Dr Karen Elisabeth McAulay, BA, MA, LTCL, DipLib, PGCert, FHEA, FRCS, FRHistS
I’m a musicologist of Scottish music history. Since July 2024, I’ve worked part-time as a post doctoral research fellow at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. I’m also open to other parallel part-time work opportunities that use my expertise.
I’ve always specialised in music. After an Honours Music degree at Durham, and a Masters by research at Exeter, I trained as a librarian at the College of Librarianship Wales (University of Aberystwyth). I had it in my mind that I’d be a scholar-librarian in some shape or form. For most of my career, I worked as a chartered librarian at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, curating the music collection and helping our talented musicians with their information needs, also gaining Fellowship of CILIP mid-career.
I’ve engaged with social media from the start. I authored the Whittaker Library’s Whittaker Live blog on various platforms for 24 years (until I left librarianship in 2024), and made use of the blog to showcase the work I’ve done in increasing the library holdings of music composed by women. (I have had no connection with the Library blog since then.)
“Many thanks for all your efforts in finding all this music! As you stated the [section] was seriously depleted and this will give us a good kick start.” 2002
“Thank you so much – that’s really helpful. Will mention your wonderful help in the programme notes!” 2016
“This is super-useful! Thank you!” 2022
PhD: Our Ancient Scottish Airs: Scottish Song Collecting from 1760-1880
Whilst holding down a full-time job, raising three sons and supporting my husband through arthritic impaired mobility, I also studied for a PhD at the University of Glasgow, graduating in 2009. (We call it the year of two new knees and a PhD: his knees, my PhD.)
Scholar Librarian and a Monograph based on my Doctoral Thesis
The latter part of my librarianship career was split between the library and research. I was a postdoctoral research assistant on the AHRC Bass Culture project; and won an AHRC grant for the ‘Claimed from Stationers’ Hall’ historical music copyright network; if you delve back far enough, you’ll find my posts about Claimed from Stationers’ Hall, which explored the music surviving from the old Georgian British copyright libraries. I published my first book and began research on another.
Fellowships
From September to December 2023, I was the inaugural Ketelbey Fellow at the University of St Andrews in the School of History, as part of the Institute of Scottish Historical Research, and in 2025, I was an Heritage Collections Fellow at IASH at the University of Edinburgh.
I’ve been connected with several research networks, and continue to watch out for more! In 2024 I was elected a Fellow of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (FRCS) and in 2025, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS), too. I am on the Editorial Board of the Review of Scottish Culture, a wide-ranging open access journal where I feel much at home.
I’m Honorary Librarian of the Friends of Wighton, a charity supporting the historical Wighton Collection of Scottish music at Dundee Central Library, a role which enables me to put my book knowledge to good use.
A 2nd Monograph, focusing on Scottish Music Publishing
My second book was published at the end of October 2024. It’s about the social history of amateur music-making and Scottish national identity, and focuses on Scottish music publishers between 1880-1951. I’m planning my third book.
ORCID ID (a way of identifying scholars’ writing)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4437-2872
More Social Media
I use Bluesky and LinkedIn – I have nothing to do with Twitter. I do also have a professional Facebook page, which I try to keep up to date. (‘Scottish Music Publishers 1880-1950, with Karen McA’)
Practical Musicianship
Practical musicianship in my spare time consists of being an organist and directing a choir. (I’ve been an organist and choir director for over 40 years.) I arrange music, and compose on a small scale. In trad music circles, it’s quite common to make mention of your musical lineage, but I’m afraid my only historical link with ‘the tradition’ is that my late mother-in-law was the first student dance accompanist for Miss Jean Milligan at Jordanhill teacher training college, and once when Miss Milligan taught a Scottish country dancing course on Tyneside, she specifically asked for Mam to play for it. To my shame, I have ‘two left feet’ and don’t dance at all.
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 