Abbotsford Advisory Committee
The joint Abbotsford Advisory Committee has taken the following initiatives aimed at improving access to Scott's library:
• A stock check of library holdings in 1998, the first for many years
• The publication of Reliquiae Trotcosienses, one of the two major unpublished Scott manuscripts in the library at Abbotsford, by (now) Professor Gerard Carruthers (University of Glasgow) and (now) Professor Alison Lumsden (University of Aberdeen), members of the advisory committee. Published by Edinburgh University Press in 2004, this is Scott's humorous, semi-fictional guide to the building of his library
• The transcription of Sylva Abbotsfordiensis, Scott's 11,000-word notebook detailing his planting of the Abbotsford estate, by Carruthers and Lumsden
• The publication of Robert Burns The Fornicators Court, introduced by Gerard Carruthers and Pauline Gray of the Centre for Robert Burns Studies at the University of Glasgow, in 2009
• An analysis of Scott's holdings of chapbooks, broadsides and popular tracts by a team from Glasgow and Aberdeen universities which revealed around 6000 works ranging from songs, witch trials and confessions as well as political and religious squibs; a huge amount of popular material comprising a fascinating range of historical social commentary
• With funding from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, the digital imaging of Scott's annotations to his books, by Dr Megan Coyer of the University of Glasgow. These annotations are linked to the online catalogue records for the books so are available by searching the catalogue of the Advocates Library
• The priority has been to provide an online catalogue for the Abbotsford library. This has been funded largely by the Faculty of Advocates with significant assistance from the Carnegie Trust. Lindsay Levy was employed to catalogue the Abbotsford books to the highest international standards for rare books. This project was completed in summer 2013.
• Individual catalogue records for the chapbooks held in the Abbotsford library have been added as a first step in discovering more about Scott’s collection of popular culture.
Abbotsford library items can be found on the Advocates Library catalogue. To limit your search to retrieve only Abbotsford items, set limits for location to Abbotsford Collection prior to searching.