Voices of Scottish Librarians
Voices of Scottish Librarians. The evolution of a profession and its response to changing times, compiled by Ian MacDougall and edited by Alan Reid and David Fletcher. Published in 2017, in association with John Donald, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd.
Conducted in the 1990's by the social and labour historian Dr Ian MacDougall, these conversations record the experiences of 14 individuals working in the public library sector across Scotland over the preceding 60 years. The publication includes an introductory essay from Professor Peter Reid, Professor of Librarianship at Robert Gordon University, on the history and cultural impact of the public library service in Scotland in the 20th century.www.birlinn.co.uk/Voices-of-Scottish-Librarians.html
Conducted in the 1990's by the social and labour historian Dr Ian MacDougall, these conversations record the experiences of 14 individuals working in the public library sector across Scotland over the preceding 60 years. The publication includes an introductory essay from Professor Peter Reid, Professor of Librarianship at Robert Gordon University, on the history and cultural impact of the public library service in Scotland in the 20th century.www.birlinn.co.uk/Voices-of-Scottish-Librarians.html
Journalistic Recollections
Voices of Scottlsh Journalists, personal recollections by Scottish Journalists, compiled and edited by the Trust’s research worker, Dr Ian MacDougal, was co-published with Birlinn Ltd in November 2013 and is available in print and in e-book format for £25 direct from Birlinn.
Twenty-two journalists from throughout Scotland were interviewed, including four women: the earliest started work in 1930 on the Perthshire Constitutional and together their recollections cover most of the twentieth century. Among the papers where the journalists worked are dailies such the Scotsman, the Glasgow Herald, the Aberdeen Press and Journal, the Dundee Courier, the Times, the Guardian, the Daily Express, the Scottish Daily Mail, the Daily Record, the Daily Herald and the Daily Worker. The Sundays represented were the Sunday Express, the Sunday Post, the Sunday Mail and the Sunday Sun, and local weekly papers from the John O’Groat Journal to the Dumfries and Galloway Standard. There are descriptions of what it was like to work on such papers as well as on hours, wages, working conditions, colleagues and on various events, garnished with amusing anecdoteswww.birlinn.co.uk/Voices-of-Scottish-Journalists.html
Twenty-two journalists from throughout Scotland were interviewed, including four women: the earliest started work in 1930 on the Perthshire Constitutional and together their recollections cover most of the twentieth century. Among the papers where the journalists worked are dailies such the Scotsman, the Glasgow Herald, the Aberdeen Press and Journal, the Dundee Courier, the Times, the Guardian, the Daily Express, the Scottish Daily Mail, the Daily Record, the Daily Herald and the Daily Worker. The Sundays represented were the Sunday Express, the Sunday Post, the Sunday Mail and the Sunday Sun, and local weekly papers from the John O’Groat Journal to the Dumfries and Galloway Standard. There are descriptions of what it was like to work on such papers as well as on hours, wages, working conditions, colleagues and on various events, garnished with amusing anecdoteswww.birlinn.co.uk/Voices-of-Scottish-Journalists.html
Bondagers
Bondagers (Tuckwell Press, 2001) presented the recollections of eight women who had worked as bondagers on the farms of south-east Scotland. It has quickly sold out but it is hoped that a reprint will become available before long.
Oh! Ye had to be careful
Oh! Ye had to be careful (Tuckwell Press, 2000) is the edited recollections of eleven veteran workers employed between the 1930s and the 1950s at the former Roslin gunpowder mill and bomb factory in Midlothian, which had flourished for 150 years before its closure in 1954.
Onion Johnnies
Onion Johnnies (Tuckwell Press, 2002) contains the recollections of nine French Onion Johnnies (one of them a woman) who worked in Scotland.
Voices of Leith Dockers
Voices of Leith Dockers: Personal Recollections of Working Lives was published for the Trust by Mercat Press in 2001. It consists of edited interviews with seven veterans.
A reviewer in the journal Contemporary British History wrote,"Historians should be grateful for projects that preserve the past in this way. But this book deserves a wider audience, for it depicts the world of hard manual labour, practical skills, closed shops and tough but hard-won trade-union power. It is a world that we have lost but should not forget if we want to understand the regional and class divisions that continue to fracture British society."
Miners' Association Minutes 1894-1918
Mid and East Lothian Miners' Association Minutes, 1894-1918 were published by the Trust in 2004 in association with the Scottish History Society. They are among the earliest known surviving minutes of any miners' union in Scotland and the first of any trade union to be published in full.
Lewis in the Passing
Calum Ferguson's Lewis in the Passing: Twentieth Century Autobiographical Sketches was published by Birlinn in 2007. After retiring from a distinguished career as a teacher and then with the BBC. Calum Ferguson, between 1989 and 2003, conducted interviews with twenty-one people who have spent most of their lives on Lewis, all born before the second world war. Some of the interviews were in Gaelic for which there are parallel translations.
