A wee Saturday Expedition: The Librarian-Researcher’s Afternoon Outing

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

After diligently doing my organ practice this morning, I felt like an outing this afternoon. Only a librarian/musicologist would decide to go library-visiting! However, I knew that Paisley has a new, exciting public library building in the High Street, and I also wanted to find out about an old Paisley publication, so where else would I go? The image above is one I found on Renfrewshire Libraries’ website.

Sean McNamara’s enthusiastic tweet about the library, on 23 November 2023.

The library is bright and modern, on three floors. The ground floor has a large children’s section at the back of the floor, with places for parents and children to sit, and steps the children could go up and down – very cheerful and user-friendly.

There are also facilities for making a hot drink. Whatever next?! Very nice, but an unexpected surprise for an old-school librarian who last worked in a public library, erm, 36 years ago! 

Plainly there wasn’t going to be anything of the kind I was looking for, on the ground floor. I headed up to the next floor, and the next. Places for computer use, an array of different seating arrangements, non-fiction …..

I asked, but I discovered that if I would find what I wanted anywhere in Paisley, then it was not here. I need to go the Heritage Centre (aka “the archives”), elsewhere in the city. That’s a trip for another day, since it’s not open at the weekend.

Shop front, Paisley High Street
Parlane’s former offices in Paisley High Street. Book sculpture right above the top dormer window.

All was not lost. I also wanted to find out where Parlane’s offices had been. I knew that they, too, were in the High Street – and they were two doors away, in fact. They looked a bit sorry for themselves. I took a photo, but a string of twinkly lights (not illuminated by day) obscured a decent photo of the book sculpture at the top of the building. 

Maybe I’ll find a better one online somewhere. Messrs Parlane might have been pleased to find a new library as their next-door-but-one neighbour, but I fear they would have been sad to see the High Street today. It wasn’t exactly bustling on a Saturday mid-afternoon.

Home I came, and spent several hours making lists of things I’d like to see at the Heritage Centre. (I hope they’re as welcoming as the website suggests, or they’ll find me a bit of a nuisance with my long list!!)

Scottish Songs Today: Airing my Opinions!

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Yesterday was a bit unusual. I gave a talk about research using library resources – nothing unusual there. Then I sorted out arrangements for the Exchange Talk I’m giving online from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland on 29th January.  It’s all about how new educational and technological innovations affected the Scottish music publishing industry ca.1880-1951.

We’ll come back to the phone-call that I so nearly mistook for a cold call (luckily, I didn’t!), and then I finalised details for another lecture in the spring. this time about Scottish song books over an even longer era.

FOUR ‘appearances’ (or arrangements for appearances) in one day? Librarians don’t often get that.  But as it happens, only the first of them was really library related.  I wrote an article about my hybrid role, over the weekend, and yesterday simply underlined the truth of it.

The ‘cold call’ turned out to be from the BBC! Just before 7 am today, I was a guest of BBC Radio Scotland for their Good Morning Scotland programme, talking about the top ten most popular Scottish songs in Visit Scotland’s recent survey. You should have seen me last night, surrounded by song-books much more recent than my usual fare! I needed to get an idea of the chronology of that ‘top ten’. I now have a beautiful document, halfway between a mind-map and a spreadsheet, which I stared at until I had memorised an overview of what I might find myself talking about.

Here’s a link where the programme can be replayed. My bit is from 53:01 to 1:00:09.

The Evening Times published the top-ten list last night. One Burns song (‘My heart’s in the Highlands’), and one by Walter Scott – ‘Scots wha’ ha’e’. Visit Scotland’s recent survey rest were much more modern, but almost all combined a catchy tune and a humorous ‘story’.

Top Ten Tweeted by the Evening Times

Visit Scotland’s recent survey as reported in the Evening Times.

So Now What? The Book Revision is Done …

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

In the research part of my role (the 1.5 days a week when I am seconded to be a researcher), my path was very clear before Christmas – I was revising my monograph. Having submitted the revisions (on the Twelfth Day of Christmas, no less), what’s next?

Easy, I thought to myself. Whilst I wait for feedback, I’ll just put in a couple of article proposals, then get on with some more research about some interesting elements that I focused on in my book. I have a book to review. And in due course, there’ll be copy-editing and indexing – that’ll keep me occupied! Not to mention looking for grants for which to apply.

Things are Seldom what they Seem!

Four days later, and I now also have two peer-review tasks to do within the next three weeks, and I need to make a recording of my Exchange Talk, just as a back-up in advance of what I hope will be a live Zoom event …

I have 5.5 days in which to do all this. It’s just possible that anything without a deadline might get put to the end of the queue!

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Advance Notice! My latest Article is nigh!

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Soon, very soon, all will be revealed! It’s been quite a quiet year, as far as publications go. Very quiet. But I have had one article and two chapters waiting at their publishers, and this weekend will at least see the article published in History Scotland. Featured on the cover, too.

Hooray!

Image by Belinda Cave from Pixabay

Missing in Caption

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

So here’s the thing, as we say in Glasgow.  Looking up Doris Ketelbey some weeks ago, I thought I saw an interesting heading in one of her books: it was the title or first line of a Scottish song.  And I did EXACTLY what I warn students not to do.

It made such an impact that I was sure I’d find it again. After all, her book titles weren’t that numerous. Of course I’d remember. Moreover, if I’d found it once …  right? (It’s possible that I found it by accident, with an unlikely set of search words, though.)

I bought a copy of her most popular school textbook, shelved it, and that was me. Sorted!

Until I looked at it more closely. This was European and a bit of world history. Post-Jacobite, I couldn’t see anything where a Scottish song title would have been a suitable caption. And – had there been an illustration above it? – or was I havering? (The caption might have been on a digital image, not searchable as text, maybe …)

Maybe I imagined the illustration, but I remained convinced about that caption. Just a pity that I couldn’t remember the song!

  • I started searching last night. In bed, I lay awake, agitated by my failure to source the mystery book.
  • Today, I searched Hathi Trust and Open Library. No luck. 
  • I looked at Jisc Library Hub and Worldcat, but they weren’t going to show me what I needed.
  • Finally, I made a list of any Ketelbey titles which might possibly have touched on Scottish history (given that she wasn’t first and foremost a historian of Scottish history), and came up with another pair of books possibly also aimed at secondary schools.

There’s only one problem: the nearest copy is in Edinburgh.  I had hoped to find it  in Glasgow’s epic Mitchell Library, but this time I had no luck.

So … Amazon and eBay

However, I’ve ordered the pair for about the cost of a return to Edinburgh. If what I’m looking for isn’t there, then I have to admit defeat. I still don’t understand how something I found before is now so very elusive…

Image by Pexels from Pixabay and by succo from Pixabay

Burns’ Songs – for his Centenary

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

You can imagine the enthusiasm with which publishers rushed to produce centenary editions of Robert Burns’s songs in 1896. We have a Bayley & Ferguson ‘new and revised’ centenary edition in the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland library: well-used over the years, bearing the scars of untold tussles, its paper almost skin-soft through repeated borrowing. This one was published in Glasgow and London. I wasn’t at all surprised to see vendor Frank Simpson’s stamp on it – the Sauchiehall Street shop was there for many years, where the now defunct BHS store later stood. I can’t imagine how many of our old scores came from there!

Today, I needed to compare it with a more lavish bound presentation copy, which we acquired as a donation. The imprint likewise had Bayley and Ferguson’s name, but in larger print above it, it had Hedderwick, of Citizen Buildings in St Vincent Street. Both firms gave Glasgow addresses, and no mention of London. I suspect it was the earlier of the two, since I found 1896 newspaper adverts for this one. Hedderwick was a long established firm. And Bayley and Ferguson did publish music on behalf of other firms, groups or individuals.

It’ll have to go into the special collection – it’s so heavy that I can’t imagine anyone wanting to borrow it.

Plain or fancy, I imagine this title was a bestseller for several decades. I’ll finish cataloguing it tomorrow.

Now – have we got the Mozart Allan centenary Burns edition … ? Of course we have!

You can’t have too much of a Good Thing

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Saturday frivolity, not research. But it does give a bit of insight into the fin-de-siecle publishing trade.

This came in a donation; we have the low voice version, but it was also available for high voice – that’s perfectly normal. Inside, there’s ukulele tab as well as the piano accompaniment, and instruction as to which notes you should tune the strings to. The publisher clearly thought he was onto a winner, and issued it in as many formats as he could think of. Just look! Oh, and he published it both sides of the Atlantic, for maximum exposure.

Just a trivial song, but it must have been a hit – in my family there are still memories of it being sung!

A Fellow Back in 1901

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

This is the third week of my Ketelbey Fellowship, and I arrived at St Andrews in pouring rain yesterday morning. Fortunately, it had subsided to a drizzle by the time I made my way to Martyrs Kirk, where materials from the Library special collections can be consulted. I didn’t get wet enough to risk dripping onto rare Victorian pamphlets! (I only know they were Victorian by the fact that the earlier numbers included God Save the Queen rather than the King – so they were published before January 1901.)

I had a ball! They each began with an editorial introduction – I love these. They’re so informative about the thinking behind whatever is in the book. Intriguingly, the editor seemed not to be the prime contributor, but all was revealed when I did some Googling later. Good old Baptie (Musical Scotland) informed me that the editor had two middle names, and used them as a nom de plume. No mystery after all! Moreover, one particular collaborator, more involved than most, was …

His daughter.

I didn’t quite get through the pile I’d called up, but I’m making good progress. And I encountered some interesting glimpses into social and political history. What’s more, if ever I needed proof that little girls’ education had a subtle difference to that of little boys, I found it today. It shouldn’t come as a surprise – I know it happened. But I wasn’t expecting to find this in a Sol-Fa song book!

It is such a luxury to have a desk in an office just a couple of minutes from a big university library. This morning, I snatched a quick coffee before I went back for another session with more of these instruction books. What’s more, I feel more a dedicated researcher here, compared to being ‘the librarian that also does research’ in Glasgow. It’s easier to focus, somehow. And tonight, I’m going to a research seminar, so I’ll get to meet some more historians then. Good times.

Find me at KarenMcAMusic.threads.net

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

What’s all this about? Everyone perhaps having to pay to be on Twitter? No, Sir! I’m not actively leaving just yet, but if failure to pay results in accounts disappearing, then I’m afraid I will disappear from Twitter.

I’m on Threads: KarenMcAMusic.threads.net – maybe I should be asking my Twitter followers to follow me there?

And of course, I’m here on my blog.

I know – a blog is not the same as the casual, friendly conversations we used to have on Twitter. It’ll be interesting to see what we’re all doing in a year’s time!

Multi-tasking, or, How to Balance a Pendulum Clock

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I’ll spend my 15 minute tea-break writing this – it won’t be a long read! Thinking about all the things I’ve got to do, the metaphor came into my mind of a pendulum. It’s supposed to swing in two dimensions – an arc, not an ellipse. But my mind is full of so many different ideas that it swings all over the place.

I’ve got a book to finish – but that’s when I have my Researcher hat on. I try not to think about it when I’m busy being a librarian.

I’m also promoting an international congress for my professional association – something else I do in my ‘spare’ time. So this morning, before I got started with the day-job, I took a photo of the mascot and dashed off a tweet.

Back to the day-job. I know what I intend to do this morning, and I open the websites and spreadsheets that I need to use. But incoming emails are inevitably a distraction – aren’t they always? Especially when we’re offered a book that relates to the topic of my book. It’s being offered to the library, not me personally, but as a researcher, oh how I’m bursting to see that book. Quick – check the catalogue, dash off an email …. Phew! The book will be ours. Then there’s mention of another conference … relevant? Or a distraction? No, I haven’t got time at the moment. I haven’t got time to attend, not whilst I have a book to finish!

But I’d better get back to the task in hand.

So I look on my list, look in the catalogue, look in commercial catalogues and at composers’ own websites, and check to see if they’re on Twitter.

The task in hand involves looking up works by the women composers who I’ve got on a long list, and seeing if they’ve composed anything for under-represented instruments. So, music for tuba, bagpipes, accordion, bassoon, double bass … because my goal at the moment is to provide plenty of good music by women composers, for our students to explore and incorporate into their repertoire. But if there’s not much for their instrument, that will be problematical. It’s my job to find it! (Well, not for every individual student, I hasten to add, but I do want to ensure there’s material in the library for them to find – and, more crucially, perform.)

(Oh, Twitter! says my overactive mind. Has anyone responded to the library recently? to the professional association’s conference site? Have our sponsors posted anything interesting?)

I metaphorically slap my own wrist and go back to the list of women composers. The woman composer I was looking up doesn’t seem to have a Twitter account anyway, so there won’t be anything informative about her there. The trouble is, it’s all very well finding out what they’ve composed. From my point of view as a music librarian, it’s whether we can buy the performance materials! Yes, some of it could be hired for a performance, but that’s not within my remit. What I want is scores on library shelves, accurately catalogued.

I Googled, “Balancing a pendulum”. I was being metaphorical, but of course Google took me literally, and told me how to balance a clock. Which doesn’t really help much! However, I do know that removing distractions is a good way to aid concentration. I’ll post this, close a few windows, and do some cataloguing to give my eyes a rest from spreadsheets.