Friends’T he

Friends’Friends’Friends’Registered Charity No. SC 009009

FRIENDS’ ACTIVITIES

Date for your Diary

Autumn/W inter 2007newsnewsnewsnewsnews

The Friends of Aberdeen University Library

Our next Meeting sees awelcome return from JackWebster, our President.

Jack, we know, will give us alively evening, this timespeaking to us on ErnstHanfstaengl (1887-1975), amentor to Hitler and friend ofWinston Churchill, whom Jackinterviewed.

It will, we know, provide uswith the story of an intriguinginternational figure, whosewife once prevented Hitlerfrom committing suicide, andalso give us yet anotherfascinating glimpse into Jack’sprofessional life as author andjournalist.

THE FRIENDS OFABERDEEN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

Autumn / Winter Meeting

Queen Mother Library Seminar RoomAberdeen University Library, Bedford Road, Aberdeen

Thursday 15 November 2007

7.30 pm

Hitler’s Mentor – Ernst Hanfstaenglby

Jack WebsterPresident, Friends of Aberdeen University Library

author and journalist

All Welcome

The talk will be preceded by a short Special General Meeting toconsider an amendment to our Constitution required to comply with theOffices of the Scottish Charities Records’ phraseology re the use of the

term ‘audit’.

Light Refreshments will be served after the meeting

Please remember to bring your new Friends’ Membership Card or barcoded Library ticket with you to gain access to QML

nce again we welcome all new and ‘old’Friends to our News and hope that we maylook forward to seeing you at one of our

forthcoming events.

With this issue you should also find a copy of thebrochure for the Marischal Museum Tuesday lectureseries, which will be held once more in the LectureTheatre at Marischal Museum. Should the venuechange later on in the academic year this will beannounced on the Museum’s website and elsewhere.

www.abdn.ac.uk/historic/museum/lectures.shtml

New University LibrarianWe are delighted to be able to report that a newUniversity Librarian has been appointed and you canread more about her later in this issue. Chris Bankscame to us from the British Library in October andshe will be speaking to us with her vision for the futureat Aberdeen at our Spring Meeting on Thursday 13thMarch 2008.

Many of you will remember that Mike Smethurstresigned as our Librarian in 1986 to take up theposition of Director-General of the British Library(Humanities and Social Sciences), and the recentappointee as Director of Information Technologywithin the University was Paul Haley, also from the

British Library. Obviously ahealthy professional transferbetween Aberdeen and Londoncontinues!

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Silent Music:Manuscripts and

Scores in AberdeenUniversity Library

Professor Peter Davidson’s talkafter the AGM

on Thursday 17th May

The practical difficulties oftransporting instruments to the QueenMother Library Seminar Room led toa last minute change of venue to theChapel for the talk by Professor PeterDavidson, Chair of RenaissanceStudies. Despite some initialreservations this proved hugelysuccessful and around 50 membersattended a fascinating evening. Thetalk was illustrated by Dr RogerWilliams, of University Music, andthree excellent musicians whotogether gave a voice to the musicwhich had remained silent on theshelves for a considerable time.

Professor Davidson explained that thelibrary’s collection of musical scoreswas very substantial and evensurprising in its contents. There aresubstantial numbers of bound scoresbut also many individual items,including an incunable with plainsongfor a Mass, Bavarian and perhapsfrom Regensburg.

Aberdeen’s Sang Schule was veryprominent and lasted much longerthan similar institutions elsewhere inScotland. Andrew Melvin’s book ofnotes and some music, dating fromaround 1650, is very important; theonly Scottish song book of the 17th

century is in the collection (Forbes’sSongs and Fancies), all indicating avery lively musical scene in Aberdeenat the time.

By the 18th century there were strongcontacts with the Continent, some bychoice for trade and foreign study, butsome involuntary by Jacobitesupporters who felt that their healthwould not be improved by remainingin Scotland. It was probably thesecontacts which led to an enormous

popularity of Corelli’s music, andexcellent copies, now in the Library,from the Leslies of Powis, have beenin use in Old Aberdeen for two hundredyears. One of Corelli’s sonatas wasbeautifully played to illustrate thequality of the music.

Dr John Gregory founded the AberdeenMusical Society in 1747. This was avery practical society for actualperformance and many volumes of itsmusic in the Library are bound up inparts, showing that they were actuallyused by members of the Society. DrPeacock, the well known Aberdeenmusic and dancing teacher, was also aprominent member of the Society andpublished a book of music also held inthe Library. From this we were regaledby a concert piece and a songarrangement.

More material has been found fromlater in the 18th century, particularlyworks by John Ross, organist at StPaul’s Episcopal Chapel in Aberdeen,and including also scores by Handel,probably from the Musical Society. Themeeting concluded with the recital ofone of Ross’s own compositions and astirring patriotic piece of his, sung withdramatic gusto by Dr Williams.

It is to be hoped that further research inSpecial Libraries and Archives’holdings will reveal more treasures andthat the scores will remain silent nolonger.

Music From EighteenthCentury Aberdeen

A CD of some of the music so faruncovered, Music From EighteenthCentury Aberdeen, performed underthe direction of Dr Roger Williamsand generously sponsored by theFriends, will be available for Friendsat the November meeting. These willbe complimentary copies, as a thankyou for our funding, which allowedthe CDs to be made. Anyone unableto attend the meeting who would likea copy (we have been given 100)should let Sheona Farquhar know:

Miss Sheona Farquhar,Technical Services Manager,Queen Mother Library,Meston Walk,ABERDEEN, AB24 2UETel: 01224 273773s.farquhar@abdn.ac.uk

Professor Robert Ralph

Many of you will be saddened to learn of the death of Bob Ralph on 11th

September. Until his retirement Bob was a lecturer in the ZoologyDepartment, University of Aberdeen and Curator of the University’s NaturalHistory Museum. Bob talked to the Friends on more than one occasion,most recently in March 2005, when many of you may remember a fascinatingvisit to the Museum and talk by Bob on William MacGillivray (1796-1852),Regius Professor of Natural History at Marischal College and founder of theNatural History Museum.

Professor Mike MestonFriends’ Committee

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A very warm welcome tothe new Librarian of theUniversity of Aberdeen

n July the University circulated a media release toannounce this good news:

Leading National Librarianto join University’s Flagship Library

A leading figure from one of the world’s great librariesis the latest in the long line of internationally-renownedacademic leaders to join the University of Aberdeen.

Chris Banks joins the University this autumn from theUK’s national library - the British Library in London - inthe key post of University Librarian.

She has over twenty years’ experience at the BritishLibrary. Latterly she has been Head of Reference andResearch with responsibility for leading the provision anddevelopment of the Library’s reference and researchservices; these cover all disciplines and serve audiencesfrom academic researchers to large corporates andindividual entrepreneurs.

Chris studied music at Goldsmiths’ College, London, andworked for Travis and Emery and English National Operabefore joining the British Library in 1987. Working for itsMusic Collections she held various roles including, from1995, Curator of Manuscript Music, and, from 2003, Headof Music Collections. She has written on Mozart, Purcell,Elgar, Vincent Novello, music publishing, film music, andRussian archives. She has been interviewed for variousprogrammes on BBC Radios 3 and 4, including Tales FromThe Stave, the fourth series of which was broadcast earlierthis year. Chris is an active member of the InternationalAssociation of Music Libraries, Archives andDocumentation Centres (IAML) both nationally andinternationally and has been closely involved with severalof its projects.

She is a Trustee of the Britten-Pears Foundation and chairof its Library Committee, a Trustee of the New BerliozEdition and of the RISM(UK) Trust, and a member of theCouncil of Central Music Library Limited. She sings withLondinium (whose concerts have recently included musicby Scottish composers Robert Carvor and JamesMacMillan) and with the London Philharmonic Choir(most recently at the re-opening of the Royal Festival Hall,at St Paul’s Cathedral, and at a Prom at the Royal Albert

Hall). She is a Fellow of the Royal Society for theencouragement of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce.

Chris arrives in Aberdeen as the University embarks onthe most ambitious capital project in its modern history. Itis also one of the biggest and most important culturalprojects undertaken in Scotland in recent years: the creationof a new £57m library to match the institution’s academicambitions to be ranked among the top hundred universitiesin the world. As the centre of the University’s internationalambitions, the new library will be not only a new Scottishlandmark of learning but also an important resource forthe whole community who for the first time will enjoyaccess to priceless historical collections of books andmanuscripts and regular events, exhibitions, readings andrecitals.

The new library is the flagship project for the next phaseof our Sixth Century Campaign, and Chris’s role willinclude working with University colleagues to secure atleast £30m of the total cost of the new library through thephilanthropic support of graduates and supportersworldwide, charitable trusts and foundations, and theinternational business community.

Professor Christopher Gane, Vice-Principal (Library andInformation Services), is delighted to have secured alibrarian of the calibre of Chris Banks, and said, “We aredelighted that Chris joins the University at such animportant time in the redevelopment of our Library. Herenergy, enthusiasm and experience will be immenselyimportant as we explore new ways to deliver the very best

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Progress on the New Library

A planning application for the University of Aberdeen’smajor flagship library project worth £57 million, wassubmitted to Aberdeen City Council on August 15,2007. It is anticipated that the City Council will makea planning decision by early 2008. Following a positivedecision it is expected that a construction tender willbe awarded in summer 2008. When construction beginsthe building construction period is expected to takeapproximately 18 months.Many of you will have seen the new publication,‘Inspiring leaders’, issued during the Summer by theUniversity to encourage support for the new ‘Libraryfor our Sixth Century’.

It updates the community on ‘A building to symboliseour ambitions for the sixth century and beyond’ andincludes statements from, among others, our Chair, RoyThomson, emphasising the valuable new space andaccess which will be available for Special and HistoricCollections, and from Wendy Pirie, Acting Librarianfor the last two and a half years, with a practicalresponse. ————————————

Public Airing

Many of you will have attended some of the varioustalks, lectures, readings and recitals which make upthe now annual Word event, the University ofAberdeen’s writers festival held in May.

For those of you who missed the Saturday morningsession in King’s College Centre a sizable audiencewas treated to a lively discussion centring on the newLibrary development.

The session was chaired by Alan Taylor, AssociateEditor of the Sunday Herald, who was much in evidencethroughout the weekend. The speakers also includedthe University Principal. Professor C Duncan Rice,Morten Schmidt, the Danish architect working on theplans, and Karen Cunningham, Head of Libraries andCommunity Facilities at the Mitchell Library inGlasgow, which has recently reopened after a face lift.

Alan Taylor revealed that he had been a referencelibrarian in Musselburgh in his youth and he chaired astimulating hour. Topics ranged from the reasons forthe new building and the Principal’s vision for it, detailsof the building by the architect, and a more practicalview from Karen Cunningham, where the revampedMitchell Library has attracted huge numbers to itsmodern-look areas full of pcs – and a new coffee area.

library services to our students and academic colleagues,and to open up our collections to new audiences.”

Looking forward to her new challenge, Chris Bankscommented: “I’m thrilled to be joining the University ofAberdeen at this time and to have the opportunity to workwith the University on the new library project.

“Libraries are undergoing a considerable revolution atpresent with increasing emphasis on flexible buildingswhich facilitate everything from quiet individual studythrough to group and seminar work, exhibition and eventsand, at the heart, the facility to protect and make availablethe collections.

“The new building offers the opportunity to respond tothis environment and, coupled with emerging technologieswhich can both deliver services to the desktop and toenhance the onsite visitor experience, will position theUniversity to offer superb support to research and enableit to open up its wonderful historic collections to a muchwider audience”

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Chris Banks has enthusiastically taken up the invitationfrom the Friends’ Executive Committee to speak to us atour Spring meeting and we know you will all be keen tocome to hear what she has to say. She has alreadyparticipated in a discussion session at this year’s EdinburghFestival on ‘The Future of Libraries’.

Artist’s impression of new library

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The Library leads the wayin using the

latest technologies

The Library has embraced the latesttechnology to add a new range ofguides to its suite of informationliteracy materials. InformationConsultants Claire Molloy, SusanMcCourt and Elaine Shallcross haveproduced a series of VodCasts usingMac software iShowU and Adobesoftware, Captivate.

VodCasts are video-style recordings(screencasts), that allow you todownload and watch step-by-stepguides on your computer monitor,accompanied by a spokencommentary. Following a series ofVodCasts produced specifically forthe School of Education by ClaireMolloy and Elaine Shallcross, therange was expanded to coverinformation skills training for allstudents.

School of Education VodCasts includedemonstrations on how to set up a PCto access electronic resources off-campus; searching the librarycatalogue for books, e-books andjournal articles; searching electronicdatabases ebrary and the electronicdatabase British Education Index;using HILDA (Distance LearningService for School of Educationstudents) and using SquirrelMail, theUniversity’s email client for students.They are already in use by studentsin the School who started their coursesin July and August.

The latest VodCasts on planningsearches; searching the librarycatalogue for books, e-books andjournal articles; and using theelectronic database, Scopus, arecomponents of a toolkit ofinformation skills materials beingadded to a new WebCT module forundergraduates compiled incooperation with the Student LearningService. Plans are in place to launchthe module for the start of the mainacademic session at the end ofSeptember.

VodCasts expand the range ofinformation guides produced in avariety of different formats by Library& Historic Collections. Last year theLibrary launched AudioPOD tours(podcasts) of Queen Mother Library tocomplement their extensive range oftraditional information guides to libraryservices and resources published inpaper and electronic format. The latestpodcast episode was published recentlyto market the Library service toprospective applicants for coursesoffered in the academic session 2008/09. It was played at the University OpenDay on 28 August.

If you are interested in watching andlistening to our exciting and innovativerange of VodCasts and AudioPODs goto online to www.abdn.ac.uk/library/vodcasts/ and www.abdn.ac.uk/library/podcasts/. Links to instructions ondownloading media players and playingthe files are provided on these webpages.

We hope that provision of informationliteracy guides in a wide range offormats will give students much greaterflexibility in how and when they chooseto work on their information retrievalskills.

Elaine ShallcrossInformation Consultant,Library & Historic Collectionse.shallcross@abdn.ac.uk

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New to QMLCopyshop

A range of original imagesin full colour, and GWW

in black & whiteAll A4 size, mounted andsealed in cellophane bag

£17Tel: 01224 272594

Friends visiting Marischal Museum’s Summerexhibitions to mark the 300th anniversary of the Act ofUnion will have been treated to a second viewing ofpaintings for which we’ve had the pleasure of learningtheir story at recent Friends’ meetings.

Acts of Union drew exclusively on the University‘sHistoric Collections, exploring the political, religiousand economic factors which helped to create the newkingdom of Great Britain on 1 May 1707.

Our collections contain a wealth of material on how theUnion was discussed and debated in Scotland and aselection of books, manuscripts, portraits and objectsprovided a narrative for this fascinating story.

It included ‘Europa’ from the King’s College Sibyls seriesand the portrait of Dr James Fraser of Chelsea, togetherwith reproductions of the ‘Black Paintings’ in theUniversity’s Elphinstone Hall collection. We have beenprivileged over the last three years to hear Dr Mary Pryor,Honorary Teaching Fellow in the University’s Historyof Art Department, talk to us about all of these, enthrallingus each time as she unravelled the detective investigationsinvolved in tracing the background of each one.

For those of you who missed the exhibition it can also beseen in a virtual version on the Historic Collections webpages.

The second exhibition in Marischal Museum, JacobiteVirtuosi: antiquarians and connoisseurs in Eighteenthcentury Rome, included Jacobite material from the

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Treasures from Special Libraries’ Collections on wider view

Museum, and from our fine art and rare book collections.It offered a glimpse into the world of the Scottish artistsand archaeologists from Jacobite families, flourishing inRome when the Italian capital was the unequivocal worldcentre for the visual arts.

One of the paintings shown was by Cosmo Alexander(1724-77), the Aberdeen-born painter. His ‘S Cecilia’(1757) was presented to the Aberdeen Musical Societyand when the organisation ceased in 1805 some of itsmusic and instruments, together with the painting whichhad adorned its concert room, were left in the keeping ofthe Librarian of Marischal College, now, of course, inthe University Library’s collection.

Also included in this display, and shown for the first time,were drawings, now in Special Libraries, by James Byresof Tonley (1734-1807), an antiquarian architect. Theworks, from 1767, show sumptuous plans (never realised)for rebuilding King’s College, which, had they goneahead, would have given Aberdeen one of the finestUniversity buildings in Northern Europe. His schemeprovided a central Museum Room, modelled on the Uffiziin Florence, and a Library Room, in the style of a RomanPalace, looking inward to a courtyard, triple height, withtwo ranges of galleries. A most fascinating document.

From our MacBean Stuart and Jacobite Collection wereprints of the Stuart monarchs and princes as well asengravings of the extravagant ceremonial with which theykept up Royal State in exile.

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P&P £1.75Telephone 01224 272594

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The most recent purchases made by the Friends on behalfof the Library and Historic Collections have beenfacsimiles, one published by the Folger ShakespeareLibrary in Washington, the other by the Roxburghe Clubin London. Both are limited editions.

The dramatic Trevelyon Miscellany of 1608: a Facsimileof Folger Shakespeare Library MS V.b.232, edited byHeather Wolfe, 2007, £395, consists of nearly 300 folioleaves, with the great majority of pages illustrated.

Hard facts about the original compiler, Thomas Trevelyon,are scant. He was born about 1548 and is believed to havecome from south-west England. Scholars know from hischoice of texts and from the illustrations that he wasProtestant. And, given the breadth and richness, and varietyof sources called upon to compile his manuscriptMiscellany, it can be fairly assumed that he also lived inLondon, or at the very least had close contacts with themetropolitan book trade. Trevelyon himself was agedabout 60 when he finished his Miscellany in 1608.

Described by the editors as ‘an extraordinary vivid timecapsule created by a contemporary of Shakespeare’ themanuscript itself only crossed the Atlantic in 1924.Sothebys sold it to Maggs Bros 1923, who the next yearsent it, on approval, as it were, to Henry Folger.

The manuscript itself provides much practical informationin the form of a calendar, with saints’ days noted (in a waynot dissimilar to liturgical texts), astronomical diagrams,moralising proverbs, a topographical description of Britain,and biblical and dynastic chronologies (again, there appearto be distant echoes of the medieval Seven Ages of Man.)

But far beyond the importance of the practical informationare the ethical (and positively moralising) comments thataccompany the images.

The (conventional) image of personified, blindfoldedJustice is complemented by series of observationssurrounding the concept itself: ‘Fortitude without wisdomeis but rashnes, wisdome without Justice is but craftines,Justice without Temperance is but cruelty: Temperancewithout Fortitude is but Savadgnes’. And, moretheoretically, Trevelyon noted that philosophers then made‘foure sorts of Justice, Celestiall, natural, civil and iudicial’.

The facsimile was bought with strong academic support,and can provide a new and significant resource for coursescovering the early modern period by providing a detailedinsight into the mental world of one who lived throughthat formative period of the late sixteenth and earlyseventeenth centuries.

The range of indexes provided by the editorial team (pagethumbnails, subject, verse, scriptural quotation,iconography) all make the text more immediatelyapproachable.

The Library of Sir Thomas Tresham and ThomasBrudenell. Edited by Nicolas Barker and DavidQuentin. [London]: Roxburghe Club, 2006. £95.

Sir Thomas Tresham was a contemporary of Trevelyon’s,though from a notably differing background. Born c. 1543,he is described in the Oxford DNB as ‘gentleman andrecusant’ to which could be added, ‘minor architect’. Awealthy landowner, Tresham was brought up in the Catholicfaith, though this did not hinder his being nominated sheriffof Northamptonshire, and being knighted by Elizabeth I in1575. However during the 1580s and the following decade,he was subject to intermittent questioning and harassmentover the extent to which he could reconcile his Catholicfaith with loyalty to the (Protestant) crown. Throughouthe remained consistent to his set of beliefs, and was asupporter of the claims of James VI to the crown.

After a period of house arrest, he began work on thebuilding of Rushton Lodge (where the family held land)and designed it as a symbol of the Holy Trinity, to includethree sides, three floors, and three windows to each wall.

Tresham’s collections of books have recently beendescribed by the Roxburghe Chub as ‘the greatest Recusantlibrary in England’, and reflects the deep learning of theowner, with astronomy, architecture, mathematics andhistory well represented as might be expected, with morereflective works on Catholic theological thinking.

The catalogue of Tresham’s library, and of his son-in-law,Thomas Brudenell, listing nearly 2,000 works, has beenpublished with a series of scholarly notes by Nicolas Barkerand David Quentin.

As with Trevelyon’s Miscellany, this volume was orderedas a result of academic support, and will provide a valuableresource for those interested in the culture of religiousminorities in the British Isles.

Historic Collections is extremely grateful to the Friendsof Aberdeen University Library for agreeing to supportthe purchase of these two items, neither of which wouldotherwise have been acquired.

For further information, contact Historic CollectionsReading Room, Tel.01224 272958 or emailspeclib@abdn.ac.uk.

Thanks to you …Recent purchases by Friends of the Library

The Friends of Aberdeen University Library

Friends of AberdeenUniversity Library

Executive Committee

QML, Taylor and the Medical Library

FriendsWeb site

PresidentMr Jack Webster

ChairmanMr Roy H Thomson

Honorary TreasurerMr Graham Hunter

Honorary SecretaryMiss Christine A Miller

Honorary Membership Secretary Miss Sheona C Farquhar

Members Professor Chris Gane

Vice-Principal (Library and Information Services)

Professor Michael C MestonProfessor Bill NicolaisenProfessor Derek Ogston

Mrs Chris Banks(University Librarian)

Mrs Wendy PirieMiss Eilidh M ScobbieMrs Helen Stevenson

Monday - Saturday 9.00 am - 10.00 pm (all close at 8.00pm on Fridays)Sunday 11.00 am - 10.00 pm (QML) 1.00pm - 10.pm (Taylor and Medical)

Special LibrariesMonday - Friday 9.30 am - 4.30 pm

produced by QML Reprographics Unit

http://www.abdn.ac.uk/library/friends/

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Conservation Work

Siobhan Convery, Senior Curator (Archives), also requested fundingfor conservation work on 20 black and white prints from the 1690s,which form an important part of the MacBean Stuart and JacobiteCollection.

A report on the conservation requirements showed that the work couldbe done by an accredited local conservator, the total cost estimated atapproximately £2,000.

Once conserved in this way the prints can be digitised and madeavailable on the web, thus accessible to the wider academic andinterested layman community.

The Executive Committee agreed to this without prejudice to possiblefuture conservation requests.