Semi-Retirement: an Unfamiliar Concept

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay
Wooden figurine of old lady in woolly scarf, holding a sheet of paper

‘How’s semi-retirement?’, you ask.

The truth of the matter is, I’ve had five months of it, and I still haven’t got the hang of it! What have I done? Revised my second book, and had a book-launch when it was published. Written and submitted a very long article. Done some of the research for another, which won’t be quite as long. Mulled over yet another idea, still to be fleshed out. Peer-reviewed a research proposal. Done some maternity-cover teaching on campus. Given a research exchange talk at RCS, and been a keynote speaker in Birmingham. Visited my aged parent, twice.

And I’m now gearing-up to my IASH Heritage Collections fellowship at the University of Edinburgh from January to June next year.

I haven’t yet had a suitably semi-retirement-related holiday, although I’m sure I should have done something to mark my change in status! The truth of the matter is, I retired from librarianship, but I’ve no intention of retiring from research for a good long while yet. I got a new contract as research fellow, two days after I retired from the library. (I did have ONE day of not being employed!) So, I don’t feel retired, except when I wake up and think, Oh good, I don’t have to dash out for a bus at 7.45 am today! I seem to be constitutionally incapable of restricting my research activities to 1.5 days a week – it’s what I like to do.

If one thing is certain, I have watched not a minute more daytime TV than the lunch-hour watching that has been our custom since the pandemic forced me to work from home. And I’m getting better at not checking my work emails…

‘She’s living her best life’, as my former line-manager observed at the awarding of my honorary RCS fellowship.

Perhaps I’ll have a holiday in 2025 …

The Mervyn Heard Award

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I’m honoured to have been awarded the Mervyn Heard Award by the Magic Lantern Society (UK) in recognition of my research into Scottish publishers Bayley and Ferguson’s Services of Song for magic lantern shows in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Their booklet, Wee Davie, containing a script for a reader, and suitably religious songs, was possibly the first thing they published – or certainly one of the first.

The Mervyn Heard Award is awarded for any written work, archival research or smaller-scale digitisation project.

I’ve talked about these service books in research lectures as honorary Ketelbey Research Fellow at the University of St Andrews in 2023, and at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s Exchange Talks series. The discovery of these wee books certainly inspired me to delve deeper into the social history around amateur music-making, other entertainments and educational or religious events, so I owe a debt to the original author Revd. Norman Macleod and his moralistic story, Wee Davie, for starting me off on this particular research strand.

In due course, I’ll be writing more about this topic, most particularly for the Magic Lantern Society itself.

Book Review: Gun Sireadh, Gun Irraidh: The Tolmie Collection

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Never let it be said that I’ve ‘only’ published a monograph this year!

Now, in the Folk Music Journal Vol.12 no.5, pp.127-9, my review of a new edition of the Tolmie Collection, a significant Gaelic song anthology.

Kenna Campbell and Ainsley Hamill (eds). Stornoway: Acair Books, 2023. Illustrations. Bibliography. Index of titles in English and Gaelic. ISBN: 978-1-78907-109-2 (hbk). 978-1-78907-142-9 (spiral-bound). ww.acairbooks.com

I begin my review:-


Frances Tolmie (1840–1926) grew up and spent her final years on the Isle of Skye. She lived briefly in Edinburgh as a governess, later as a lady’s companion in the Lake District, and for a while in Oban on the Scottish mainland. Her collection preserved a rapidly dying repertoire of Skye women’s communal songs …

(Not yet readable online unless you’re a member of EFDSS, or your library has a subscription to the journal. It will appear in JSTOR in a couple of years from now.)

15 Years a PhD

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Facebook has just reminded me it’s 15 years since my doctoral graduation.  Heavens, where did the time go?

Two Knees and a PhD

Summer 2009 was quite a summer!  I submitted my thesis. He had two knee replacements, three months apart. He walked comfortably at my graduation ceremony.

Baking is not really one of my strengths!

Since then? Too much to enumerate. The thesis became a book.  I contributed chapters to others’ essay collections. I published another book last month.

Why would a Librarian want a PhD?

Someone asked that, before I even started. I think I’ve demonstrated why.

Why would a Librarian want a PGCert?

Someone asked that, too. It seemed a good move at the time, and I have recently been doing a little teaching cover, proving that this wasn’t such a bad idea, either.

If one thing is certain, I wouldn’t now have a semi-retired existence as a postdoctoral research fellow, if I hadn’t found three old flute manuscripts in a cupboard that was being dismantled, a couple of years before I started the PhD.

No regrets.

Mangled! (Phew, that was a Major Undertaking)

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I’ve been working on a very long article, for quite a few weeks. Finally, today, I reached the point where I’d compared my manuscript with the style guide, and worked out how to actually submit the piece. What with Web of Science and ORCID numbers, before I could even start completing the submission form, it was quite an undertaking. But – it’s done! Hooray!

And what popped into my mind, but the most unusual gift anyone has ever given me. When I was about eight years old, my paternal grandmother proudly presented me with …

… a mangle! (Was I meant to mangle my smalls, or my dolls’ clothes? Who knows.)

Anyway, I feel somewhat mangled after the effort of getting that manuscript ‘into the system’, so now I shall go and put the kettle on for yet more tea, before I tidy my desk and start thinking about the next idea for an article! The peer review process still fills me with apprehension – no-one likes the thought that someone else might demolish your efforts with a few well-chosen epithets – but I’ve done my best, so now I just have to wait and see!

Scheduling!

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

This morning, I was talking to students about devising a structure for a research project – and scheduling the writing of it. Oh, I waxed lyrical. I explained how I scheduled my PhD chapters, and more recently, I scheduled my second book chapters, editing, indexing and so on. All perfectly true. It’s how I meet deadlines, ensuring I don’t overlook anything crucial. For me, this works; I do accept that not everyone likes to organise themselves this way, though.

But things have been a bit disarranged this autumn – I’ve actually been robbing myself of free time in my enthusiasm to do the scholarly things that I never felt I had enough time for before! This autumn, I had the book launch to look forward to, as well as some teaching (an unexpected bonus), and the writing of a substantial article. I had a couple of other writing ideas lined up for after I’d finished the aforementioned article, and I have been eagerly looking forward to my fellowship in Edinburgh next year – I don’t want to get started on that particular project until I have a desk in Edinburgh.

However, I’m just at the end of the substantial article, and now I need to check it meets the house style of the journal I’m hoping to submit it to. The other writing ideas? I think they’re likely to spill over into my RCS research existence in the days when I’m not in Edinburgh next year!  (For a start, I haven’t delved quite deep enough to have a clear grasp of certain nuances.)

How did December creep up on me so sneakily?! Suddenly, semi-retired or not, I find I have the usual scramble to plan Christmas music, Christmas presents and all the usual seasonal silliness. If anyone sees a little semi-retirement just roaming around looking displaced, please turn it round gently and send it back to me. I’ll have to continue working on my time management skills – I think I’m guilty of allowing part-time commitments to overflow into time that isn’t actually meant to be work!

My new year’s resolution? Still to achieve work-life balance!

Once Upon a Time (a Moral Tale)

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I really should have known better. I’m making a filial pilgrimage to Norfolk. I’d call it a flying visit, if it wasn’t for the fact you can no longer fly direct from Glasgow to Norwich.

I played the organ this morning, went home to homemade soup, then headed for Norwich by train.  (It was a more appealing option than a long drive, mostly in the dark, and the prospect of icy roads later.)

So …

  • Glasgow to Edinburgh
  • Edinburgh to Peterborough (LNER buffet delivers tea and fruit cake to your seat! Kudos to LNER)
  • Peterborough to Ely
  • Ely to Norwich
  • 22.22 reach hotel.

There was only one setback. You can’t get anything to eat or drink from Peterborough to Norwich,  unless you pay a vending machine via Contactless.  I took this to mean, ‘using your phone’ – which I’ve never done.  (Only later did I wonder if card payment might also have worked…)

No buffet-car on the trains, and not really time to leave the platform in search of sustenance.

And so my Sunday dinner, at 22.22, was this:-

Better than nothing!

I had also apparently booked a hotel room with no breakfast. This has now been rectified!

I said this was a moral tale. It’s this: one should never, ever venture into East Anglia on a Sunday night without a sandwich in one’s handbag (and a drink in a flask)!

Paddington Bear and Queen Elizabeth could have told me that …

My Life as an Alt-Ac (a summary of a keynote lecture)

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I thought folk might be interested to see a quick summary – NOT the whole talk – of the keynote I gave at the University of Birmingham yesterday. ‘Alt-Ac’ is Alternative Academia, or Alternative Academic. You’ll see what I mean …

ECRN Alt-Ac Showcase: Keynote Speaker

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

A first for me, today: I was the keynote speaker for an Early Career Research Network event jointly organised with CALt-Ac at the University of Birmingham.  That’s the College of Arts and Law’s network for people with ‘alternative academic’ roles, rather like mine when I was in the library 3.5 days a week, and seconded to research for 1.5.  Not a full-time academic,  in other words.

Yes, yes, you’re correct in pointing out that I’m not exactly ‘early-career’ myself!  I was invited to share my own ‘Alt-Ac’ story, since it transpires that I have actually been an Alt-Ac since before the term was devised.

Everyone was very kind and appreciative; it’s been a lovely day.  I heard interesting and informative contributions, and chatted to a number of people. There was a mix of subject-related presentations, and others which, as I did, shared their own way of making the alt-ac existence work for them.

The ‘Queen of Alt-Ac’ (not my words) declares herself happy (if abashed by the epithet), and is now being conveyed back to Glasgow in her carriage, Avanti West Coast.

My next post will share a summary of my talk. Are you ready …?!