Category Archives: Friends of Aberdeen University Library

Talks: Friends of Aberdeen University Library Events for 2019/20

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The Friends of Aberdeen University Library will be hosting a series of fascinating talks across the coming academic year on a variety of topics relating to our collections or those of other Libraries. The Friends are a charity founded in 1962 to support the work of the Library and to help promote the rich collections we have at the University of Aberdeen.

The full programme of talks can be seen below, with the first event taking place in just over one week’s time. All of the talks are free and open to all.

The mystery of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s library solved?

7 October 2019, 19.30 – 20.30

Join Dr William Zachs as he discusses the mystery of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s library in this evening lecture.

The recent recovery of a substantial part of the private library of the creator of Sherlock Holmes presents an opportunity to understand Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his world in new and unexpected ways. The collection includes special annotated copies of his own books – not least the very first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet (1887). Among the volumes are source books for the detective stories which have endlessly captured the imagination of the world. No less central to this collection are over one hundred presentation copies from such authors as H. G. Wells, J. M. Barrie and others which reveal Conan Doyle’s extensive literary, political, medical and social networks. The annotated copies of the writings or other Scottish authors – Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson in particular – further uncover dimensions of Conan Doyle’s literary influences and networks. 

Guest Speaker: Dr William Zachs, University of Edinburgh

Venue: The Sir Duncan Rice Library, Craig Suite, Floor 7

Booking available via Eventbrite

Duels, rebellions and slave children: Aberdonians in the Ceded Island

24 October 2019, 18.00 – 19.00

Join Dr Désha Osborne as she discusses Aberdonians in the Ceded Islands in this evening lecture.  

Guest Speaker: Dr Désha Osborne, Hunter College, City University of New York

Venue: Special Collections Seminar Room, Lower Ground Floor of the Sir Duncan Rice Library

Booking available via Eventbrite

From sea creatures to Arctic flora: Scottish and Arctic narrative from the North of the world

7 February 2020, 18.00 – 19.00

Join Dr Monica German as she discusses Scottish and Arctic narrative in this evening lecture.

Guest Speaker: Dr Monica German, University of Westminster

Venue: Special Collections Seminar Room, Lower Ground Floor of the Sir Duncan Rice Library

Booking available via Eventbrite

Friends of Aberdeen University Library AGM, followed at 6.30pm by a talk:

Catholic sequestrations in early modern Scotland

16 April 2020, 18.00 – 19.30

Join Dr Eilish Gregory as she discusses Catholic sequestrations in early modern Scotland and the impact of the historic Act of Union in 1707.

The talk will begin at 6.30pm, before this the Friends of Aberdeen University Library Annual General Meeting will take place at 6pm, all are welcome to attend.

Guest Speaker: Dr Eilish Gregory

Venue: Special Collections Seminar Room, Lower Ground Floor of the Sir Duncan Rice Library

Booking available via Eventbrite

Contact: e.grant@abdn.ac.uk

Friends of Aberdeen University Library Postgraduate Research Bursaries 2019/20 – Applications Invited

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Applications are invited for the Friends of Aberdeen University Library Postgraduate Research Bursary awards 2019/20. Applicants must hold an offer of study from the University to begin in September 2019 or be less than 50% through their period of study at that time.

This award of £3000 is offered to a candidate in the early stages of a supervised postgraduate research degree (PhD or Masters by Research). It is a one-off bursary payment designed to support research based on and making particular use of rare and distinctive materials held in University of Aberdeen’s Libraries, Museums, or Special Collections.

For Further details and to apply please visit the Friends of Aberdeen University Library website.

The University of Aberdeen Visiting Scholar Awards – now open for applications

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Funded by the Friends of Aberdeen University Library and the Special Collections Centre

The University of Aberdeen Visiting Scholar Awards are available to academic researchers wishing to travel to Aberdeen to make use of our historic collections for innovative research.

The University of Aberdeen’s rich and diverse holdings consist of over 230,000 rare books, some 5,000 archive collections, and over 300,000 museum artefacts and scientific specimens. The disciplinary range is wide, with particular strengths in eighteenth and nineteenth-century English and Scottish literature, history, anthropology, archaeology, fine art, the history of science and medicine, and the natural and life sciences. (For details, see www.abdn.ac.uk/museums and www.abdn.ac.uk/special-collections.)

The Awards provide financial support of up to £2,000 to cover expenses incurred over a period of two to four weeks while pursuing a research project directly relating to the University’s collections. Visiting Scholars will be given access to the collections in the collections research facilities of the Sir Duncan Rice Library and Marischal College, and will contribute to Friends of Aberdeen University Library and Museums and Special Collections activities. Applications for both traditional academic and creative, practice-based forms of research are welcome.

We warmly encourage applications from researchers from a diverse range of backgrounds, and applications will be considered using a ‘name-blind’ selection process.

The awards are funded by the Friends of Aberdeen University Library, administered by the Aberdeen Humanities Fund, and hosted by University of Aberdeen Museums and Special Collections. Applications will be assessed by a panel consisting of representatives of these three bodies, and confirmed by an external assessor. Applicants will be informed of the outcome of their applications by email.

Full details can be found on the application form, see here.

The application deadline for the current round is 12 noon, 1 March 2019.

For details on previous Visiting Scholars please see the Special Collections website.

Friends of Aberdeen University Library talk to take place this week

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The Sir Duncan Rice Library will host a fascinating talk soon on the life a near forgotten war correspondent.

‘The Incomparable Archibald’. Archibald Forbes, War Correspondent

24 September 2015, 18:00 – 19:00

Speaker will be Professor Hamish Fraser

An examination of the life of Archibald Forbes whom many regarded as the greatest war correspondent of the nineteenth century and who defined the role and became a model for the modern war correspondent.

fraser image

Despite the regard with which he was held during his lifetime, Forbes has been largely forgotten except perhaps in the History Department’s Forbes medal.  Covering all the significant wars from the Franco-German war of 1870 to the Zulu War of 1879 he was the first to make extensive use of the telegraph to get his reports into the press ahead of his rivals.  His on-the spot descriptions of battles still have a vivacity that few could match.

At the same time, he never hesitated to criticise the tactics of the military authorities and to defend the role of the war correspondent in exposing the reality of war.  The result was a petulant refusal by the British to give him the kind of recognition that many European governments bestowed on him.

AUP have recently published Professor Fraser’s study of Forbes, The Wars of Archibald Forbes. The talk will look at aspects of his life and at the part he played in creating the image of the heroic correspondent.

Hosted by: The Friends of Aberdeen University Library and the Special Collections Centre

Venue: Special Collections Centre Seminar Room, The Sir Duncan Rice Library, University of Aberdeen, Bedford Road, Aberdeen, AB24 3AA

Contact: Emma Fowlie – Honorary Secretary

Email – e.fowlie@abdn.ac.uk or call 01224 273385

 

The event is free to attend and open to all

 

Webpage: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/events/8172/