The Library's Shut! How Will You Manage?

Staff and students at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland will know that the building's closed until next Monday, 5th January.  

Assignments or presentations pending? What will you do?!

The Whittaker Library subscribes to loads of online information via the web. Visit our Library and IT website, or you'll find everything via Moodle and Mahara, if you prefer that route.  Any of the resources we subscribe to will require you to login first.  That usually means picking Royal Conservatoire of Scotland from a list of universities and colleges,then entering your usual RCS login.  (Naxos is different - you'll have been given the login details.)

Whittaker Library and IT website - click HERE.  Scroll down and pick Electronic Resources, or E-Journals.

We also have E-books - they're in the catalogue like any other book.  Here's the RCS Catalogue link:- 

http://capitadiscovery.co.uk/rcs/

We look forward to seeing our students and colleagues in the New Year.  Happy Hogmanay, everyone!

New Year's Eve: Whittaker's Retrospective

Backwards ...

Whittaker's stats continue to rise, so we must be doing something right!  (We use StatCounter, by the way.)  We've brought you news and views, celebrated achievement, engaged with social media, recommended websites and commemorated great names.  

Thank you to everyone who has visited us, in person or online, and we look forward to continuing to provide an excellent service to our performing arts practitioners in 2013.

	Year Page Loads Unique Visits First Time Visits Returning Visits 2012 11,217 8,087 7,174 913 2011 8,852 5,134 3,992 1,142

And forwards ...

8 January 2013, 11 am in Edinburgh's Usher Hall

There's nothing Whittaker likes more than seeing our alumni take wings and fly (professionally speaking, you understand - only pantomime leads should fly onstage!). So it is with pleasure that Whittaker notes a forthcoming concert of Sax Ecosse in the Usher Hall on 8 January 2013, as part of the Emerging Artists Series. It's at 11 am, so if you're in Edinburgh that day, why not take a bit of time out of your busy schedule to support our saxophone stars?

New Year's Resolutions - how are you doing?

What can we learn from ancient Scottish traditions about doing a PhD? 

KarenMcA continues the #NYE theme with a posting for The Thesis Whisperer (a research support website).

2012 Plans

New Year's Resolution: the last word

In the spirit of a New Year's Resolution, 'Whittaker' has devised a Grand Book Plan.  Just something for those out-of-hours moments ...

And started a new blog: True Imaginary Friends

On this day, 2nd January 1824

Poet and song-collector William Motherwell responded to his friend R. A. Smith's polite request for a preface, along these lines: yes, fair enough, but it'll take me a week to get over Hogmanay!

To all those staff and students just wearily psyching themselves up to some 'real' work on 2nd January 2012 - one can only imagine how Motherwell celebrated Hogmanay in 1824, if it was going to take a week to get over it!

And did he write the preface eventually?  Yes, after a fashion.  Smith and his committee of "ladies" drafted a preface for The Scotish Minstrel, and Motherwell rearranged it a bit.  Gee whizz!

• Whittaker Library at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland catalogue
• COPAC - union catalogue of university and national British and Irish libraries

Hogmanay: New Year and those New Year's Resolutions

Whittaker is looking for some innovative and feasible resolutions.  Not the 'I'll keep the place tidy and do my ironing daily' kind, please note!

1. Here's a good one to kick off with: Write every day.  Especially important if you've got a dissertation, project, thesis or book to get on with.  Or if you're a composer.  Lindsey Metcalf found this blogpost, Ten Ways to Write Every Day, by an American professor and author, Tanya Maria Golash-Boza.
2. Start exercising regularly.  Investigate the local authority's facilities, eg Glasgow Life, if your college doesn't have a gym.  (Beware: Googling 'start an exercise regime' isn't the most effective way to start - unless you're interested in media reports of celebrity workouts!)

Hogmanay (and Auld Lang Syne)

Auld Lang Syne

Robert Burns can't have realised what he was starting when he wrote 'Should auld acquaintance be forgot' (Auld Lang Syne).

But do you realise just how much has been written about it?!  Staff and students of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (and indeed, anyone with a current university connection) can look it up on JSTOR.  The database indexes thousands of scholarly journals, and gives you abstracts summarising content.  Hours of innocent amusement (if you look up Auld Lang Syne), or worthwhile study at other times of year!

You'll need to login to use it.

• And here's a FREE resource: the World Digital Library.  You can find the original words by Robert Burns here, but you'll have to search cannily.  Search on Auld Langsyne (two words, not three!).  Here's the direct link if you're in a hurry.
• 'Whittaker' dislikes the modern English translation for which Classic FM has just tweeted the link!  Oh, please!
• Evidence that 'Auld Lang Syne' still resonates today?  No less than the Wall Street Journal had a piece by Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, 'Visiting an Auld Acquaintance', earlier this week (27 December).  There's an Auld Lang Syne exhibition in New York until 2nd February 2012.

Should new-found weblinks be forgot?

If you like a link, why not save it to your social bookmarking Diigo account?  Find it anywhere, whatever online device you're using.