M LIBRARY COMMITTEE

Wednesday 7th February 2018

New Acquisitions in Special Collections

Description of paper 1. The paper highlights a small selection of new acquisitions recently acquired for Special Collections.

Action requested 2. The Committee is recommended to note the resources and to endorse this ongoing activity.

Recommendation 3. The Committee is recommended to note the resources and to endorse this ongoing activity.

Background and context 4. This paper illustrates the range, depth and diversity of newly acquired heritage resources now available in support of research, learning and teaching across the Colleges.

Discussion 5. In 2016/2017 the Library purchased rare books and manuscripts costing £150,757 with financial support from the Friends of University Library, the capital budget, and various endowment funds. Material is acquired at auction, from the booktrade, from private individuals and from organisations such as Christian Aid. These purchases are complemented by gifts of individual items and collections, which are offered on a frequent basis. Some highlights not previously reported to Library Committee are listed below.

Purchases made with support from Friends of Edinburgh University Library:

6. A collection of family papers of Robert Scott-Moncrieff (1793-1869), advocate, including private correspondence and legal papers. £2,100.

b. Manuscript volume of genealogies of Scottish families, drawn up by Sir George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh, (1636-1691) £3,510.

Both of these complement existing collections of Scottish historical and genealogical antiquarian material

7. Gabriele de Sanctis Cenno storico sull'origine, progressi et utilita della scrittura, 1824 (a volume containing several manuals of decorative calligraphy, from the same period) £2000. Building on our existing strengths in design manuals and typography of this period, chiefly with the interests of Edinburgh College of Art in mind.

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M 8. Erno Goldfinger and Ursula Blackwell Planning Your Neighbourhood, 1944. £2000. A set of display boards intended to involve the public in the post-war regeneration of London; complementing existing collections, such as Patrick Geddes and Percy Johnson Marshall, and adding to resources available for current teaching in this area.

Purchases made with Library Endowment Funds:

9. Louisa Crawford song lyrics archive, £4,250. A collection of early nineteenth- century personal papers, of a woman who wrote lyrics and sold them to music publishers. Rich research possibilities, in the fields of music, literature and womens’ studies.

10. Prudentius, Liber Kathemerinon, (Nuremberg, 1530) £4282. The first printed edition of an important collection of early Christian poems. Only one other surviving copy of this edition has been traced.

11. Maria Riddell, Voyages to the Madeira, and Leeward Caribbean Isles. (London, 1792). £6,000. A copy presented by the author, who was part of the literary circle of Robert Burns, to the explorer James Bruce of Kinnaird. An addition to our holdings of English literature, and of particular interest to the study of women’s literature.

12. A student’s manuscript copy of Colin MacLaurin’s Treatise on Algebra, £4,000. MacLaurin was a significant mathematician, and highly influential in the development of mathematical sciences in Scotland. His work was only published after his death; student manuscripts from his Edinburgh classes are the only surviving witness to the development of his thought, and often contain material which was never published.

13. Tableau Historique, £3,500. Eighteenth-century manuscript study of the Wars of the Roses and political and social turbulence of the European Middle Ages. With research opportunities in history and historiography.

Purchased from Capital Funds

14. Three-volume set of notes from the chemistry lectures of Dr. Joseph Black, 1775-6. £8,000. This set, previously in private hands and unknown to scholarship, enlarges our knowledge of teaching in eighteenth-century Edinburgh, and builds upon existing strengths in this area.

15. Chinese and Korean books, £19,168. A group of books was purchased together, to strengthen the collections in the growing area of interest of East Asia. These include a nineteenth-century Korean atlas, albums of original photographs and published collections of images of China, and a study of Chinese art by a British missionary.

16. Sketchbook and letters by R.M. Ballantyne. Expanding our collections of Scottish literary material, these contain substantial letters and sketches, including

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M some material which was subsequently published, and sketches for a project which was abandoned.

17. Richard Bright Reports of Medical Cases, (London, 1827 – 31), with a manuscript dedication letter. £10,064. The first edition of an important medical book, by an Edinburgh alumnus, in a copy with unique Edinburgh provenance, having been presented to the, later distinguished, William Tennant Gairdner (1824-1907) by the members of his first class in Pathology at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, 1849. Enriching our holdings of historic medical texts, charting the history of the study of medicine in Edinburgh.

Donations

18. Manuscript papers, and printed books on whaling, the collection of Sir Gerald Elliot (b. 1923). Sir Gerald, a member of the Salvesen family, worked for the family firm, Christian Salvesen, running its whaling operations in the South Atlantic in the 1950s. He was later chairman of the company. His books and papers complement the company archive, already held by the Library.

19. Books and manuscripts from the library of Geoffrey Carnall, (1927 – 2015), Honorary Fellow in the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures.

20. Dr Maurice Nicoll’s papers (Coll-1801): Maurice Nicoll (1884-1953) was a Scottish a psychiatrist and pupil of Carl G. Jung who served during the First World War as an army medic. The material donated comprises a fairly large and hitherto unknown portion of Nicoll’s personal archives, and consists in exercise books, type- scripts, hand-written leaves, diaries, and letters.

21. Papers of the Christison family (Coll-1817): this collection consists of notebooks, letters, class lists, booklets, photographs, diaries, newspaper clippings belonging to members of the Christison family, in particular Sir Robert Christison (1797-1882), a well-known Scottish toxicologist and physician who served as president of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and as president of the British Medical Association.

22. These gifts cover a wide range of teaching and research across the schools and colleges of the .

Resource implications 23. Recent purchasing activity has depleted the funds of the Friends and the library endowments, so going forward we will be increasingly reliant on philanthropic and school / college funds.

Risk Management 24. All items are acquired in accordance with agreed collection management policy and care is taken to acquire specialist items from reputable sources.

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M Equality & Diversity 25. The aforementioned acquisitions will have been acquired in line with the Collections Policy which was subject to an EqIA, and published in February 2015.

Next steps/implications 26. The paper will be presented to the HSS Library & Academic Computing Committee, MVM Library Committee and the Science & Engineering College Library Committee. The resources are already being promoted in a variety of ways but discussion would be welcomed as to how these should be targeted at relevant users.

Consultation 27. The paper has been reviewed by the Library Management Team.

Further information 28. Author Presenter Elizabeth Lawrence Joseph Marshall Rare Books Librarian, Joseph Marshall, Head of Special Collections and CRC 15th January 2018

Freedom of Information 29. This paper may be included in open business.

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