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Edinburgh Napier University

Category: Celebrations (Page 3 of 5)

Blossom marking June

June Solstice

21/06/2023 / / 0 Comments

June Solstice

Did you wake this morning at 04:26? I did.* I rose with the sun in celebration of the longest day of the year. I bathed my face in the fresh, morning dew, ready to enjoy the summer solstice – the day when the Sun appears to reach its most northerly excursion relative to the celestial equator.  In our northern hemisphere, the area north of the Arctic will receive a full 24 hours of sunlight, while areas south of the Antarctic circle will have a full day of total darkness.

Nearer home, today we will enjoy a full 17 hours, 36 minutes and 24 seconds of daylight. Solar noon, if you want to time your lunch hour precisely, occurs at 13:14. The sun sets tonight at 22:02. It’s all downhill tomorrow when we lose a full three seconds of light and start the gradual journey to autumn.

Solstice through time

The changing of the seasons has been marked throughout history in literature and cultural symbolism. In the north we tend to light fires to mark winter events, but the ancient Celts, Slavs and Germans celebrated summer with bonfires. They believed that fire had the power to enhance the sun’s energy and ensure a good harvest. Bonfires could also banish evil spirits, they believed.

In ancient Greece, summer marked the new year and the build-up to the Olympic Games. It was also a time when slaves could temporarily turn the tables on their masters.

How are you celebrating the longest day? With a picnic in the park, or a walk along the beach? Maybe a barbecue with family and friends? However you celebrate, we wish you a long, happy summer full of sunshine and warmth. Go on – have an ice-cream.

Solstice Poem

We’ll leave you with some lines from Edinburgh writer Alexander McCall Smith’s poem, Summer:

“May soft winds blow about your head,

May sun caress your tender cheeks

May tears of gentle rain then wash

The marks of fretful care away.”

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/summer-2/

*That is a lie. I didn’t.

Read about what the libraries are during this summer

Photo source Joseph R

Pride flag

Pride 2023

09/06/2023 / / 0 Comments

Pride 2023

It’s Pride 2023.

June is here, Pride is here. Happy Pride Month everyone!!!

Our libraries are all decorated to celebrate Pride. We ‘pride’ ourselves on being an inclusive and welcoming space for all our staff and students. At the library, we want to avoid tokenism. We are working hard to diversify our collections to be inclusive and more representative.

Please get in touch if you have any feedback about our Library stock.

Library Support

The Library has a wealth of books and articles on the subject. We have a dedicated reading list over on our LibGuides. Reading includes the history of LGBTQ+ rights and the current Legal information to keep you informed. Use LibrarySearch to find what you are looking for, or contact us for help with any of your research needs.  Or you can check out our virtual bookshelf here at the blog.

Edinburgh Napier University Support

If you are an LGBTQ+ student you can join Edinburgh Napier’s LGBTQ+ Society or find out more about the student LGBTQ+ community on the Queer Napier site. Staff can join the University’s thriving LGBTQ+ Network or visit our web pages to learn more about becoming an ally.

Pride and Edinburgh

Pride March will take place on June 24th, starting at 12.30 pm at the Scottish Parliament.

You can find out more information at Pride Edinburgh

And you can find more information on more Pride events taking place on the city.

photo of carnival ride in Edinburgh

Scotland’s Gala Days

25/05/2023 / / 0 Comments

Scotland’s Gala Days

 

Scotland’s Gala Days take place in the months of May and June. A Scottish tradition of gala weeks in full swing. It’s a time for towns to get together and celebrate their history and culture. There will be sports days, horse-riding, fancy-dress. And don’t forget float parades with pipe and brass bands. And almost always there will be a gala queen who will be crowned. The queen, her maids or attendants and sometimes a king are usually chosen from primary 7 pupils. It’s seen as a rite of passage before moving on to secondary school. The queen is crowned by a lady of importance in the community such as a councillor or sometimes by the previous year’s queen. Often the homes of the queen and her entourage were decorated with colourful arches, but in recent years some families have really gone to town with their home displays!

The celebrations vary across the regions. In the central belt gala weeks were very often associated with the coal mining communities such as Newtongrange.  Gala celebrations took place to mark successful wins for workers’ rights or to raise some cheer during tough economic times. The first gala day in Scotland is thought to have been held in 1770 in Loanhead. When miners – and their children – from the Dryden Colliery were invited to a feast to celebrate the birthday of the landowner, Lord Lockhart of Carnwath. Now most have set weeks each year so as not to coincide with neighbouring towns and will have a wide range of events for all the family.

Gala Days in the borders

In the Borders towns such as Hawick and Selkirk the week is all about the common riding. This involves “ride outs” around the town borders, re-enacting the old medieval practice for the local lord or clan leader to appoint a leading townsperson. They would then ride the clan’s boundaries, or “marches”, to protect their lands and prevent reivers from stealing cattle. Today a local young man will be elected to lead the common riding. Often called the cornet lad he has a lass to accompany him. And some towns such as Lockerbie also have sports days, fancy dress competitions and of course a queen.

Gala Days on the coasts

Coastal community gala weeks (such as Newhaven and Stromness) celebrate their connections to fishing with some of the queens arriving by boat to be crowned. There will often be water-based events such as raft races as well as the usual fancy dress competitions and sports days.

Hopefully you will be able to get along to a gala week event and let’s hope for good weather for all Scotland’s gala days.

Use Library Search to find books and journal articles on events, social history and Scottish traditions.

Search on You Tube to view footage of old gala weeks, and common riding events.

Photo source Michelle Henderson

You can read more about Scottish Traditions like Burns Night

Westminster Abbey with blue sky backdrop

King Charles III’s Coronation

11/05/2023 / / 0 Comments

King Charles III’s Coronation

On Saturday it was the coronation of King Charles III. Millions around the world will be watching the ceremony taking place at Westminster Abbey. Charles was be the 40th monarch crowned at the Abbey since 1066.

The coronation ceremony simply put is the crowning ceremony, where the St Edward’s crown will be bestowed upon Charles’s head. The crown was designed and made for King Charles II in 1661. It is made of solid gold, contains more than 444 precious stones and weighs over 2kg. The ceremony itself is more of religious importance than constitutional, with an oath to God and to the public pledge.

As millions watche the ceremony, would you like to know some interesting coronation facts? Did you know, for example, that there were monarchs that didn’t have even a coronation?

Coronation Facts

Let’s go all the way back to the beginning. Although coronations have taken place at Westminster Abbey since 1066, the first one didn’t even take place in London; it took place in the city of Bath and was the coronation of King Edgar in 975AD.

Since then,  we have had 3 monarchs that didn’t have a coronation. The first was King Edward V who,  shortly after he was named King,  was locked away in the Tower of London and eventually murdered, presumably by his uncle King Richard III. The second was Lady Jane Grey who inherited the throne from her cousin Edward VI (the son of Henry VIII).  After 9 days she was executed by Edward’s older sister Mary for high treason.  Lastly, the 3rd monarch was Edward VIII who abdicated before his coronation.

And another little fact is Queen Victoria’s coronation was referred to as a ‘botched coronation’ as so many things went wrong, including an elderly peer falling down the stairs and a bishop announcing the ceremony was over when that was not the case.

Whether or not you decided to watch the coronation we hope you had a good bank holiday weekend!

You can read more about the coronation on the BBC

Interesting in reading about history, read about our War Poets Collections

Source of photo Benjamin Elliot 

Person dressed up as a ghost standing in a corridor

National Paranormal Day

03/05/2023 / / 0 Comments

National Paranormal Day

National Paranormal Day: May 3rd 2023

 

There are things out there and around us we cannot explain. Stranger than fact or fiction or known to science. An eerie feeling, an unexpected sound in an empty room or building. Something you swore you saw out of the corner of your eye but isn’t there anymore. Was it just your imagination having fun or is it something other people have experienced and seen too.

Ghost Stories

Unsettling vibes, a cold chill running down your spine as your mind begins to move into hyper drive. Stories of ghosts and hauntings both benign and not so, come to mind, when angry poltergeist spirts want you gone. You take the hint and walk away whilst trying to remain composed and thinking about something else, other than the last horror movie you’ve seen. Well guess what……Shhhhh, this is between me and you, Craiglockhart campus has its own paranormal secrets too, see Ghost Stories: A spooky tale of haunted Campuses by clicking on this link below:

Ghost Stories: A spooky tale of haunted Campuses – The Library Blog (napier.ac.uk)

Or share with us your own paranormal experiences in the comments box below, just for fun, if you dare…

—–

International Paranormal day, bringing together people who have experienced or are interested in strange unexplainable things. To share their stories and possibly shed light on how common these mysteries, we cannot quite explain through scientific or other means, are.

Read about our spooky campuses and paranormal encounters at Craiglockhart Campus

or celebrate the day with a ghost tour around Edinburgh through city of tours

photo source Florian Lidin

By Mo Almas

International Haiku Poetry Day

17/04/2023 / / 0 Comments

International Haiku Poetry Day

Some say it captures the ephemeral beauty of nature. Some believe it to be the essence of a keenly-perceived moment. Others describe it as the blank shape between thoughts. But there is no official definition of the Japanese poetry form of haiku. I prefer poet Robert Spiess’s description of a “breath-length poem” in which two objects are juxtaposed “in a now-moment of awareness”.

What is a Haiku?

Haiku is taught in the west as the “five-seven-five” structure, containing 5 syllables in the first line, 7 in the second and 5 in the third. However, this is now considered to be a misunderstanding of the Japanese “onji” or units of sound which don’t necessarily correlate with western syllables. There’s no hard-and-fast rule regarding the number of syllables required to form haiku, but I think we can all agree that a good haiku is small but perfectly-formed.

Haiku developed in the first millennium A.D., and in the 17th century it was perfected by the poet now considered to be the master of the form, Matsuo Basho. Since then its popularity has spread across the globe; so much so that there is now an international foundation dedicated to promoting this most precious of art forms and containing the largest online repository of English-language haiku in the world.

https://thehaikufoundation.org

Haiku and Scotland

Here in Edinburgh, we’re blessed in being the home location of the Scottish Poetry Library, the world’s leading resource for Scottish poetry.

Scottish Poetry Library

From their archives, you’ll find this haiku gem, by Scottish poet and author, Alan Spence:

that daft dog

                                                chasing the train

                                                then letting it go

April 17th is international haiku day. Why not have a go at writing one yourself? Or, if you prefer to enjoy the work of others, log into LibrarySearch and look up our many poetry collections. From the databases tab, you can access Literature Online. This fantastic resource includes a “poets on screen” library and a poetry archive audio collection.

Home Page – Literature Online – ProQuest

Happy haiku!

by Lesley McRobb

You can read about our celebration of World Poetry Day 

World Theatre Day

27/03/2023 / / 0 Comments

World Theatre Day 

Today is World Theatre Day, celebrated since 1961 by the International Theatre Institute (ITI), and then adopted by the International Theatre Community.

The day acknowledges the art forms contribution to society through its diversity, richness, and ability to foster social reflection and change. Its aim is to promote all forms of theatre across the world. The day encourages people from all walks of life to engage in theatre related activities such as performances, workshops and discussions.

Importance of Theatre Day

The importance of theatre by two famous writers are mentioned below:

The Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde said..

“I regard theatre as the greatest of all art forms. The most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being”

Shakespeare wrote in As You Like It (spoken by Jaques)

“All the world’s a stage.

And all the men and women merely players.

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts.”

You and Theatre

Just for fun:

What’s your favourite theatre performance and why?

What’s the last theatre performance you’ve seen ?

And you read all about threate, the plays, the theories and the methods over on LibrarySearch

Or perhaps you can watch, learn more about Box of Broadcasts from our previous blog post

By Mo Almas

photo source by Gwen King

Tiles spelling out March

25th March

25/03/2023 / / 0 Comments

25th March

With the weekend fast approaching are you lost with what to do? Well here are some fun things being celebrated on the 25th of march that may just inspire you…..

 

Tolkien Reading Day:

 

Head over to your local library and acquaint yourself with some of the works of the well know English writer, poet and translator, J.R.R.Tolkien. Or attend an event if ones being run in your area. If all else fails, you could always watch the epic film version of the books The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit. Just remember to do it either before or after Earth Hour.

Earth Hour 25th March:

Earth hour is organised by the WWF (World Wildlife Fund) and encourages individuals, communities, and business to switch off non-essential electric lights for just an hour, between 8:30pm to 9:30pm, as a symbol of commitment to the planet, and is held on the last Saturday of March.

 

Or maybe you’ll be tempted to try out one of the following food related celebrations taking place on March 25th:

  • International Waffle Day:
  • Pecan Day:
  • National Cheesestake day:

Either way have a super weekend.

Just for fun

Let us know if you decided to part take in any of these events.

 

Or enjoy the blog some more with our virtual bookshelves 

or if you choose this day for studying, remember our webpages 

by Mo Almas

World poetry day blog post image of a notepad with the word poetry written on it

World Poetry Day

21/03/2023 / / 0 Comments

World Poetry Day

21st March 2023

World Poetry Day celebrates a style of literature as old as language itself, spanning all cultures and continents. With stylistic forms and sub genre’s developing and evolving from generation to generation. Poetry has been used to highlight and express issues of the time, evoke an emotional response and inspire calls to action. To demonstrate the potency of words nonsensical poems such as the Jabberwocky have also been used in a light-hearted manner to portray humour.

It was for these reasons UNESCO (United Nations Education, Science, Cultural Organisation) decided at its 30th General Conference in Paris in 1999 to dedicate a day to all forms of poetry. Its purpose is to support

“….linguistic diversity through poetic expression and increasing the opportunity for endangered languages to be heard….  occasion to honour poets, revive oral traditions of poetry recitals, promote the reading, writing and teaching of poetry, foster the convergence between poetry and other arts such as theatre, dance, music and painting, and raise the visibility of poetry in the media. As poetry continues to bring people together across continents, all are invited to join in”.

If you think poetry is not for you then think again, because lyrics in songs use the same/similar techniques and styles as those used in poetry. Adding catchy rhythms, tempos, & melodies to enhance the impact and emotional states of the listener.

So, will you be doing something for World Poetry Day?

  • Perhaps visit your library and browse their poetry collection and see what appeals to you, or visit Literature Online to see what poetry works are available to listen to or read.

Just for Fun:

  • Who is your favourite Poet and why?
  • Do you have a favourite poem?
  • Do you have a favourite style of poem writing?

I’ll go first:

  • No
  • Tom Tantol’s version of John Clare’s poem I am, left a lasting impression on me. I still very much enjoy listening to the piece and the depth of meaning that is hidden within its words and delivery.  Check it out on YouTube here.
  • No

References

World Poetry Day | UNESCO

History of poetry – Wikipedia

By Mo Almas

Interested in The Poetry of the WW1 War Poets? Here at Edinburgh Napier University, we have a stunning collection of their works. Check out the webpage here: War Poets Collection, or read some of the amazing posts on our blog:

National Poetry Day 6th October

The War Poets Collection: Siegfried Sassoon and Dr Brock

Image by Image by cromaconceptovisual from Pixabay

Library’s Easter Egg Hunt

21/03/2023 / / 0 Comments

Library’s Easter Egg Hunt

Each library campus is hosting an Easter Egg Hunt, test your study skills and win a chocolate egg. Hurry while stocks last!

Study Skills with a Twist

It’s Study Skills time here at our campus libraries and we will be promoting it for the next two weeks. Assignments and eventually exams are coming up. And the library is here to help. Each campus library will have one of our signature book displays. But of course, you will be able to find more study skills books in our main stock and well-being collections. Books that cover a wide range of topics such as coping with exam stress, writing essays, writing dissertations and writing literature reviews. And of course, referencing guides. We also have a wide range selection for international students.

Study skills are important but we thought we might change things up this year, we thought how about we make it for fun. How about Easter Egg Hunt? That’s right we are giving you the opportunity to put your study skills to the test for your chance to win some chocolate goodies.

Easter Egg Hunt

You will find instructions and questions at the library catalogue machines at each campus library. (Additionally, you can ask for more information at the Library Help Desks)

Find the correct books on the question sheet, each book will have a token inside which you will need to bring to the Library Help Desk to claim your chocolate egg. You need to find all three tokens to claim your prize. Hurry while stocks last. And we wish you luck on your Easter Egg Hunt.

*one egg per person

You can practice using Library Search, don‘t forget to sign in https://napier.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=44NAP_INST:44NAP_ALMA_VU1

And you can find more study skills guides over at Academic skills

Additionally, you can look at our guide to beat exam stress https://blogs.napier.ac.uk/library/2022/12/09/preparing-for-exams/

Photo source:  Eric Heininger Unsplash 

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