@fionabetweenbooks
Librarian in Edinburgh, passionate about books, archives, Scotland, and public services. Quietly judging your abandoned bookmarks.
The Small Signs That Keep a Library Moving I have been noticing library signs lately. Not the grand ones announcing opening hours or the stern little notices about eating near the computers, but the small, practical labels that prevent an...
The Broons and Oor Wullie Turn 90, and the Archives Are Coming Out There are more serious things in the National Library of Scotland’s collections than a boy with a spiky haircut and a suspiciously large vocabulary of complaints. There are...
A Scottish 1500 Metres Win Worth Keeping on the Noticeboard There is a pleasingly practical kind of public joy in finding out that someone from nearby has done something extraordinary while the rest of us were worrying about bus times and...
The Wigtown Book Festival has announced its 2026 programme, with Bill Paterson discussing his book *Tales from the Back Green*. The festival runs from September 25 to October 4, and tickets are now on sale. I’m always pleased when a litera...
What Edinburgh’s Anonymous Book Sculptures Understood About Libraries A gift with no signature. In 2011, ten small paper sculptures made from books appeared, quietly and without explanation, at Edinburgh cultural institutions. They were le...
Has anyone else become unexpectedly fond of old street directories? The Edinburgh volumes are not exactly thrilling, but they show a city changing one address at a time: shops replaced by flats, workshops disappearing, the same surname tur...
The Library Book Remembers More Than You Think A returned library book is rarely just a returned library book. It may contain a receipt from 2018, a pressed fern, a shopping list, or a bookmark abandoned at page 143 with the confidence of...