Books and Book Borrowing: Research led by Stirling University

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

If you were involved with, or followed the Claimed From Stationers’ Hall copyright music project, then news of this project led by the University of Stirling will probably also interest you.

Books and Borrowing 1750-1830: An Analysis of Scottish Borrowers’ Registers

Here’s how the project is introduced:-

“Our project uncovers and reinterprets the history of reading in Scotland in the period 1750 to 1830. Using formerly unexplored (or underexplored) borrowing records, we are [ … ] creating a valuable new resource that will reveal hidden histories of book use, knowledge dissemination and participation in literate culture.”

I’ve been invited to contribute a blogpost about the lady musicians of St Andrews, so watch this space … !

The 2nd Monograph

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I’ve been busily posting away on the Facebook page, so I thought I’d better update the blog as well. These few lines are taken from the FB page.

YESTERDAY there was a slight hint of despair as I wrote,

My second book is going to take quite a while to write! I’m only technically a postdoctoral researcher for one and a half days (10.5 hours) a week. I told myself I had to write 250 words a day, five days a week.But factoring in answering emails, attending the odd meeting, doing the odd bit of research, ordering the odd book or downloading the occasional article, and how much time do I have in which to actually write? So the first week of this bold resolution has resulted in …? Not exactly 1250 words for the introductory chapter. Oh, they’re good words, in the right order, but nonetheless … I shall have to pull my finger out tomorrow morning!!

TODAY, things started to look up:

ONE DAY THERE WILL BE A SECOND BOOK. I’ve redeemed myself. I set out to write 250 words a day, five days a week. I didn’t manage that in the first week. However, on the first day of the second week, I do now have a total of 1500 words – mathematicians will work out that I’ve caught up before the Easter break. This may be the only time that it happens, of course …

THE What are you reading? April 2021

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I have contributed to the April 2021 ‘What are you reading?’ column in the Times Higher Education. My chosen book was Sean Reidy’s Dunbrody, A Famine Odyssey: How JFK’s Roots Helped Revive an Irish Town (Sean Reidy, 2020)

Follow this link:- https://www.timeshighereducation.com/books/what-are-you-reading-april-2021 – it’s easy to make a free account which entitles you to read a few articles a month.

Lambeth Palace Library fit for the 21st Century

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I saw reference to Lambeth Palace’s long-awaited new library on Twitter. (My thanks to Ely Cathedral’s Honorary Assistant Bishop, Graham Kings, for sharing the link – we’re not acquainted, but credit where credit is due!) Revd. Kings shared the link to a new Church Times article, which I shall share here now, for the benefit of all followers of the Claimed From Stationers Hall legal deposit music network.

Church Times, 19 March 2021. “Declan Kelly talks to Tim Wyatt about the new Lambeth Palace Library building”

Archbishop’s library fully public at last

Full citation:- https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2021/19-march/features/features/archbishop-s-library-fully-public-at-last

Why am I interested? Well, Sion College was a college (essentially a social club) for London clergy, and it used to be entitled to receive legal deposit publications under copyright legislation. Some of the old legal deposit material from Sion College subsequently went to Lambeth Palace library. Even though Sion had long ago jettisoned the music before passing on book stock to Lambeth Palace, it’s wonderful to see the new facilities here. I haven’t added this link to our network bibliography, since it isn’t really connected to what we were researching – but it’s still to good to see the ‘long tail’ of the story – the ‘what happened next’.

I don’t have permission to share the picture at the head of the Church Times article. However, you can see it in all its glory at the link that I’ve shared.

Women in Music: article by Prof. James Porter

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Professor Porter has a new article in the Journal of Musicological Research, and I look forward to reading it at the earliest opportunity. Did you know an Englishwoman called Harriet Wainewright wrote an opera, Comala, in 1792?

Here are the article’s details, if you have access to this Taylor & Francis Journal:-

Research Article

An English Composer and Her Opera: Harriet Wainewright’s Comàla (1792)

James PorterPublished online: 16 Feb 2021

New Zealand Music: New Website

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I’ve recently been notified of a new website to explore: Musical Notables of New Zealand, authored by scholars Clare Gleeson and Libby Nichol. It provides background to people involved in music in New Zealand between 1840 and 1920 – as you can imagine, I very much look forward to exploring this blog further!

18th CENTURY PARATEXT RESEARCH NETWORK SEMINAR – Weds 17 March

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

I’m speaking at the second Pondering Paratext seminar next Wednesday afternoon between 2.30 and 4 pm. There will also be a talk by Dr Hazel Wilkinson.

My talk is entitled ‘Scottish Songs and Dances ‘Preserved in their Native Simplicity’ and ‘Humbly Dedicated’: Paratext in Improbable Places’. Amongst other delights, I’ll be sharing some of my recent findings about subscription lists to Scottish fiddle tunebooks.

You can book to attend the seminar by clicking this Eventbrite link here – and find out more about the Eighteenth Century Paratext Research Network – by clicking this link.

(Musicologists of this kind of music – do take a closer look at the tune pictured above. The book it comes from is riddled with errors in the basslines – I know this for a fact. So, the first bar and the third bar here are actually very similar, and I’m tempted to play the first bar with the bassline that the third bar uses. I promise not to talk such heresy in my talk, of course, when I shall focus on the paratext rather than the notes themselves!)

Clattering keyboard

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Apologies if it’s a bit quiet round here at the moment. I was all set to take a deep breath and [inhales] … start writing the first chapter for my next book, when I received the peer-reviewed chapter that I wrote for someone else’s book a couple of months ago.

Call them improvements, corrections or revisions, what you will, this means rather a lot of work before I can get back to my original plan.

And then there are the talks I’m giving in the next fortnight! It’s a busy time. Please bear with me. I’ll be back …

18th Century Paratext Network Talks

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Two interesting seminars coming up! (I’m speaking at the second.) The schedule is as follows:

24 February, Wednesday 2.30-4pm (GMT)

Dr Dennis Duncan and Dr Kathleen Keown

17 March, Wednesday 2.30-4pm (GMT)

Dr Hazel Wilkinson and Dr Karen McAulay (The Gow fiddle collections are likely to feature in the latter talk!)

For full details, please click here.