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Edinburgh Napier University

Month: December 2024

Merry Christmas

25/12/2024 / / 0 Comments

Festive image saying Merry Christmas and and a wonderful Festive Season from the edinburgh napier Library Blog

Spanish Christmas traditions. Image ofChristmas Decorations Hanging
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Spanish Christmas Traditions

20/12/2024 / / 2 Comments

A Spanish-style Traditional Christmas 

Christmas in Spain is not so very different from Christmas elsewhere, but there are one or two traditions that may sound slightly exotic to Scottish ears, and I’ll set them out here.

First of all, our festive period is longer, running from the 22nd of December until the 7th of January. We celebrate the end of Christmas with presents brought from faraway lands by the Three Wise Men (traditionally marked by the Epiphany). This, of course, makes the youngest members of the family very merry, but it pleases the grownups too. Traditionally Santa Claus has never been recognised in Spain, but nowadays that is changing, and like the reyes mago” (3 wise men), he now sometimes brings presents too.

The Spanish Lottery

A more recent, and much more secular tradition, is El Gordo, the Spanish Christmas Lottery. This, too, is celebrated on the 22nd of December. It’s the most popular draw of the year in Spain and is considered the biggest worldwide since it was first celebrated in 1812. Winning El Gordo’s jackpot is one of the best Spanish Christmas presents you could hope for.

As in many other parts of the world, Christmas trees, fancy city lights, and splashes of red, green, and white decorations make their appearance during the festive period. However, something quite particular we have is the Portal de Belén: tiny models of Bethlehem representing the Nativity, with many accompanying structures such as the desert, town, angels, shepherds and farm animals.

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Festive tradition

Lost Days and old Christmas

17/12/2024 / / 0 Comments

Lost Days and Old Christmas

We are nearing the end of this leap year, a year when we have one extra day in February. If you are celebrating Christmas on December 25th spare a thought for the residents of the Shetland island of Foula who will not celebrate Christmas until 6th January. Why would they do this?

It all stems from the changes made to the calendar used in the UK in the 1700s. Up until 1752 the calendar used in Britain was the Julian Calendar. It was based on the solar year (the time it takes for the Earth to rotate around the sun) which meant it was 365.25 days in length. Fractionally too long, over time the calendar fell out of line with the seasons. Nowadays we use the Gregorian Calendar named after Pope Gregory XII who introduced it in 1582. The year corresponds closely with the astronomical year which is 365.24219 days long and this gives us a leap year once every four years. Not all countries of the world adopted the calendar at the same time, in fact it took more than 300 years for the change to be complete.

When the Gregorian calendar was adopted Britain “lost” 11 days as the date jumped from September 2nd to September 14th. There were protests in the streets as people thought that the government had robbed them of eleven days of their lives.

Before the calendar was changed, Christmas was celebrated on the equivalent of the 6th of January according to the Gregorian calendar. That is why in some places people still call the 6th January Old Christmas Day. Today, Foula in the Shetland Islands is one of the last places to celebrate Christmas and New Year on the old calendar dates. While they don’t live by the Julian calendar on a daily basis, the Foula community takes advantage of these special dates to celebrate their strong Norse tradition of folklore and music, with islanders traditionally gathering in one house to celebrate the Old Christmas with traditional music, songs and play guidicks – Shetland dialect riddles.

Old Christmas or Yule takes place on 6th January and New Year on 13th January. In the past Yule celebrations would last 24 days with barn dances and traditions such as playing ba’ – a form of football but seemingly without rules – using a ball made from a pig’s bladder. This was a feature of Yule celebrations until the early 20th century in Shetland. Today in Orkney, the Ba game is still an integral part of the festive celebrations.

Now many Foula residents head to the Shetland mainland to spend “New Christmas” with relatives there, then head back to Foula for their traditional Christmas and New Year in January. Former residents return to the island too. Many Foula emigrants still celebrate Old Christmas where they now live.

Wherever and however you are celebrating we hope you all enjoy the festive break.

By Vivienne Hamiliton

Image by Mariana B.

Get in the festive period with more Christmas blog posts 

Publishing Archive Day

12/12/2024 / / 0 Comments

Publishing Archive Day

Last month, together with Avril Gray of the Publishing Programme and Laura Cooijmans-Keizer, Senior Curator of University Heritage Collections, I was able to celebrate Book Week Scotland by showcasing treasures from the Edward Clark Collection, held in Merchiston Library.
This unique resource illustrates the development of book printing processes and changing styles from the earliest years of letterpress printing in Europe in the 15th century. In addition to the printing of text, items in the collection show the evolving techniques used for illustration. Woodcuts were the most commonly found in the earlier period, and the method predates the use of movable metal type. The wood blocks in the collection were used for printing playing cards, but date from the nineteenth century. By this period, other techniques were in use for book illustration, perhaps the best known being the copperplate engravings found in 18th century titles. A lesser-known highlight includes an edition of Thomas Bewick’s Birds (1825): the wood engraving of puffin proved particularly popular with visitors to the event. The introduction of the new technique of lithography in the early 19th century led to developments in colour printing of which The Poultry Book, printed by Leighton Brothers in 1853 is a splendid example.
The collection was originally gathered together for the use of apprentices in the printing industry, attending day- and block-release courses at Heriot Watt College during their training. Bringing it to life for another generation of students and staff at Napier is such a pleasure. It was transferred to Napier College, as it then was, when it took over responsibility for apprentice training in 1964. 
Abstract by  Dr H. Williams.

Edward Clark Collection: History Of Publishing

Edinburgh Napier University has been home of the Edward Clark Collection since the 1960s.  The collection showcases the history of publishing in the Western World. Edward Clark was a prominent publisher in Edinburgh in the late 19th century. The collections show the development of typography, binds and illustrations.  There is around 5000 items, some of which dates back to the 15th century.

Along with the Edward Clark Collection, our Heritage Collections encompass five other collections, and you can find more information on their webpages. 
And don’t forget, tours of Merchiston Tower, birthplace of our namesake John Napier are available.  If interested in seeing the 500-year-old tower, email heritage@napier.ac.uk or library@napier.ac.uk.
Best online resources for finding news: Times Digital Archive & NexisUni

Dewey Decimal System Day

10/12/2024 / / 2 Comments

Dewey Decimal System Day

Today is Dewey Decimal System Day, which honours the creation and establishment of the Dewey Decimal Classification System and American librarian Melvil Dewey (1851-1931) who invented it in 1876. The Dewey Decimal Classification system is a numerical sequencing system which organises primarily non-fiction books and publications into ten main categories to increase findability. It is the most vastly and frequently used library classification system across all libraries, including our very own campus libraries at Edinburgh Napier University.

A bit of History of  the Dewey Decimal System

The Dewey Decimal Classification System has been utilised widely since 1876 and over 200,000 libraries globally in 135 countries have adopted this library classification system to organise their non-fiction stock and publications. Whilst working at the Amherst College Library when he was 21, Melvil Dewey designed the proprietary classification system which was then eventually published in the year 1876. With the 10th of December 1851 having been Melvil Dewey’s date of birth, this calendar date was adopted as Dewey Decimal System Day to annually honour his creation of this widely used system. Its 20th edition was published in the late 20th century after several other editions having been released prior to this.

Dewey Groups

The Dewey Decimal Classification System categorises different genres of mostly non-fiction publications into one of ten classes and works as both a navigation and shorthand identification tool. These classes consist of specific topics and subject areas such as psychology, history or the arts to give a few examples. They are organised and shelved in alphanumerical order depending on which class the resource falls into from numbers 000-900. Each Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) number will also have the first three letters of the author or organisation’s surname noted at the very end of it. You can find the call number classification and their classes listed below.

 

000-099: Computer Science, Information and General Works

100-199: Psychology and Philosophy

200-299: Religion

300-399: Social Sciences

400-499: Language

500-599: Science

600-699: Technology

700-799: Arts and Recreation

800-899: Literature

900-999: Geography and History

These classes are usually divided into subclasses as well. For example, the numerical category 300 covers social sciences, but since a significant number of topics exist within this individual subject area, numerical subcategories can be used to divide and distinguish them all. To illustrate, 320 call numbers cover political science, 340 call numbers cover law and 360 call numbers cover social problems and social services. These categories can be subdivided even further into existing topics within these topics – for example, 327 call numbers cover international relations, 346 call numbers cover private law, and 364 call numbers cover criminology.

All of the books within our campus libraries are organised and shelved in accordance with the Dewey Decimal Classification system. If you sign into LibrarySearch and search for any book within our collection you will find it’s Dewey Decimal Classification number here:

Dewey Decimal System

Acknowledgements…

The Dewey Decimal System significantly revolutionised library science. Findability is at the core of this system’s primary objectives. It was invented with the purpose of being easy to use, simplified and an effective navigation tool for patrons to easily locate and identify specific categories of books and publications for their research or other purposes. The system is also kept up-to-date and progressive through consistent revisions and expansions year to year and is maintained by libraries today using current technologies and library management systems.

 

How we can assist with navigating the DDC system…

 

Some patrons may feel overwhelmed when they first come across the Dewey Decimal Classification system and when using it to find the resources they require. Our library staff are here to assist you with this – you are always more than welcome to ask any of us at our library helpdesks for help with finding a specific book, or books within a specific numerical sequence and genre. Additional information about how to navigate our campus libraries can be found here in the My Napier Library webpage.

 

Recommended Reading…

 

By Rachel Downie

We have a previous blog post on finding books on LibrarySearch

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