Author Archives

Assistant Librarian, Special Collections, University of Glasgow Library

• A Robert Burns relic owned by a Scottish sugar plantation doctor and slave owner

  By Robert MacLean on January 16, 2024 • ( 2 )

  

  In 2010 I wrote about a book once owned by Robert Burns. The book itself is unremarkable, being a rather dry collection of published tables of weights and measures. The point of interest is the association with Burns – the… Read More ›

• ASC Rewind: Free kicks at football

  By Robert MacLean on May 21, 2020 • ( 0 )

  

  This series revisits our Book of the Month archive to highlight some of our favourite articles and explore the ASC collections they describe with new eyes. This article was originally published in January 2004 and the full article can still… Read More ›

• The World Of David Murray (1842—1928)

  By Robert MacLean on May 15, 2019 • ( 0 )

  

  David Murray (1842—1928) was a well-known figure in Victorian Glasgow. He was a prominent Glasgow solicitor closely involved in various aspects of the city’s civic life and institutions, including the University of Glasgow, where he served on the University court…. Read More ›

• Student life in days gone by: top 5 weird facts

  By Robert MacLean on May 12, 2017 • ( 1 )

  

  Guest blog by Melissa Conroy, an M.Sc Museum Studies student on placement in Archives and Special Collections. Melissa has created a digital exhibition of images of student life in the past, which is now live on the exhibition screens to the… Read More ›

• “A Striking Likeness of an Ass”: marginalia in early-printed books

  By Robert MacLean on April 28, 2017 • ( 1 )

  

  Blog post by Becca Gauldie, an M.Sc Art History (Collecting and Provenance Studies in an International Context) student, on placement in Archives and Special Collections. Every second-hand book has a provenance, but most are unremarkable and their previous ownership immediately… Read More ›

• From Dr Laing’s Library

  By Robert MacLean on April 4, 2017 • ( 1 )

  

  Blog post by Becca Gauldie, an M.Sc Art History (Collecting and Provenance Studies in an International Context) student, on placement in Archives and Special Collections. My project has been to find and identify books which belonged to the antiquarian, and… Read More ›

• When cricket reigned supreme in Glasgow

  By Robert MacLean on March 20, 2017 • ( 4 )

  

  Cricket may not be the first sport you’d think to associate with Glasgow. But, perhaps surprisingly, the city has close links with the game dating back two centuries; in fact people were putting bat to ball on Glasgow Green back in… Read More ›

• The Antichrist in Printed Art, 1500-1600

  By Robert MacLean on March 17, 2017 • ( 4 )

  

  Guest post by Sophie Sterling, an M.Litt Art History student on placement in Special Collections researching Reformation-era illustrations in our early printed books Fear is exciting, the grim is fascinating. Nothing’s more fun than a cataclysmic bloodbath of Biblical proportions, and the… Read More ›

• 100 years of history: wartime ephemera from Charleville

  By Robert MacLean on March 13, 2017 • ( 0 )

  

  This is a guest blog post by Nelly Ullmann and Tugce Tuerk.  We, that’s Nelly and Tugce, are German students from the Media University of Stuttgart who have been doing an internship for 6 months at the University of Glasgow Library…. Read More ›

• What can a battered old copy of Pilgrim’s Progress tell us about how books were printed in the past?

  By Robert MacLean on January 31, 2017 • ( 4 )

  

  When you look at an old printed book you’re not really looking at a single book but a series of smaller ‘booklets’ joined together. Books weren’t printed one page at a time but on large sheets of paper subsequently folded… Read More ›