John Stuart Mill, arguably the most important British philosopher of the 19th century, and principal architect of philosophical utilitarianism, was elected Rector of the University of St Andrews by its students,…
Special Collections was recently able to ‘bring home’ an exciting copy of the key Scottish legal text. The manuscript of Regiam Majestatem, written in Lowland Scots, dated 18 October 1548, and was owned by a St…
This is the third post in a weekly series highlighting images featuring at the upcoming St Andrews Photography Festival, 1 August – 11 September 2016 [https://www.facebook.com/StAndPhotoFest] Soviet Russia, 1989: a…
52 weeks of Reading the Collections has come to an end – thanks to everyone who contributed, read, and shared our posts over the past year! We’re ending the series with our traditional visual index: …
Life can be dangerous for a book. Someone might thoughtlessly pull it off a shelf by the top of its spine, bash its corners, ignore its aging leather, not to mention the cruel effects of time. With this in mind, some…
Back in June, we received our first Visiting Scholar for 2015 – Professor Kevin James of the University of Guelph. Since delivering a workshop based on his research on 11 June, Professor James has written up his…
At the end of July, John Jardine, University Bedellus, retired after 29 years’ service with the University. In that role as mace-bearer, almost the personification of the corporate identity of the institution, John was…
It’s summer time, the season of weddings, and so this week the focus is upon Brides Wedding Book by Elizabeth Hillier, a graduate of the University of St Andrews. I have to admit that I didn’t set out to read this book…
Back in April, we received an addition to the Ladislav Holy Collection – Ladislav Holy (1933–1997) was a Czech anthropologist and Africanist, who came to St Andrews in 1979 as Reader in Social Anthropology, eventually…
Are you a hoarder? A collector? Are your shelves filled with your favourite titles? Or maybe you have box filled with letters or photographs which you’ve gathered over time? Tell us about it! The Special Collections…