Any views expressed within media held on this service are those of the contributors, should not be taken as approved or endorsed by the University, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the University in respect of any particular issue.
The Art & Architecture Library at Minto House, Chambers Street, will close for the winter teaching vacation from 5.00pm on Friday 19th December, until 9.00am on Monday 12th January 2026. A fetch service will be in place for accessing the A&A Library book collection during the period 5th – 9th January; details will be published beforehand on the Art and Architecture Library webpage.
The ECA Library at Evolution House, West Port, will close for the winter teaching vacation at 5.00pm on Tuesday 23rd December, until 9.00am on Monday 5th January 2026.
The Main Library at George Square will be closed on 25th and 26th December, and also closed on 1st and 2nd January 2026. For full details of when the Main Library and its Helpdesk will be open over the Winter vacation check here.
Here at ECA at the UoE we are very fortunate to have access to many online databases of primary source archive material, including zines. One such example is Power to the People: Counterculture, Social Movements, and the Alternative Press.
Power to the People showcases a range of ideas, initiatives, and social movements devoted to people-powered politics and organizing from the nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. Ranging beyond a few specific movements, the archive paints a broad picture of the counterculture and many disparate organizations that represent this moment in modern Western history. Although the archive concentrates mainly on the United States and the United Kingdom, it also covers events and topics from around the globe.
The primary sources in Power to the People presents social history that highlights equity, diversity, and inclusion. The materials document issues of social justice and how attitudes about civil rights, gender equality, the environment, the government, and many of society’s institutions shifted dramatically to include citizen involvement, public welfare, and the planet’s health in the twentieth century. The archive presents a social history that highlights equity, diversity, and inclusion in materials created by the last generations that depended on primarily print communication, offering a unique reflection of the time before the growth of the internet and social media.
Alternative press publications throughout the archive represent anti-establishment and countercultural ideas and movements through art, satire, humour, and alternative lifestyles. Although these are often overlooked as vehicles for providing perspectives on social movements and countercultural ideas, they can have just as great an impact as mainstream social movements. The alternative press titles in Power to the People are unique, examining social issues, politics and government, sexuality, diversity, and more.
You can access Power to the People: Counterculture, Social Movements, and the Alternative Press via DiscoverEd, or through the primary source databases listed here.
We have a subject guide to zines and artists’ books at ECA Library, here.
The IAD are taking part in ‘WriteFest’ – an annual event established to support academic writing, running throughout November. During WriteFest the IAD will be running Writing Retreats to provide researchers with a quiet space and time to write, along with a selection of writing workshops and resources to support academic writing.
Find out more here
ECA Library holds various special collections and one of those is the Stone Archive. This dates from an Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project led by Professor Jake Harvey from 2007 to 2011, and the resulting research archive is held in the ECA Library at Evolution House, West Port.
Items from the archive on permanent display are a case of stone cutting tools and instruments (on level 0 of the library) and a display table of stone samples, on level 1 of the library. There is also a collection of images gathered from travels around the world, sound recordings and stone-related publications which have been catalogued, the 2 volume printed catalogue can be consulted at the ECA Library Helpdesk.
A book was published after the completion of the project, “Stone: a legacy and inspiration for art“, and is held in the ECA Library lending collection on level 0.
For more information about the origins of the Stone Archive, click here.
Pidgeon Digital archive trial now available from the University of Edinburgh Library!
Listen to the greatest minds in modern architecture. Access hundreds of illustrated talks and interviews with major twentieth century architects within this online audio-visual collection. Founded by Monica Pidgeon, editor of influential radical magazine Architectural Design. Fully searchable illustrated talks and transcripts. Notable speakers include 17 Pritzker Prize winners and 15 RIBA Royal Gold Medal winners, including Zaha Hadid, Ted Happold, Serge Chermayeff, Richard Rogers, Cedric Price, Norman Foster and Felix Candela, to name but a few.
Free 60 day trial access using this link to our current library e-resources trials.
Do you LOVE FILM? Would you like to be able to watch the best in UK and international film, curated by experts? Then the BFI Player is for you!
All students and staff of the University of Edinburgh (including ECA!) can register for free access to the BFI Player subscription, thanks to the University of Edinburgh Library.
To access this fantastic resource, follow the guidance here.
BFI Player is included in our library catalogue DiscoverEd and on our list of film databases. Enjoy!
The 20 volume set has been described as the “first great modern-day compendium of the world’s Buddhist arts”, it contains nearly 10,000 entries and over 14,000 full-colour images, exploring art, architecture, sculpture, cave and rock painting, caligraphy, decorative arts and more.
Want to boost your library research skills? Find out more about the library resources for your research question? Or about managing your bibliographic and research data? Find out what the Library can do to help you succeed with your dissertation or thesis at our Dissertation and Thesis Festival 2025.
Sessions include:
Finding Academic Literature
Spotlight on: Research Planning
Enhancing Your Dissertation Literature Search With GenAI
Study resources for literature reviews
Introduction to Reference Managers
National Library of Scotland presentation & tour
Live session times don’t suit you? Online sessions will be recorded and available for viewing after the event.
In addition, Festival sessions are complemented by modules in the LibSmart II online course which can be undertaken at any time to build your knowledge and skills for library-based research.
For Dissertation and Thesis Festival programme details click here.
The works of Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925 – 2006) are the focus of our new display at ECA Library, Evolution House, “Evening will come…”, marking the centenary of this renowned artist, poet and garden-maker.
The display features book-works, cards and ephemera by Finlay and artists with whom he collaborated, with his imprint the Wild Hawthorn Press, which Finlay set up in 1961.
Finlay’s works explore themes such as boats, sailing and shipping, the French Revolution, concrete poetry, the pastoral, Classicism, and the Enlightenment, and have not been without controversy. Over his long lifetime he had fallings out with local government, arts funding organisations, and European cultural organisations, and even now causes some critics to become enraged.
