Books and Borrowing 1750-1830: An Analysis of Scottish Borrowers' Registers

该项目揭示并重新诠释了1750年至1830年期间苏格兰的阅读历史。我们将利用以前未被充分利用的各种图书馆借阅者的记录，进行前沿研究，创造一个有价值的新资源，揭示图书使用、知识传播和参与文化的隐藏历史。尽管人们对阅读的历史进行了近四十年的深入研究，但我们对过去的阅读仍然知之甚少。我们的知识往往有精英和男性的偏见，并且严重偏重于英格兰的大都市中心。这并不奇怪，因为直到最近，保存完好的名人记录比更广泛、更复杂的资料要容易得多。我们的项目将利用苏格兰独特丰富的手稿记录，考虑到它们的当地背景和更广泛的影响，纠正这些偏见。尽管借书并不一定等同于读书，但书籍流通的证据仍然是了解一个民族阅读生活的关键。我们将从13个苏格兰图书馆的历史借阅记录中收集至少15万份借阅记录，这些图书馆覆盖了各省和大都市中心的广泛地理范围。我们将包括劳动阶级、妇女、专业人员、学生、学者和工匠使用的图书馆的信息。我们将转录、整理并通过一个广泛的开放访问数据库提供数据，并分析和解释记录，以测试收到的关于18世纪和19世纪早期文化的描述。以前从未尝试过对这种规模的记录进行定量和定性分析，我们的研究将使我们能够确认或重新考虑关于阅读和苏格兰身份的假设，这些假设目前依赖于轶事证据或小型案例研究。来自试点项目（Innerpeffray图书馆、格拉斯哥和圣安德鲁斯大学图书馆）的证据表明，新的数据可能会让我们对两个重要的历史和文学运动——苏格兰启蒙运动和浪漫主义——有不同的看法。我们的工作假设是，对我们数据库中大量材料的分析将极大地挑战主流观点，即哪些文本在我们这个时期最有影响力，以及苏格兰启蒙运动主要是科学的、世俗的和大都会的观念。同样，试点项目表明，目前主导浪漫主义学术的诗人的作品在那个时期很少被借用，对苏格兰知识分子文化民主本质的描述被大大夸大了。通过考虑实际流传的文本和实际借用它们的人，我们的目标是提供具体的证据，让学者们可以开始提出新的、更准确的主张。该项目将由Katie Halsey （Stirling； PI）和Matthew Sangster （Glasgow； CI）领导，前者在阅读史和图书馆史方面的专业知识是项目成功的关键，后者将为该项目带来浪漫主义方面的额外专业知识，并与历史借款者登记工作。PI和CI将与三名博士后研究人员和国际顾问委员会合作，与阿伯丁大学图书馆，倡导者图书馆，邓弗里斯和加洛韦档案馆，爱丁堡大学图书馆，格拉斯哥大学档案馆和特别收藏，高生活高地，Innerpeffray图书馆，柯克沃尔图书馆，约翰·格雷中心，利德希尔遗产信托基金，莱顿图书馆，苏格兰国家图书馆和圣安德鲁斯大学图书馆合作。通过密集的数据创建、创新的学术出版物和雄心勃勃的公共活动计划，该项目将从根本上扩展我们对阅读史和思想史的理解。

This project uncovers and reinterprets the history of reading in Scotland in the period 1750 to 1830. Using formerly underexplored records of a diverse range of library borrowers, we will undertake cutting-edge research and create a valuable new resource that will reveal hidden histories of book use, knowledge dissemination and participation in literate culture.Despite nearly forty years of intensive research into the history of reading, we still know surprisingly little about reading in the past. Our knowledge tends to have an elite and masculine bias, and to be heavily weighted towards England's metropolitan centres. This is unsurprising, since until relatively recently, the well-preserved records of famous people have been far easier to exploit than more wide-ranging and complex sources. Our project will correct these biases using Scotland's uniquely rich manuscript records, considering their local contexts and their wider implications.Although the borrowing of books does not necessarily equate to the reading of books, evidence of book circulation is nevertheless key to understanding the reading life of a nation. We will collect together at least 150,000 records of book borrowing from historic borrowers' registers from 13 Scottish libraries covering a wide geographical range of provincial localities and metropolitan centres. We will include information from libraries used by the labouring classes, women, professionals, students, scholars and artisans. We will transcribe, organise and make available data through an extensive open-access database, and analyse and interpret records to test received accounts of eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century culture. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of such records on this scale has never previously been attempted, and our research will allow us to confirm or reconsider hypotheses about reading and Scottish identity that currently rest on either anecdotal evidence or small case studies.Evidence from pilot projects (on Innerpeffray Library and Glasgow and St Andrews University Libraries) suggests new data may lead us to think differently about two important historical and literary movements: the Scottish Enlightenment and Romanticism. Our working hypothesis is that analysis of the substantial corpus of material in our database will significantly challenge prevailing ideas regarding which texts were most influential in our period, as well as notions of the Scottish Enlightenment as predominantly scientific, secular and metropolitan. Similarly, pilot projects suggest that the works by poets that currently dominate Romantic scholarship were very little borrowed in the period, and that accounts of the democratic nature of Scotland's intellectual culture have been substantially exaggerated. By considering the texts that were actually circulating and the people who actually borrowed them, we aim to provide concrete evidence from which scholars can begin to make new and more accurate claims.The project will be led by Katie Halsey (Stirling; PI), whose expertise in the history of reading and library history is key to the project's success and Matthew Sangster (Glasgow; CI), who will bring additional expertise in Romanticism and working with historic borrowers' registers to the project. The PI and CI will work with three postdoctoral researchers and an international advisory board, in collaboration with Aberdeen University Library, the Advocates' Library, Dumfries and Galloway Archives, Edinburgh University Library, Glasgow University Archives and Special Collections, High Life Highland, Innerpeffray Library, Kirkwall Library, John Gray Centre, Leadhills Heritage Trust, the Leighton Library, the National Library of Scotland and St Andrews University Library. Through intensive data creation, innovative academic publications and an ambitious public events programme, this project will work to radically expand our understanding of the history of reading and the history of ideas.