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.
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!
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.
There are lots of other suggestions from bloggers such asZapier,Altexsoft, or Cnet.
Do you know about the image resources provided by the University of Edinburgh? Our high quality image databases are available to students and staff here
Resources external to the University include:
Shutterstock
Pixabay
Unsplash
Pexels
Coolers.co (colour palette generator)
Familiarise yourself with the University of Edinburgh guidance on AI here.
ELM is the University of Edinburgh’s AI innovation platform, a central gateway providing safer access to Generative AI via access to Large Language Models (LLMs).
The moral issues around AI, eg the carbon footprint of AI – the massive amounts of water and electricity that are used every single time you use it, plus the exploitation of labour from the global south in training the AI LLMs (large language models).
It is a moral issue when we know that authors and artists have had their work used to train the AI tools without their permission and with no payment or compensation or acknowledgement.
The importance of citing correctly and making it very clear in any work you do that you have used GenAI to help you plan, ideate or create.
Make sure you are very clear on what your School or department’s stance is on AI in course work or dissertations. You can find the guidance by Professor Sian Bayne here.
Use Cite Them Right to check how to reference AI in your chosen referencing style. Access Cite Them Right via DiscoverEd.
Critical thinking is even more important now, when engaging with GenAI (or deciding whether to experiment with it, or to reject it).
Learn more at the LinkedIn Learning training courses: “Generative AI Imaging: what creative Pros need to know” and “Ethics in the age of Generative AI”. Access LinkedIn Learning via MyEd.
“To say that AI on its own will be able to produce art misunderstands why we turn to the art in the first place. We crave things made by humans because we care about what humans say and feel about their experience of being a person and a body in the world.” – see The Guardian
The viral reach of a social media post by sci-fi/fantasy author Joanna Maciejewska seems to demonstrate that her sentiments are widely shared:
“You know what the biggest problem with pushing all-things-AI is? Wrong direction. I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.”
Further reading:
“Artists should exploit AI’s capabilities, says creators of new Tate Modern show”.
Be critical! Ask yourself “who profits? who is exploited?”
This blogpost should not be taken as approved or endorsed by the University, and does not necessarily reflect the views of the University in respect of any particular issue. This blogpost is based on a library Bitesize training session developed by the Academic Support Librarian team, and delivered online in March 2025. For more Bitesize sessions and how to sign up, go to the events channel on MyEd.
Edinburgh University students and staff currently have trial access to Hindi Cinema: Histories of Film-making, until 11th May 2025.
Hindi Cinema: Histories of Film-making:
Sourced from the private collection of renowned author and documentary film-maker Nasreen Munni Kabir, this resource features unedited interviews with leading Indian film personalities who contributed to the shaping of the ‘Golden Age’ of Hindi cinema and beyond.
This material marks the first time that a significant number of Indian film practitioners were filmed for a British broadcaster. Other collection highlights include behind-the-scenes photographs from film sets and popular Indian film posters from the British Film Institute (BFI).
Everyone at ECA Librarywould like to give a warm welcome to all our new students, and to our returning students too!
Find out more about ECA Library here, and take a look at our orientation guides for each library site.
Want to learn more about getting the best out of the library and its collections and services? Work your way through Libsmart1 and 2, at your own pace, on Learn essentials.
If you need a one to one appointment with your academic support librarian look on the MyEd events channel for an upcoming appointment and if none of the times available suit you, drop your academic support librarian an email.
Remember we have a full subscription to BFI Player, available for all University of Edinburgh students and staff! This month is BFI’s springtime celebration of queer cinema.
Did you know that as an alumnus you are still entitled to access some of our fantastic library resources? Find out more at the alumni resources webpage here. If you are an alumnus of the University of Edinburgh there is more information about how to join the library here.
Please note: if you already had a BFI Player account linked to our pilot University of Edinburgh institutional subscription before 1st October 2023, you will need to relink your account using the instructions provided at the above webpages, when you first log in after 1st October 2023. Once your account is relinked, you will then be able to sign in to BFI Player as normal via http://player.bfi.org.uk/
The Academic Support Librarian team have put together a subject guide on how to diversify your teaching, which aims to give staff and tutors an introduction on where to start with diversification, decolonisation and making your teaching and reading lists more EDI-friendly and aware. (EDI = Equality, Diversity & Inclusion).
You can access the guide here.
If you would like to read more about diversification, take a look at the recent Times Higher Ed article by Rowena Arshad, professor emerita at the Moray House School of Education and Sport, IECS, University of Edinburgh.
