University of AberdeenSpecial Interests

Collections & Resources

Printed Materials

The printed holdings of SLA consist of some 150,000 items. About one third of these were published prior to 1800. These include some 231 incunabula, over 4200 16th-century continental imprints, a similar number of early English and Scottish printed books, and larger numbers from the 17th and 18th centuries. These chronological groupings and their main thematic strengths are discussed elsewhere on this site. Main collections of printed books are also described in a web-mounted searchable database. Individual books can be located through the main computerised library catalogue

The historic core of the college libraries is broken down into the following chronological arrangement.

Incunabula

La Croix de Pardieu

La Croix de Pardieu. [Paris: Ulrich Gering and Bertold Rembolt, after 1500?]: Aberdeen SLA Inc. 200. The seven concentric circles of the title page, each divided into seven sections, set out the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer, the seven sacraments, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, and so on, collectively representing all the religious knowledge required of every person. The remainder of the little treatise expounds in equally elementary fashion ’Le A b c des Christiens’. This fascinating little work, which appears to be unique, raises several bibliographical problems, discussed in Mitchell, Catalogue of the Incunabula in Aberdeen University Library, no. 200.

The University’s collections currently include 231 incunabula (Inc. collection) - that is, books printed before 1501. Many of these volumes are associated with the earliest teachers and benefactors of King’s College, including William Elphinstone (1431-1514), Bishop of Aberdeen and founder of King’s; Hector Boece (c. 1465-1536), first Principal of King’s; John Vaus (c. 1484-c. 1539), first Humanist. The standard catalogue is William Smith Mitchell, Catalogue of the Incunabula in Aberdeen University Library (Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1968).

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Early printed books

Le diverse et artificiose machine

Agostino Ramelli (1531-c.1600), Le diverse et artificiose machine ... nellequali si contegno uarii et industriosi mouimenti, degni digrandissima speculatione, per cauarne beneficio infinito in ogni sorte d’operatione; composte in lingua Italiana et Francese (Paris: In casa del’autore, 1588): Aberdeen SLA pi f5328 Ram. One of numerous pumps and waterpowered machines from one of the most famous and sumptuously illustrated technological books published in the sixteenth century.

The second main division (pi collection) includes over 7200 early printed books. The largest portion of these (over 4200 books) are continental imprints between 1501 and 1600. The remainder are English imprints before 1640 and Scottish books before 1780. On the former, see H.J.H. Drummond, A Short-Title Catalogue of Books Printed on the Continent of Europe, 1501-1600, in Aberdeen University Library [Aberdeen University Studies 156] (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979).

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Later printed books

Dunkeld

George Taylor and Andrew Skinner, Taylor & Skinner’s survey and maps of the roads of North Britain or Scotland (London: Published for the authors as the act directs & sold by D. Wilson & G. Nicol, 1776): Aberdeen SLA SB 912(41) Tay 1. This illustration, from the earliest detailed Scottish road atlas, is one of a series of strips maps illustrating the road from Edinburgh to Inverness.

The third major chronological division (SB collection) of the historic core at the library contains around 28,500 books from the remainder of the early modern period and the first decades of the 19th century. The 1709 Copyright Act gave King’s College the right to claim a copy of every book registered at Stationers’ Hall, which contributed significantly to the depth of holdings until the right was relinquished in 1836.

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Local imprints

Prognostication

Prognostication for 1632... most artificially and truely calculated for the whole kingdome of Scotland. But most especially... for the latitude and meridiane of...Aberdene (Aberdene: Raban, 1632) SBL 1632 R 4 - a rare example of the work of Aberdeen’s first printer, Edward Raban (1579-1658).

These core holdings are substantially supplemented by a number of other specialised bibliographical collections, for instance the small but unique collections of local imprints (SBL Collection), bringing together 500 books, pamphlets and journals printed in Aberdeen, beginning with the city’s first known imprint in 1622 and ending in 1800.

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Later Benefactions

John Gregory (1724-73)

John Gregory (1724-73), MD (King’s College, 1746), FRS, Mediciner at King’s College, and later Professor of Medicine at Edinburgh University (1769-1773). An early ninteenth-century engraving by William Hall after the original in Marischal College, Aberdeen; published by Blackie & Son in Glasgow, Edinburgh and London.

A large number of these volumes stem from benefactions, large and small, to the college by alumni, faculty, and other mainly local figures such as William Elphinstone (1431-1514), Duncan Liddell (d.1613), and Thomas Reid (c. 1583-1624). Many later and still larger benefactions of whole libraries containing many early modern books, however, are still shelved together in the arrangement in which they were given to the colleges or entrusted to the university and not included in the pi or SB collections. These include the large personal libraries of figures like John Gregory (1724-73), Dr James Melvin (1795-1853), and Dr J. H. Biesenthal (1804-86), as well as a variety of institutional libraries. The extraordinary depth of provenance information contained in the books themselves and the archivalia which accompany them represents a still largely untapped mine of information for historians of books and libraries. A sense of the richness of these collections can be obtained by considering the thematic strengths of the University’s holdings.

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