Edinburgh Festival, 1949

That one lady looks very suspicious of the “miniature musicians” 😀

Tales of One City

We’ve published some wonderful pictures of the early days of the festival on Capital Collections. This mini-exhibition is a set of black and white promotional images dated 1949, when the festival was still in its infancy.

In 1947, following the devastation of World War Two, the International Festival of Music and Drama in Edinburgh aimed to unite people through a shared experience of art and culture, to “provide a platform for the flowering of the human spirit”. The city staged a major international cultural event, showcasing first-rate performances of classical music, dance, opera and theatre.

Since this time, the original festival has grown and flourished and spawned and inspired other festivals held during August and throughout the year.

Seventy years later, Edinburgh continues to welcome the world to the greatest arts festival.

View the full set of Edinburgh Festival 1949 photographs on Capital Collections.

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Virtual Reality comes to Edinburgh Libraries

Tales of One City

Over the last few months more than a 100 visitors to Portobello, Muirhouse, Drumbrae, Leith, Oxgangs and Wester Hailes Libraries have had the opportunity to immerse themselves in the Berlin Blitz by flying over Berlin with the crew of a  Lancaster Bomber, encounter gorillas in the Congo and travel in Dr Who’s Tardis courtesy of the BBC Virtual Reality Libraries Tour.

The BBC created new and unique VR experiences for public libraries in the UK.
For most of the participants they were trying a VR headset for the first time and everyone enjoyed the experience and would like to have the opportunity to try it again.

Visitors to Portobello Library enjoying the VR experience.

Find out more about the BBC project that brought virtual reality experiences to new audiences in over 150 UK libraries.

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Muirhouse Instrument Library

Muirhouse Musical Instrument Library!

Tales of One City

Muirhouse Library now offer a musical instrument lending service! The idea for an Instrument Library came about during a discussion between the library, North Edinburgh Arts and Tinderbox before a gathering of youth providers in the local Muirhouse area. Tinderbox run music production classes and lessons out of the art centre, but only during school term time. They were looking for a way for their catalogue of instruments to be made available during the holidays but didn’t have means to monitor or issue the equipment. That’s where the library came in – in what seemed an obvious move, as the means to lend items is at the very core of our service – we offered to house the instruments and manage their usage.
And so, the Muirhouse Instrument Library was born.

We have a great selection of instruments that are available to borrow for one week from Muirhouse Library. To…

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Here’s one I prepared earlier: a guide to promoting your collections – event report

Yesterday I attended CILIPS East Branch‘s afternoon event exploring some different ways to promote our library collections. It took place at the NLS, and over a few hours we were presented with three very different methods of “exhibiting” materials.

Gordon Yeoman, Exhibitions Conservator, National Library of Scotland
Gordon gave us a run down of what goes into putting on a large exhibition such as Northern Lights, the Scottish Enlightenment (currently running at NLS). His team of six people also work with curators and other NLS staff to present smaller exhibitions in various places around the library. This talk was followed by half an hour in which we were actually able to go and view the exhibit. It looks wonderful.

Calum McGhie, Customer Service Manager, Blackwell’s Bookshop, Edinburgh
I found this section particularly interesting. Though it was less from an exhibition viewpoint and more that it gave me ideas of how we might better communicate with our users around the library using ‘shelf talkers’, as they do in bookshops.

Graeme Hawley, Head of General Collections, National Library of Scotland
The ever entertaining Mr Hawley spoke engagingly about the exhibition he wasn’t able to make into an exhibition (because the Enlightenment exhibit was using the space). Instead he built a website of long-read essays and films to tell the story of the decade which (he argues) is responsible for making the world we live in today. You can visit his website here: Back to the future: 1979-1989.

This was a very enjoyable afternoon and I was really impressed by the unusual (perhaps even quirky!) takes on the idea of ‘exhibitions’. Thanks CILIPS East.

 

Scottish Parliament Oral History Project Book

The Scottish Parliament Oral History Project has compiled a series of interviews with staff, MSPs and journalists regarding their careers and experiences at the Scottish Parliament. These interviews captured a rich array of material, shining new light on the Parliament’s history.

This book accompanying the project compiles extracts from these interviews, shining new light on the Parliament’s history, telling the story of Parliament through those who have helped shape it over the last 20 years.

Information and interviews about the  oral history project including the associated book are available online, and the book is available to purchase at all leading bookshops.

ELISA AGM 2019 – reminder!

ELISA’s 2019 AGM is this Thursday, 20th June, at 3-5pm in the George Washington Browne room of Edinburgh Central Library.

There will be refreshments and networking, as well as the chance to hear about some treasures of Edinburgh Libraries.

Please remember to register via Eventbrite

ELISA AGM 2019

The ELISA AGM this year will take place on Thursday 20th June, 3-5pm, in the George Washington Browne room of the Central Library. There will be refreshments and the opportunity for networking. Also, as a bonus, we will hear about some of the treasures of Edinburgh Libraries.

Please register your intention to attend via Eventbrite: