wear Purple’

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

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.

What Have I Done?

I never thought when I chose that fabric … Well, too late now. I’d better get a red hat.

Fellowship Announcements: not One, but Two

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

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.

It wasn’t just the Coughing

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!

Post Doctoral Research Fellow

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.

And in 2025, a Heritage Collections Fellowship at IASH

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 …!)

I Have Disowned the Library Blog!

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Unsubscribe, Transfer, Disown

WhittakerLive.wordpress.com

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?

Going Away

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!)

Changed Days

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.

Letting Go

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. 

Life Continues

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.

Funnel or Estuary? Where’s your Research Going?

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

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.

Three cheers for absolute specialists!

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.

Estuary

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?

Edinburgh, Glasgow, Paisley?

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!

The Grumpy Friar (okay, Air-Fryer)

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

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.  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.

Grumpy Friar (Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay)

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.

Guilty as Charged

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
The river Kelvin, with the University of Glasgow in the background

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 …

Glasgow Tram model at Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum

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.

Display board beside the film installation

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.

Slow Productivity: my Latest Read

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Cover of Cal Newport book, Slow Productivity

Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout
by Cal Newport and Penguin Audio (March 2024)

picture of headphones on a patchwork background.

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.