▼ Refine Your Categories ▼

Click a term to initiate a search.

Resource Type

Language

Social Tags

Organization

Person

City

Country

Province Or State

English

Mapmaking and printing from 1820 to 2002

The Bartholomew Archive is the remarkable record of the Edinburgh-based firm of map engravers, printers and publishers, John Bartholomew & Son Ltd. It is one of the most extensive cartographic archives available for research in a public institution.

Members of the Bartholomew family were engaged in map-making from the first known map engraving work of George Bartholomew in 1825. John Bartholomew junior started printing operations before 1870. For more than a century afterwards the Bartholomew firm specialised in high-quality map production.
Importance of the archive

The Bartholomew Archive enables us to:

0
♥ 0
1,301 read

We can trace Scottish printing back to 4 April 1508.

On that date the earliest surviving dated book in Scotland was printed in Edinburgh.

Here you can read full texts of items printed on 33 of the first 38 printing presses set up in Scotland between 1508 and 1900. These have been digitised from the National Library of Scotland's collections.

They include that first dated printed book – see The Complaint of the Black Knight, printed by Chepman and Myllar.

You can also trace the geographical spread of printing in Scotland, from the first printing towns to the 'printing revolution' in the 19th century.

0
♥ 0
1,277 read

In 1693 the first ever pictorial survey of Scotland was published by military engineer John Slezer.

'Theatrum Scotiae' is his volume of detailed engravings that shows us what important Scottish towns and buildings looked like over 300 years ago.
Search and browse images

More than 70 of Slezer's original engravings from the National Library of Scotland's collections have been digitised. You can search for them here by place name, and browse by place and subject.

There is text from Slezer's book with most of our zoom-and-pan images, and we give links to relevant online maps.

0
♥ 0
1,133 read

Experience the First World War through the eyes of three very different people who took part in it. Click on the character whose story you want to follow. Click 'For Schools' for educational material designed for use in Scottish schools.

General Douglas Haig (later Field Marshal Earl Haig) was British Commander in Chief for the greater part of the First World War. Follow his war through his diaries, letters, and photos by clicking on his photograph.

Nurse Mairi Chisholm knew more about the war and its horrors than most women. You can follow her wartime experiences by clicking on the photograph.

0
♥ 1
1,635 read

The only known copies of nine of the earliest books printed in Scotland are the most precious items held by the National Library of Scotland in its role as custodian of the nation’s printed heritage.

Known as ‘The Chepman & Myllar Prints’, they were produced in or about 1508 on Scotland’s first printing press, established in Edinburgh (in what is now the Cowgate) by Walter Chepman and Androw Myllar. Chepman, an Edinburgh merchant, provided the money. Myllar, an Edinburgh bookseller who had previously been involved with printing in France, brought with him experience in the book trade.

0
♥ 0
1,196 read

This exploration of the life of Sir Winston Churchill has been created by the National Library of Scotland and the Churchill Archives Centre, and is based on a major exhibition in the National Library of Scotland in the summer of 1999. It uses original documents and photographs to tell the story of one of the twentieth century's most important figures.

0
♥ 0
1,137 read

Robert Burns was born into a farming family at Alloway in Ayrshire in 1759. He died in Dumfries at the early age of 37. Yet in that short time he had taken the Scottish literary world by storm, and had secured a place for himself in history and in legend.

This site is based on material by or relating to 'Scotland's Bard' which is held by the National Library of Scotland (except where otherwise stated).

Special features are pages giving highlights of the Library's significant resources – whether original letters or poems (see Manuscripts page) or important books (see Books page).

0
♥ 0
1,130 read

Welcome to the website where you can find out what was happening in Edinburgh's Theatre Royal at the start of the 19th century.

The Theatre Royal was extremely important in the revival of Scottish culture during this period, and is often associated with popular stage adaptations of novels by Sir Walter Scott. We have digitised a selection of over 240 playbills, which were used to advertise performances and events, using originals in the collection of the National Library of Scotland.

Search or browse the playbills to see who performed in a particular play or which musical events were scheduled for the same night. We provide a list of further reading and links to living theatres in Scotland today.

0
♥ 0
999 reads

Muriel Spark was identified as a promising and creative writer when her name was still Muriel Camberg and she was still at school. Some of her poems had already been published by the time she won her first poetry prize, at the age of 12.

Dame Muriel – poet, writer of fiction and literary criticism, and biographer – went on to win most of the literary awards going, was never out of print, and was at the top of her profession, internationally, for more than half a century.

Best-known as the author of 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie', Muriel decided in the 1940s to keep a record of her professional and personal activities, beginning a personal archive that is now one of the largest and most comprehensive held by the National Library of Scotland.

0
♥ 1
1,060 read

This site features a selection of leading Scottish writers, photographed in a 30-year period by Edinburgh publisher and photographer Gordon Wright. It is based on an exhibition held at the National Library of Scotland in 2001.

Gordon Wright's photographs featured in 'The Write Stuff' are in copyright. For permission to use them, and to order print or digital copies, please email Gordon Wright.

Texts by Jennie Renton, editor of 'The Scottish Book Collector'.

0
♥ 0
1,327 read

Robert Louis Stevenson was born in Edinburgh’s New Town in 1850. He died 44 years later on a small Samoan island in the Pacific.

During his short life he travelled the world, defied convention, and made himself one of the most famous writers of the 19th century.

Here we tell Stevenson's story, illustrated with material held in the National Library of Scotland's collections.

You can also see the entire first English edition of Kidnapped – one of his most famous tales – published in 1886.

0
♥ 0
1,063 read

At 2am on Wednesday 8 February 1587, Mary Queen of Scots picked up her pen for the last time. Her execution on the block at Fotheringhay Castle was a mere six hours away when she wrote this letter. It is addressed to Henri III of France, brother of her first husband.

As well as the English translation, Mary's last written words are available here in a French transcription. You can also read the historical background to this letter.

The letter is part of the National Library of Scotland's manuscript collections. (NLS reference: Adv.MS.54.1.1)

Shown here is an image of Mary shortly after her marriage in 1558. With her is her husband, Francois. As eldest son of the French King, he took the title of Dauphin (or 'Dolphin') of France. He became king in 1559.

0
♥ 1
1,264 read

Explore almost 1,000 years of Scotland's history via the National Library of Scotland's interactive timeline. Trace events as they happened by reading the first-hand accounts of observers, from the death of St Margaret to the opening of the new Scottish Parliament. Digital facsimiles of some of the most important documents in our collections help to illustrate the story of the shaping of the Scottish nation.

This website is based on an exhibition of manuscripts and printed material held in the National Library of Scotland in the summer of 2000. It uses extracts from the book Reportage Scotland, edited by Louise Yeoman and published by Luath Press in association with NLS.

0
♥ 2
973 reads

Propaganda – A Weapon of War is a small snapshot of Second World War propaganda that can be found in the National Library of Scotland’s collections.

Between 1939 and 1945, both Allied and Axis Governments greatly influenced wartime behaviour and attitudes through propaganda. This took various forms: the printed word and pictorial leaflets, radio broadcasts and cinema and poster campaigns.

White propaganda was mostly practical information intended for the Home Front. Black propaganda targeted enemy morale, and there was a strong Scottish involvement in the clandestine organisation that developed it – the Political Warfare Executive.

On this website you'll find examples of British Government propaganda, from 'Make do and Mend' to 'Tag und Nacht'.

0
♥ 1
1,189 read

The National Library of Scotland has the pre-eminent collection of decorative bookbindings produced in Scotland during the last five centuries. Some were transferred to the new National Library in 1925 as part of the collections of the Advocates Library, but many have been purchased since in an attempt to document the development of binding styles in Scotland. Below are displayed a representative sample of bindings from the 18th century, together with a number of decorative endpapers from these books.

0
♥ 1
1,060 read

In 1603, two very different nations were brought together by the curious fact that they only had one monarch between them.

On the death of England's Queen Elizabeth I without children, the next in line to the throne was the reigning king of Scotland, King James VI. James won the backing of the English establishment as he was a Protestant, he had sons who could be king after him, and his 36-year rule in Scotland had largely been a success.

However, he was also a Scot, who spoke a different language and had a different cultural background. How would he be able to bring the two countries together?

0
♥ 0
1,001 read

The Kirk Papers is a collection of photographs and papers belonging to East Africa pioneer Sir John Kirk. It was acquired for the National Library of Scotland in 1998/1999 with the help of a grant of £55,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Though not as well-known as his friend and fellow-explorer David Livingstone, Kirk was a trail-blazer of empire in East Africa and a man of eminence in his day. Born in Barry, Angus, in 1832, Kirk qualified in medicine at Edinburgh University and then volunteered for medical service in the Crimea. An accomplished botanist, zoologist and diplomat, he was also a talented photographer. This is evident from the collection of over 250 photographs, many of them stunning.

0
♥ 0
1,135 read

The Scottish Beekeepers' Association has deposited the Moir Rare Book Collection of 250 volumes relating to all aspects of beekeeping. It is one of the very finest collections of rare beekeeping books in the world, including items published as far back as 1525.

The foundation of the collection was due to the efforts of John William Moir (1851-1940). Inspired by the example of Scots missionary David Livingstone, Moir and his brother emigrated from Scotland in 1877 to southeast Africa, where they were initially involved in the creation of alternative transport routes to help obviate the need for slave transport. It was later, after settling in the Shire Highlands of present-day Malawi, that John Moir began beekeeping, due to the fact that his crops required pollination.

1.04
♥ 0
1,421 read

Edinburgh-born John Thomson (1837-1921) was one of the great names of early photography. His photographic legacy is one of astonishing quality and depth.

Thomson's images of China and South-East Asia brought the land, culture, and people of the Far East alive for the 'armchair travellers' of Victorian Britain.

He was one of the pioneers of photojournalism, using his camera to record life on London's streets in the 1870s. As a society photographer he also captured the rich and famous in the years before the First World War.

These pages present a brief introduction to Thomson's work, with examples drawn from the National Library of Scotland's collections.

0
♥ 0
1,122 read

Phoebe Anna Traquair's exquisite illustrated manuscript of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s ‘Sonnets from the Portuguese’ is one of the National Library of Scotland's treasures.

Made in Edinburgh between 1892 and 1897, it is among the finest examples of the work of Scotland's leading artist of the Arts and Crafts movement.

0
♥ 0
1,235 read

Blog September 9, 2009 About CHODARR What is CHODARR? CHODARR stands for Community Health Online Digital Archive and Research Resource which is a publicly accessible virtual library of community-based and government publications. It is a permanent, catalogued and full-text online archive of grey literature and research materials related to health and social welfare policy. The CHODARR archive includes documents that are not normally published by commercial publishers.

0
♥ 1
1,142 read

The aim of the VICTORIAN WOMEN WRITERS' LETTERS PROJECT is to make available through electronic publication the correspondences of early to mid-Victorian British women writers in a form that attempts to capture the multiplexity of epistolary communication.

0
♥ 1
1,687 read

This was the background leading to the founding in 1965 of the Vancouver based Alcuin Society. The chief aims of the Society are “to further the interests of book collectors and to promote a wider appreciation of fine books…”. To that end the Society provides a wide range of book oriented activities, including since 1981 an annual Awards for Excellence in Book Design in Canada. The Society continues to flourish. The Society’s From Hand to Hand: A Gathering of the Book Arts in British Columbia… (1986) is a very useful introductory although dated directory of British Columbia fine printing and book arts. The 1970s were important to the British Columbia fine private press/typography scene.

0
♥ 1
11,888 reads

The Simon Fraser University Library Editorial Cartoons Collection contains over 9300 original drawings published in Canadian newspapers between 1952 and the present.

You can use the quick search form at the top of the page, or click on the advanced search if you want to limit your searches by date and or by cartoonist. The quick search finds words in the following fields: publication information, cartoonist's name, cartoon text, subjects, and display notes.

Images in the database are made available under specific terms of use.

Most records in the database indicate the "SFU MsC Code" for the cartoon; this is the call number to request the drawing in the Library's Special Collections.

0
♥ 0
1,141 read

Background Multicultural Canada: Our Diverse Heritage The Multicultural Canada digitization project grew from our conviction that the cultural groups that make up our country have little-known stories that need to be researched and told. Through newspapers, interviews, photographs, print and material culture people tell us who they are. Yet research into Canada’s multi-ethnic communities has been hampered by the relative lack of availability of non-English language materials and other artefacts originating from minority groups. Archives and libraries have long worked with individuals and cultural communities in Canada to collect and preserve the historical record of their experience; but these documents are seldom available beyond the walls of the institution.

0
♥ 0
1,488 read

HARRISON BROWN The Sian Incident and Beyond "Harrison Brown: The Sian Incident and Beyond" is a chronicle of author and journalist Harrison Brown's voyage to China between 1936 and 1937, and the events that unfolded during that time in what has become known as 'The Sian Incident'. The events are presented largely through the eyes of Harrison Brown himself - 'H.B.' as his friends called him - through the journals that he kept during his trip, the photographs he took, and the articles and manuscript that he wrote during and after his journey. You may browse through a collection of 137 of H.B's photos, his 22-chapter manuscript "On the Trail of a Freelance", his original hand-written journal pages, and much more.

0
♥ 0
1,501 read

Doukhobor Collection of Simon Fraser University About the Collection The Simon Fraser University Library Doukhobor Collection is comprised of over 700 primary source items (totaling over 3,300 images) dating from 1898 to 1975. Among these items are a variety of scanned manuscripts, photographs, books and book chapters, journals, magazine articles, financial documents and interviews. The items in the Collection largely deal with the settlement of the Doukhobors in late 19th - early 20th century Canada. This material represents a significant portion of the manuscripts and photographs but only a fraction of the books and periodicals in the Library's holdings. The collection includes items in both English and Russian.

0
♥ 1
1,177 read

Purchasing Print Issues Past issues can be purchased for $12 apiece from the Museum Store at the University of Michigan Museum of Art by contacting Store Manager Suzanne Witthoff at witthoff@umich.edu or 734.763.9051. About Bulletin The Bulletin of the University of Michigan Museums of Art and Archaeology was a joint publication of the University of Michigan Museum of Art , the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology , and the Department of the History of Art . This journal features scholarly articles related to subjects of interest to both museums, particularly their collections, exhibitions, and fieldwork programs.

0
♥ 0
1,297 read

Goals The British Women Romantic Poet's Project is producing an online scholarly archive consisting of E-text editions of poetry by British and Irish women written (not necessarily published) between 1789 (the onset of the French Revolution) and 1832 (the passage of the Reform Act), a period traditionally known in English literary history as the Romantic period. Selection Criteria Texts are being selected in consultation with our Editorial Advisory Board , consisting of scholars in the United States and Canada. Our aim is to make complete texts available that are not readily accessible from other sources, many of which are not well known, or who are only beginning to be of interest to the scholarly community.

0
♥ 0
1,377 read

Philosophy of the Journal In a climate of high subscription charges often levied by commercial publishers and learned societies alike, ARKIVOC was launched in 2000 as a journal with a very different philosophy: it was designed for universal on-demand distribution at no cost to authors (no page charges or other fees), or readers (no access or downloading charges). Many of the standard publishing procedures are used in ARKIVOC, but a major difference is that the "Control Board" which runs the journal is unpaid. ARKIVOC also has a very large Editorial Board of Referees, currently with close to 1,000 members. ARKIVOC is unique from most such boards in that about half our members come from outside Western Europe, North America and Japan.

0
♥ 0
2,373 reads