Pop Up Library season begins

The University Library is holding a series of Pop Up Library events at the Main Library, George Square, for the next 8 weeks. All sorts of info sessions will be taking place to promote different aspects of the many diverse services and collections that the University Library offers.
There will be two sessions on ECA-related matters: a pop up hands-on session on the ECA Artists’ Books collection, at 3.00pm – 4.00pm on Monday 3rd November, and a more general session on what the ECA Library can offer you, at 11.00am – 12.00 noon on Thursday 6th November.
There are dozens of other sessions throughout the Pop Up Library season. These include sessions on the Centre for Research Collections, the University Art collections, the musical instrument collections, and all aspects of services and collections of the University Library. The sessions will be a chance for you to meet library, archive and museum staff from the University, to chat about the collections and services, and to find out more about what it is like to work with and care for the amazingly rich and diverse collections that the University Library holds.
For more info about the Pop Up Library season take a look at the blog at http://libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk/popuplibrary/

Inter library loans: a reminder for post-grads!

Attention all Researchers looking for slightly more obscure or hard to track down items! Don’t forget you can make use of your free allocation of inter library loans! This is where the Library tracks down and gives you access to items held at other research libraries.
For more info see http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/library-museum-gallery/using-library/request-resources/ill/ill-about
Taught Post-grads are entitled to 20 free loans per year and Research Post-grads qualify for 30 per year!
 

Win an i-Pad mini!

Would you like to be in with a chance to win an i-Pad mini? Do you use Jisc MediaHub? If so, a new survey has just gone live to gather views on Jisc MediaHub:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FKMQKVL
As part of Project Enriched Playlists, a new Jisc-funded project, Jisc is looking into how audio-visual collections in Jisc MediaHub might be developed for Higher Education (HE) into ‘enriched playlists’:
http://bufvc.ac.uk/projects-research/project-enriched-playlists
This project will help Jisc understand and document how HE would like to use and get the most out of Jisc MediaHub’s moving image, audio and stills collections.
EDINA would be grateful for your help: please do complete the survey by 13th June 2014.
All participants who submit a completed survey will be entered into a prize draw to win an iPad mini 16GB (Wi-Fi).
To find out more about the project or this survey, please contact Hetty Malcolm-Smith, Jisc Project Manager (Content), Project Enriched Playlists (020 7393 1520 /  hetty@bufvc.ac.uk).

Display by Julie Johnstone book artist in residence, opens at ECA Library

May 15th:
A display  of artists’ books from the ECA Library collection has opened today at Evolution House, and has been curated by our book artist in residence, Julie Johnstone.
Julie has chosen artists’ books from our collection which she has felt a particular affinity with or reaction to, as she has surveyed our collection during her research residency.
The display is on level 1 of the Library at Evolution House, and is accompanied by a display of recent book works by Julie herself.

The display closed on 5th June.
 

Berg Fashion Library online goes live!

Our new subscription to the Berg Fashion Library is now live, on and off campus!
Berg Fashion Library: “the authority on world dress”: an extensive online portal which offers fully cross-searchable access to a large and growing range of Berg content collections – including the Berg Encyclopaedia of World Dress and Fashion online, e-books, reference works, and images.

Access this amazing resource via the A-Z list of all University Library databases here:
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/library-museum-gallery/finding-resources/library-databases/databases-a-z
Or via the Art & Design list of databases here:
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/library-museum-gallery/finding-resources/library-databases/databases-subject-a-z/database-design
To find out more about what is included in the Berg Fashion Library see:
http://www.bergfashionlibrary.com.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/page/whatsinbergfashionlibrary/whats-in-the-berg-fashion-library

Exploring comics collections online

A new exhibition at the British Library, Comics Unmasked, is the UK’s largest ever exhibition of mainstream and underground comics. Featuring such iconic names as Neil Gaiman (Sandman), Alan Moore (Watchmen, V for Vendetta), Grant Morrison (Batman: Arkham Asylum) and Posy Simmonds (Tamara Drewe), this exhibition traces the British comics tradition back through classic 1970s titles including 2000AD, Action and Misty to 19th-century illustrated reports of Jack the Ripper and beyond. The exhibition is open at the British Library, London, from 2nd May to 19th August 2014.
You can see another review of the exhibition here.
By happy coincidence ECA will soon be subscribing to the excellent Alexander Street Press Underground Comics Volumes 1 and 2 database. As soon as full access to these is arranged, this post will be updated.
You will be able to access the database via: http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/library-museum-gallery/finding-resources/library-databases/databases-subject-a-z/database-design
We already have online access to the British Cartoon Archive from the University of Kent.
You can also access Comic Book Plus, a free online resource at http://comicbookplus.com. We found Comic Book Plus on http://openglam.org/open-collections/ which gives free access to the online collections of galleries, libraries, archives and museums, and is worth exploring!
 

Book artist Julie Johnstone begins ECA Library artist's residency

May 1st:
Today ECA Library welcomes book artist Julie Johnstone to a one month research residency at ECA Library. Julie will explore the ECA Library Artists’ Books collection, curate a display of books, and will organise a reading group or two, open to all students and staff. At the end of her residency Julie will create a new artist’s book in response to her research residency at ECA, which will be added to the ECA Library artists’ books permanent collection.
Julie will be tweeting about her experience at #eca_artistsbks.

More information about the dates of the reading groups at ECA Library will be posted here soon.

ECA Artists Book Maker Residency Bursary 2014 award winner announced

ECA Library is pleased to announce that Julie Johnstone has been chosen as the successful recipient of the ECA Artists Book Maker Residency Bursary 2014. Julie will take up the Residency in May, based in ECA Library, Evolution House.
A Book of Hours, [detail], Julie JohnstoneJulie is an established book artist and editor of the Essence Press. Her work is held in collections at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, the Tate, the V&A, and elsewhere, and she appears regularly at artists book fairs, and is experienced in the curation of exhibitions.
Julie has proposed a discussion group / reading group format as part of her residency as well as being keen to curate a display of the works held in the ECA Library artists’ books collection that she finds most inspiring. The new book work that she makes as the focus of the Residency will be accessioned into the Library’s permanent collection of artists’ books.
It is intended that this Residency opportunity becomes an annual feature at ECA Library, and anyone who applied this year would be eligible to apply again in future years. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all applicants for the time they took to apply for this award.
 

Thousands of years of visual culture available free through Wellcome Images

Over 100,000 high resolution images including manuscripts, paintings, etchings, early photography and advertisements are now freely available through Wellcome Images.
Drawn from the Wellcome Library’s vast historical holdings, the out of copyright images are being released under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence.
This means that they can be used for commercial or personal purposes, with an acknowledgement of the original source (“Wellcome Library, London”). All of the images from the Library’s historical collections can be used free of charge.
The images can be downloaded in high-resolution directly from the Wellcome Images website for users to freely copy, distribute, edit, manipulate, and build upon as you wish, for personal or commercial use.
For more info see:
http://blog.wellcomelibrary.org/2014/01/thousands-of-years-of-visual-culture-made-free-through-wellcome-images/

Finding full text theses and dissertations

The Library offers access to a wide range of online dissertations and theses via the Theses Databases webpage which you can access via http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/services/library-museum-gallery/finding-resources/subject-guides/theses
Our theses databases include ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Full Text online. This resource contains millions of searchable citations to dissertations and theses from around the world from 1861 to the present day, together with over a million full text dissertations that are available for download in PDF format. Around 70,000 new dissertations and theses are added annually. It is available on and off campus using your EASE log-in.
The Theses Databases webpage mentioned above also gives guidance about how to submit a thesis, how to find theses by University of Edinburgh students and what the Edinburgh Research Archive (ERA) is.
More help can be found at the Scholarly Communications webpage:
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/services/research-support/publish-research/scholarly-communications