Dr Karen McAulay explores the history of Scottish music collecting, publishing and national identity from the 18th to 20th centuries. Research Fellow at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, author of two Routledge monographs.
‘All good things must come to an end’, as the saying goes. And an IASH Postdoctoral Research Fellowship is a thoroughly good thing. I handed back my keys with sadness today, but I have had a great year. (The Fellowship was technically six months, but I was graciously permitted to hang around, retaining the use of my office for the rest of the year, which was wonderful, and enabled me to continue data-gathering in the Library’s Heritage Collections.)
19th meets 20th century Looking back …Last glance from bus stop St Patrick’s Square
If you are looking for a next step after your PhD, or if like me, you’re making a change of direction – or need a spell concentrating on a particular research question in the Humanities – do consider applying.
I devoted my time to examining the archives of the Edinburgh publishers, Thomas Nelson. I initially entitled my project, ‘From National Songs to Nursery Rhymes, and Discussion Books to Dance Bands: investigating Thomas Nelson’s Musical Middle Ground’, but the nursery rhymes turned out to be poems, and weren’t what I had in mind! The rest? Yes, I researched them.
I found quite a bit of correspondence between Thomas Nelson’s editors, authors and compilers, which was gratifying. I was able to trace material in journals that I would not have had access to, had I not been in Edinburgh; there’s the excellent University Library collection of actual and digital resources, and the National Library of Scotland just down the road.
I have deferred commencing any significant written work until I had explored all the potentially relevant materials in the files. I believe I’ve now reached that point. As a result of conducting this research, I have ideas for extending my research in new directions, and I’m contemplating writing another book, so I need not only to explore potential audiences, but also to start working on a book proposal
However, I have also applied for and recently won an Athenaeum Award from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland to enable me to conduct an oral history project. This work, to be conducted in 2026, will hopefully enable me to write a final chapter for my proposed monograph. (I’ll be blogging about this before too long, but there are things I need to do first, before I spill the beans!)
I have benefited from being part of a research community, hearing other scholars’ papers and discussing our research; and attending researcher development sessions. I was able to focus on my new direction as a researcher – important, after so many years as an ‘alt-ac’ researcher working in professional services. In this regard, I have also been in a position to submit some other unrelated work for publication, and I spoke at a conference at the University of Sussex in June, all of which gives me a sense that my research is gathering momentum.
Today, my last day, I took a cake to the University Library’s Heritage Collections; went to IASH’s Christmas lunch; and mulled over aspects of my ethical approval submission for my next project. (Oh, and drank quite a bit of coffee!)
Thank you so very much for a great year, IASH!
IASH (Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities)
Some months ago, I came across a book that had been given the title of a popular song. I got the book. I understand it was categorised as ‘sensational ‘ at the time. This does not denote ‘stunning’. It was a genre, and not the highest literature.
Later, it had become a silent movie, and I wanted to watch it. Indeed, from a research viewpoint, I needed to see it – though I’ll grant you it does seem counterintuitive that a musicologist would want to watch something without sound.
I couldn’t justify going all the way down to London to watch it, but I managed to find it at NLS. (Sometimes the spelling of a word, or the presence/absence of an apostrophe makes all the difference in something’s retrievability.)
But why did this film matter to me? I wanted to see if the original song might have been played at various places in the movie. There’s no direct link between the film – or the book – and someone I’ve been researching, but they did sing that song. A lot.
It takes a while to get a silent movie converted to a DVD, but finally, today, I went and watched it. The NLS has a Glasgow outpost for digital media. It’s located in the former transport museum at Kelvin Hall, just a bus-ride from home.
Stakeholders in this building are the NLS, Glasgow City Council, the Hunterian Museum and the University of Glasgow, and there’s also a gym facility and a cafe – so you encounter staff in orange polo shirts and shorts before you pass an enormous hall laid out for University exams. Then a museum store. And then, finally, there’s the NLS!
I tried to imagine myself in a cinema with an audience and a cinema pianist or even a small ‘orchestra’. It was a far stretch, sitting in a neat, up-to-date viewing room with modern tech and my notebook in front of me!
The film I’d found was the 1923 re-release of an earlier non-surviving film, but it wasn’t quite the whole movie … that’s partly because the lead actor died before they’d finished shooting the movie. Seems strange that it was still released, doesn’t it? I couldn’t tell if what NLS had, was all that had been shot, or slightly less; it didn’t end neatly.
But as for the song? Yes, I found what I was looking for. So it was worth sitting in silence in a viewing room for 2 hours on a Saturday morning!
As a film adaptation, though, it was interesting to see what was omitted from the narrative, as well as a curious change. Towards the end of the 1875 novel, the heartbroken heroine hints that she’d contemplate impropriety. It’s just a hint – it’s the hero who says the idea is unthinkable. Whereas in the film, she says (the words appear on the screen) that owing to the situation her beloved is in, they have absolutely no hope of a shared future.
I hadn’t anticipated a film watering down something that must have been scandalous when published nearly 50 years earlier. I didn’t notice anything about BBFC classification at the start, but I imagine it would have been considered perfectly suitable for general viewing. I wonder if that has anything to do with it?
Maybe I shouldn’t overthink it. Back to my notebook and my original thoughts!
When I am thinking about research directions, in my mind I have an image of a funnel. Getting further and further into an ever-narrowing topic can be enthralling, but I worry that such a narrow topic might not interest a wide enough audience.
Admittedly, there are circumstances when narrow specialism is exactly what you need. An eye surgeon who specialises in one particular part of the eye, is exactly what any prospective patient would hope for.
Three cheers for absolute specialists!
However, a broader field in my own kind of subject means I am likely to engage with an interdisciplinary audience. It offers more places to share my findings, and more people to interact with. At this stage in my career, I find this quite appealing. I wouldn’t want to end my career as the woman who was the expert in just one songbook, just one singer, or music in one closely defined location.
Estuary
So, the closest antonym (opposite) that I’ve found to a funnel, is an estuary. I like my research to fan out into different strands over a broader area. For me, I find I’m more likely to generate impact this way. But it’s an estuary, not a garden hosepipe spray! That would be altogether too messy. In other words, research might lead in various different directions, but I try to focus my ultimate writing on one particular aspect at a time. The book currently at the publisher’s has given rise to papers about post-war tourism, Scottish music in the diaspora, and the impact of technology on music publishing for an amateur customer base…
How do you visualise potential research topics? Does consideration of how narrow or broad something is, form part of your deliberations?
Edinburgh, Glasgow, Paisley?
I have various ideas to pursue, all starting somewhere in Scotland, but my most promising one is the one that extends beyond Scottish music, and beyond Scotland. Possibly even beyond the UK. Another idea isn’t quite as broad, in one sense, but might throw up some new comparisons. I’m still mulling over this one! The others would be interesting, but don’t offer the same breadth. One in particular is probably too niche to risk giving my full attention to.
Today, my research has been into the first of these ideas. Delving into unlisted source materials has meant a whole DAY not really finding much with any musical connection. On the other hand, the amount of context I’ve discovered is immense. I find it very helpful to know about what was going on beyond the publication of a few specific books. It IS relevant to collect data that tells me who the key protagonists were.
However, I’ll have to try to avoid following up intriguing stories that really DON’T concern me. The lovely old man who chased up the progress of his book in an admirably gentle, diplomatic way? It got to the editing stage, but didn’t seem to get published – no trace of it. But it wasn’t music-related, and has no place in my research. I really must not succumb to the temptation to explore the back story of every human interest story I encounter!
Seriously, why do we do year-end reviews? To show the world what we’re most proud of? Quite possibly. To convince ourselves – and the world – that really, we’ve been very busy and deserve a pat on the back? Perhaps so. I took to the internet to find out why businesses do reviews, and why a career-minded individual might do one of their own.
Consulting the Experts
Braze.com said that year-end reviews offer the chance to ‘create distinctive content’; to ‘build loyalty’ and to remind the world what your particular business does best. To that end, obviously you log milestones, achievements and events. You use multimedia formats, and draw upon customer data. This all makes sense, although I don’t know that I, as an individual, can do all these things. (No customers, for a start!)
I tried again, and found a Harvard Business Review posting about, ‘How to create your own “Year in Review“. There’s plenty of sound advice here, suggesting that I should pause and reflect upon successes and failures; lessons learned; proudest achievements; who has helped me most; how my strengths have helped me to succeed; and whether there’s anything I wish I’d done differently. This is much more introspective, and certainly valuable advice. Whether I’d want to blog about all these headings is a moot point, though.
For me, I have an extra conundrum. I shall be retiring from the Whittaker Library at the beginning of July. I hope to continue the research element of my work, though. So – in one sense I’m writing a career-end review, as far as librarianship is concerned, but it’s not a career-end review for me as a researcher. 
The Harvard Business Review suggests using your diary to capture key events on which to reflect. I spent a few minutes doing just that, yesterday. Immediately, I realised that there’s one thing I’m proud of over everything else, and that is that although I spend 85% of my time as an academic librarian, my 15% as a postdoctoral researcher is actually highly productive.
What do I do best? I get things done.
‘She’s a Librarian’
I confess, I don’t like hearing this! It makes me feel as though my research activity is dismissed as dilettantism – that I don’t do badly, considering research isn’t my main role. On the other hand, a fly on the wall would point out that yes, I do spend the majority of my time as a librarian. 
Jazz CDs – not a Highlight
So, what did my diary exercise reveal? I’ve catalogued a lot of jazz CDs. This causes me to feel quite a bit of resentment, because I know our readers don’t generally listen to CDs as a format, so all my efforts are to very little avail indeed. Maybe that’s one of the things that I wish I’d done differently. It’s not a high-priority task; however, I am conscious that I don’t want to leave the backlog to my successor. And that’s why I do this dreadfully tedious and repetitive activity!
Retrospective Post Script: that jazz CD cataloguing was indeed a waste of time. I did it because the promise had been made that those CDs (thousands of them) would be catalogued. I didn’t make the promise, but I did feel the obligation to fulfil the promise. My resentment was because it used so little brainpower and expertise, provided so very little fulfilment in the moment, and so little benefit in the long-term.
Equality and Diversity: Stock Development
What I’m more proud of is my efforts to get more music by women and composers of colour, into the library, and most particularly, to ensure that our staff and students know just how much of it there now is in our stock. With a colleague from the academic staff, I’m concocting a plan to raise the profile of this material. 
I also suggested maybe there might be a prize for diverse programming …
And I just heard – there is going to be such a prize – it really is happening. A red letter day! 
For me, a particularly proud moment was being invited to attend a Masters student’s final recital in June, at which one of these new pieces was played. It was a piece requested by a member of staff – I don’t think it was me that actually stumbled across it – but I certainly sourced it, catalogued and listed it. Whilst I’m heartily sick of cataloguing, I do take pleasure in stock development, and in ensuring there are ample means of discovering the music once we have it.
In September, I was gratified that one of our performance departments reached out to me to request more materials by under-represented composers – a sign that the message is getting through, and that staff appreciate that the library really is trying to help.
Since October, I’ve also been broadening the stock of music inspired by climate change and ecology, including songbooks for school-children, since we have a number of music education students. That pleases me, too.
What else? Dealing with donations to the library, some eagerly received and others needing sifting through. Weeding stock to ensure there’s room for new material, and ensuring that tatty material is removed or replaced depending on how much it’s likely to be used.
User Education
Some things are cyclical – most particularly providing initial library introductions, and later talking to different year-groups about good library research practice. In June, I gave a talk about bibliography to the Scottish Graduate School of Arts and Humanities, which attracted far more of an audience than I’d ever dreamt of!
Queries, and Research-Related Activity
I’ve also dealt with queries – such as one from a Polish librarian, or another from an elderly enquirer wanting to trace music remembered from childhood. And I talked about my research activities at a library training session, even though I was rather afraid of wasting colleagues’ time going on about something that might not feel very relevant. (This autumn, I also obtained and catalogued – in detail – a book of Scottish songs that I have written a book chapter about. It would be dreadful, wouldn’t it?, if someone read the chapter but couldn’t find the song-book in the library!)
Professional Activity
Professionally, I managed the comms for the IAML Congress in Cambridge this summer (with a little bit of help from mascots Cam, Bridge and Don and a couple of fellow IAML (UK & Ireland) librarians, and I think it went quite well. The stats for the blog and Twitter (“X”) rose gratifyingly during this period. I went to a couple of days in Cambridge, but I didn’t speak this time.
IAML Congress mascot Don
A Researcher with Determination
Early on in 2023, I was gratified to receive an LIHG (Library and Information History Group) Bursary to attend a conference at the University of Stirling between 17-19 April, which was about Reading and Book Circulation 1650-1850. This was to be the first of two major successes this year, for I was also elected the inaugural Ketelbey Fellow in the Institute of Scottish Historical Research at the University of St Andrews. I’ve written extensively about this experience in other blog-posts, so I won’t duplicate it here. However, I can’t resist reminding myself of highlights!
Researching key documents in Martyrs’ Kirk Reading Room
Attending both fortnightly research lectures, and ISHR pub lunches on alternating weeks
Many enjoyable hours concentrating on my book revisions – with a view of the sea!
Twilight from my window, St Katharine’s Lodge, St Andrews
We’re not going on a (sniff!) Summer Holiday …
Being a researcher for 15% of the time is not easy – there simply isn’t the time to do all I want to do. Far from ‘dabbling’ in research, I take this side of my work very seriously indeed. I might have been a librarian most of the time, but I have devoted far more than the designated 10.5 hours a week to my research activity! I took annual leave in the summer to get my book draft completed, and took more annual leave to enable me to spend two, rather than 1.5 days researching in St Andrews. I’m doing it again next week; the book revisions must be completed and submitted very soon, and if the only way I can do it is by taking holiday, then that is what I must do. 
In January, I wrote an article for the Glasgow Society of Organists, about a Paisley woman organist and accompanist whom I’d discovered during research over Christmas 2022. Even though it wasn’t for a scholarly journal, it was research done to my usual standard, and I’ve drawn upon that research in one of the chapters in my forthcoming monograph.
I’ve peer-reviewed an article, a book manuscript and a grant application. Considering all that I’ve had on my plate this year, I’m quite proud that I did manage to do these things. I don’t attend reading groups, and I’m not always able to attend research-related events that fall in ‘library time’ – I don’t want to give the impression I’m skiving off library work! But I do want to feel part of the research community, and that was precisely what was so magical about my Fellowship in St Andrews. For those two days a week, I was a researcher, pure and simple.
Roll on 2024! What am I going to do differently?
I’m looking forward to the summer. I feel I’ve been a librarian long enough. I’ll miss doing the user education, and rising to the challenges posed by unexpected or unusual queries. I shan’t be sorry to quit cataloguing, particularly jazz CDs!
I don’t actually have any ‘retirement’ plans as such. Apart from having more time to spend on my role as Honorary Librarian of the Friends of Wighton in Dundee. Whilst I live on the other side of Scotland, at least I shall have more opportunities to leap on a bus or train to get to Dundee Central Library to look after the repertoire that I love.
Little old lady? Not me!
Not Entirely Retiring!
I don’t feel remotely like a little old lady! I hope I’ll continue as a postdoctoral researcher in my present institution, but I’m also keeping my eyes open for any other part-time opportunities that I could pursue alongside that. ’Actively looking’, is the phrase, I think.
With a colleague in another institution, we’re cautiously planning a new research idea. And I also have strands of research that I commenced for my book, but hope to pursue in greater depth once this book is safely further along the publication process. Watch this space.
Karen McAulay, Musicologist 