The Creative Power of Books

We love books here at Museums and Special Collections! And we love sharing the creative power of books with the world. Here you can find flash fiction stories, collection highlights and activities for all ages!

Flash Fiction

In 2020 and 2021 we ran flash fiction competitions, where we encouraged applicants to write a story in under 100 words. Here you can find the winning entries!

2021 Adults entries

Write a micro story in 100 words about 'An Unusual Party'.

2021 Young Adult and Children entries

Write a micro story in 100 words about 'An Unusual Party'.

2020 Young Adult/Adult entries

We challenged you to write a message from your future self in 100 words. Dip into this wonderful selection of entries in our Adult and Young Adult categories.

2020 Children entries

What might our world be like in 10/100/1000,000 years time? We challenged young writers to create a tiny story in 100 words. Dip into this wonderful selection of entries in our Children's category (8-11yrs).

A Book-a-Day from Museums and Special Collections

For Book Week Scotland we shared a book for each day of the festival, here they are!

Fore-edge painting

Did you know that some books have artworks painted onto the fore-edge block that can only be seen when the edges of the book are slightly fanned out? The painting is hidden when the book is closed.

What a waste

Remember covering your school textbooks with scraps of wrapping paper? Well, here are some 16th century versions. These belonged to Scottish mathematician and physician, Duncan Liddel (1561 - 1613).

Judge a book by its cover

Get down to a second-hand bookshop if you want to own a well-designed piece of art! In the 19th century, publishers realised the look of their publications was important. Here's one of our favourites!

Audubon - a big book of birds

Aberdeen University owns the second volume of the four-volume set of The Birds of America, considered to be the greatest work ever produced on North American Ornithology. It's BIG!

Parts of a book

The term 'furniture' is used to describe the clasps and bosses that adorn many early books. Their function is to strengthen the binding and protect the cover. This book belonged to Bishop Elphinstone.

Make your own herbarium

Have a go at creating a Herbarium! OK, so you've got a long way to go to match the 120,000 specimens of the University's herbarium but it's great fund and you can get creative.

This is the end

The function of endpapers were to protect the text from the boards and to counteract the pull of the cover on the boards.