Event Archive

Evening Lecture in association with University of Aberdeen Museums and Society of Antiquaries of Scotland

Free Family Workshop

This Stacks Alive event celebrates four research projects conducted by Aberdeen's research community. Each was completed through an award from the Aberdeen Humanities Fund, which supports research on aspects of the University's collections through the generosity of external donors to the Fund. Our four presenters will highlight some of the...

As part of its bookbindings exhibition, Cover Stories, the Special Collections Centre at the University of Aberdeen will be hosting a series of five talks that focus on some of the individuals behind the bindings - those who owned the books, commissioned or designed their covers.

Evening lecture in association with University of Aberdeen Museums and Society of Antiquaries of Scotland

Evening Lecture in association with University of Aberdeen Museums and Society of Antiquaries of Scotland

Evening Lecture by University of Aberdeen Museums

King's College Archive Project - A tale of the devoted, distinguished and sometimes disreputable scholars of the King's College of Aberdeen.

Migrants and adventurers from Mexico to Paraguay

Evening Lecture in association with University of Aberdeen Museums and Society of Antiquaries of Scotland

Don't miss a fascinating and entertaining talk by Martin Frost on the book art known as fore-edge painting on Saturday 26th November, 4-5pm in the Special Collections Seminar Room in The Sir Duncan Rice Library.

Get up close and personal with the treasures of the Special Collections Centre.

Develop your creative writing skills with this free workshop on writing Gothic fiction

Aberdeen University Library is rich in Gothic literature, from classics by Clara Reeve and Mary Shelley to M. R. James's celebrated ghost stories. This illustrated lecture examines how this came to be so, alongside consideration as to what 'Gothic' actually means, before discussing one of the best-known of James's spine-chillers.

Learn some elementary bookbinding skills and discover the historic rare book bindings in the Special Collections

Evening Lecture in association with University of Aberdeen Museums and Society of Antiquaries of Scotland

A book cover can tell its own story. During the early history of book production, the manner in which a book was bound was unique. Each hand-crafted binding reveals information about the individuals who owned books, their social status, professions and how they valued the texts within. The type of...

Evening lecture in association with University of Aberdeen Museums

Exhibition in MacRobert ArtSpace

The new Aberdeen Bestiary website, with images of startling clarity, prompts a new enquiry into the source of the manuscript. Can tiny clues within the book point towards its place of production? Why suggest Bridlington Priory? The lecture examines shreds of evidence within the manuscript, and the overwhelming interest in...

This event was cancelled

We regret that this event is cancelled. Free, fun-filled afternoon of art and poetry activities for children and their adults

Film Screening

This event was cancelled

Free, fun-filled afternoon of craft and exploration for children and their adults

Evening lecture in association with University of Aberdeen Museums and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland

Scotstyle 19 Sept - 30 Sept 2016 The Scotstyle pop-up exhibition celebrates the top 100 buildings from 1916 to 2015, chosen by the Scottish public. This Scotland-wide tour showcases the best of Scotland's architecture, both historic and recent. The selection of the 100 buildings was made by public nomination, informed by an...

Best of the Best: Scotland's Award-Winning Buildings, Places and Communities  19 Sept - 30 Sept 2016 Running alongside the Scotstyle exhibition is a touring display that showcases more of Scotland's award-winning architecture. The Best of the Best features 132 projects from the past five years - including The Sir Duncan Rice Library....

A Catechism of the Laws of Storms John Burnside & Will Maclean 15 Sept - 4 Dec 2016 Visitors to the Event Space on the ground floor of The Sir Duncan Rice Library can see an evocative exhibition of prints featuring 12 Poems by John Burnside with accompanying illustrations by Will Maclean.

Free, drop-in session for families linking in to the exhibition An Audience with Charles Dickens. Suitable for children but all welcome.

As part of the HUMBUG event, Dr Paul Schlicke will be giving a talk about Charles Dickens's first publication, 'Sketches by Boz'. The talk will be preceded by a showing of Michael Steele's short film 'Novel Performances by Dickens' about Dickens's reading tours and his appearances at Aberdeen Music Hall. 6.30pm...

A preposterous evening of fun for all ages inspired by some of Charles Dickens's most colourful characters.

A new student-curated exhibition that explores the local heritage of North East Scotland through Lewis Grassic Gibbon's novel 'Sunset Song'

This event was fully booked

Join us for a fun hour of LIVE Dickens with Dr Tim Tricker and Martin Malone who will be reading extracts from two of the writer's favourite performance pieces. The readings are part of a programme of talks and events to accompany the Special Collections Centre's exhibition 'An Audience with Charles...

Understanding what gives illuminated manuscripts their vibrant colours gives an insight into the technology of book manufacture. The challenge is analysing the pigments on the page without damage or even touching the manuscripts.

Annual family Night at the Museums event with the theme of Animal Armoury

Visiting scholar, Dr Jane McDermid, presents a snapshot of evenings out in Victorian Aberdeen.

Free, drop-in craft session. Suitable for children aged 3-12 but all welcome.

Free, drop-in craft session. Suitable for children aged 3-12 but all welcome.

Please note that roadworks are scheduled to take place on St Machar Drive / Bedford Road on Thursday 24th March. Please take time to plan your journey. Did you know that Charles Dickens visited Aberdeen twice to give public readings of his works; that he was invited to stand as rector...

A programme of talks and events to accompany the Special Collections Centre's exhibition, 'An Audience with Charles Dickens'.

Join us for an evening filled with Ice, Fire and Scientific Enquiry.

Part of the museum's evening lectures series, in association with Society of Antiquaries of Scotland

Suitable for families with children aged 3-10 years but all welcome.

From March 2016, the Gallery in the Sir Duncan Rice Library is presenting a real first for the University of Aberdeen - 15 firsts in fact! The Special Collections Centre has a unique collection of all 15 first editions of the novels of Charles Dickens - many of them collected...

Join Fiona Musk to find out more about the historic records of NHS Grampian from the founding of Aberdeen Infirmary in 1739 through to the development of health care provision across the North East of Scotland.

An exhibition by Westpark Primary School exploring the life and experiences of a Peterhead whaler.

Nineteenth century architectural thinkers took for granted that there was a relation between the materials of which buildings were built and the locality in which they stood. In the twentieth century, that relationship was dissolved by the development of supposedly 'universal' materials - steel, concrete, plasterboard - but no new...

Join us for a fun-filled evening of crafts and storytelling for all ages as part of Winter Night at the Museums.

This event was cancelled

Roger Taylor, the internationally renowned historian of mid-19th century British photography, joins independent documentary and fine art photographer John Perivolaris in an informal discussion about George Washington Wilson and contemporary photographic views of the city.

"More to the world than Aberdeen and twal mile roon": highlights from the nineteenth century collections of Sir William MacGregor

Join Professor Ed Welch, Director of the Washington Wilson Centre for Visual Culture in conversation with Pete Stollery, Professor of Music, who produced the soundscape for the 'City of Ghosts' exhibition. They will discuss the collaboration behind the exhibition, their work on visual and sonic representations of cities, and what...

Part of the series of talks and events accompanying the 'City of Ghosts' exhibition.

Get up close and personal with the treasures of the Special Collections Centre.

Free creative writing workshop for writers of all experience

Part of the series of talks and events accompanying the 'City of Ghosts' exhibition.

Following the 97th anniversary of Armistice Day, this talk will look beyond the valorising language of war memorials and, drawing on the stories of servicemen and women from Aberdeen, showing the city's WWI experience to be not only diverse, but subject to constant change and revision, from pre-war years to...

This event was cancelled

Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances, this week's Family Fun event has been cancelled.

A new suite of photographs that pay homage to George Washington Wilson and the city he depicted.

Find out about the fascinating history of Bennachie on Wednesday 14th October.

Family Fun at the Library. Suitable for families with children aged 3-10 but all welcome

70 years after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, The Gallery in the Sir Duncan Rice Library will be showing an experimental observational film by Professor Alan Marcus that reflects on those momentous events from the perspective of life in the city today.

An examination of the life of Archibald Forbes whom many regarded as the greatest war correspondent of the nineteenth century and who defined the role and became a model for the modern war correspondent.

To round off the 'Germans in Britain' exhibition, there will be two German-themed talks in the Event Space of the Sir Duncan Rice Library on Wednesday 23rd September, 1-2pm. Professor Karin Friedrich will be presenting an overview of the long history of German-British contacts at Aberdeen, a city closely connected for...

Explore the rich and fascinating history of German migrants to Britain in this pop-up exhibition from the Migration Museum.

Join us for fun-filled art, craft and discovery sessions, exploring aspects of our current exhibition The Far North.

Join us for fun-filled art, craft and discovery sessions, exploring aspects of our current exhibition The Far North.

Join us for fun-filled art, craft and discovery sessions, exploring aspects of our current exhibition The Far North.

Museum objects often conjure up images of southerners' heroic exploits and their unique encounters with 'ancient' people living in a frozen landscape. This talk critically examines southern stereotypes of the Canadian Arctic and its people by exploring the dynamic nature of contemporary Inuit identity across art, language, and hunting.

This talk is based on Dr Wachowich's recent anthropological fieldwork in an Inuit community, Mittimatalik, (Pond Inlet), in Canada's Eastern High Arctic.

What happened when polar explorers took to the skies in the 1920s? Dr Marionne Cronin discusses how the Far North was re-imagined in the age of aerial exploration and how the resulting images continue to influence contemporary debates about the region.

Get up close and personal with the treasures of the Special Collections Centre.

Suitable for families with children aged 3-10 years but all welcome.

On the occasion of The Far North exhibition at the Sir Duncan Rice Library, join us for Reinhard Behrens' illustrated and lively talk about his 40-year-old artistic concept of Naboland that features a toy submarine, penguins, Orientalist camels, Viking adventures and an excursion through Flemish art history on the way...

An evening talk by Douglas Richardson, Head of Living Collections at the Highland Wildlife Park.

How do the fascinating and diverse plant communities of Svalbard, in the high Arctic, respond to a changing environment - and how in turn do tundra plants influence environmental change?

This event was fully booked

In this curators talk, Professor Peter Davidson and Sophie Dietrich will give an introduction to the history and ideas behind the Far North exhibition.

Fun-filled craft and discovery session. Suitable for families with children aged 3-10 but all welcome.

Fun-filled craft, movement and discovery session. Suitable for families with children aged 3-10 years but all welcome.

Our new exhibition explores the idea of the The Far North through contemporary art and music, historical artefacts and written words.

Dr O'Leary considers how Anglo-Saxon became part of the University's curriculum and how it helped to shape the University's wider programme of study in the Arts.

Join Ian Forbes for a fascinating talk on the Scottish art and artefacts held at Blairs Museum at Maryculter.

PLEASE NOTE CHANGE OF DATE Thursday 26th February A talk by Professor Jane Stevenson, Regius Chair of Humanity.

Family Fun at the Library. Suitable for families with children aged 3-10 years but all welcome.

Thomas Hood's 'The Progress of Cant' and the Art of Advertising in the 1820s

Join us for a series of poetry readings of historic and new works inspired by Aberdeen, its surrounds and its extensive collection of public records and library holdings.

Explore musical culture in the time of Bishop Elphinstone.

An exhibition exploring the origins of the northern Picts, showing some ancient treasures and new discoveries.

The second annual Montague Rhodes James Memorial Lecture will be delivered by Professor Francis Newton of Duke University.

Join us for a hands-on activity session at the state-of-the-art Glucksman Conservation Centre.

Join us for a hands-on activity session at the state-of-the-art Glucksman Conservation Centre.

Challenge your baking abilities and enter the Bestiary Bake Off.

Teen Book Quiz for Book Week Scotland 2014.

Get up close and personal with the treasures of the Special Collections Centre. Featuring tiny books including 17th century thumb bibles and a miniature book by the famous Scottish calligrapher and miniaturist Esther Inglis.

Come to the Special Collections Centre for an evening of bookbinding.

Get up close and personal with the treasures of the Special Collections Centre. Featuring the Hortus sanitatis or "Garden of Health", an illustrated medieval manuscript of 1491.

Get up close and personal with the treasures of the Special Collections Centre. Featuring John James Audubon's classic "The Birds of America from Original Drawings" vol. 2, of 1831-1834.

An exhibition by Westpark Primary School P7

In 2013, Dr Knox identified a rare bird's egg in the University's Zoology collections

A public talk by Professor Peter Davidson

Big Draw Family Fun at the Library

Big Draw Family Fun at the Library