Vision for the Future

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

Friends, a word of explanation. An eye problem had to be sorted out.  (Some pharmaceutical company somewhere had a sense of humour, calling their eyedrops a compound name beginning with ‘Cyclop’ ….)

So, whilst I convalesce, I have the use of one good eye.  I can type a few lines quite comfortably, but I realised yesterday that sitting at my laptop for any longer, only strains the good eye.  (I tried to set up a new spreadsheet – but I won’t try that again this month: I just got myself a headache which lasted much of today.)

Frustrating as it is, I can’t do anything research-related for a few weeks. I have new headphones and a new Audible subscription to help pass the time. 

I recommend Poor Things, by Alasdair Gray – a great discovery. There’s a film out now, too, but I don’t thinking I’ll be watching anything on the big screen in the immediate future.  (Ironically, the title –  which reminded me of an early 20th century London charitable organisation that I encountered in my research a year or so ago – has nothing whatsoever to do with that organisation, but I had worked that out before I bought the Audible book.)  I loved the fact that much of it is set in Glasgow, and also the way the reader’s expectations are confounded at the end.

I’m on a third book now.  After that, maybe I’ll see if I can find Walter Scott or James Hogg …

‘Reading’ a commercial audio book is wholly absorbing, but it makes me realise how hard it must be for a partially-sighted reader to skim a book. A recording is linear – there is no ‘Find’ function as in an e-text, and neither can you flick through,  hoping to find something you spotted first time round.  If chapter headings are meaningful, at least that gives the reader an indication of the book’s structure.

I wanted to post an explanation as to why there will be less activity on this blog in February, so there it is.  I’m taking care of my sight, as an investment for the future. Watch this space!

Image by …♡… from Pixabay

We’ve been Spoiled! (Virtually)

Posted on by Dr Karen E McAulay

It’s Sunday evening, when anyone with any sense is sitting with their feet up, relaxing before the next week starts. So what do I do? I attempt to sort the vacuum cleaner and order it some new filters; eye the ironing basket balefully; and try but fail to contact the dishwasher warranty people. Yes, I know – it’s a Sunday – but the website categorically said there was someone to help me from 8 am to midnight every day of the week. They didn’t say that the ‘someone’ was a bot, who would advise me to phone a particular number, which in turn would require me to answer loads of questions and then tell me they were closed. Technology and online services are conspiring against me tonight.

So, I thought, I’d go over tomorrow’s talk one more time. Inevitably, even though I’ve successfully given my talk once ‘in real life’, I still found things I thought I could improve upon. The only problem was, I’m sitting at home, and what I needed was neither on my shelves nor available digitally.

  • A three-volume book of Scottish songs, which I can see in the library at RCS tomorrow. But there’s only one ‘pupil edition’ book of ONE of the volumes available for purchase anywhere online, and I rather think I’d like the whole set of the teacher’s edition, for myself. In my dreams!
  • So … I had already worked out that the title hadn’t made much of a stir in the contemporary press. Indeed, I think I’ve returned to this question several times, so I needn’t have imagined I would reach a different conclusion today. I searched again. I failed again. We’re not used to searching and not coming up with results!
  • Ah, of course. There’s a particular magazine which might have a review in it. I have a rare copy of the first issue, which I found on eBay a couple of years ago. But my copy is a bit too early to hold the review I’m hoping for. Where is this magazine to be found? One library, in Edinburgh.
  • Not to be found in electronic format.
  • And … no direct trains to Edinburgh this week – they’re clearing up after last week’s storms – whilst I’m tied up all February.
  • So … A couple of desperate emails on the off-chance that they might yet be in other libraries, albeit not in an online catalogue. And I wait. Because it’s Sunday night, isn’t it? And I hope they’re nowhere near their laptops!

When I think that, doing doctoral studies the first-time round, I would have looked things up in books and journals in the library, or gone home and written a letter to ask if I could visit another library half-way across the country – then waited for a reply – and even the second, completed doctoral attempt was fitted in around full-time employment – I can’t help feeling a little guilty that I’ve become so impatient. In any case, the paper is good enough. I changed a few words, and I’ll print it out again tomorrow. 

(Moreover, in my early postgrad student days I washed things up in a wash-hand basin, so dishwasher repairs weren’t even on my radar! There are advantages to being in employment.)

Some things don’t change, though. I still need to do the ironing. Gah!

Image by Capucine from Pixabay

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!!)