The book-hunter in London: historical and other studies of collectors and collecting.

Mode of access: Internet.

A guide to collectors. 3,500 illustrations. English furniture, decoration, woodwork & allied arts during the last half of the seventeenth century, the whole of the eighteenth century, and the earlier part of the nineteenth,

Mode of access: Internet.

Art, sex, and institutions: defining, collecting, and displaying Shunga

In Edo-Japan (c.1603 – 1868) shunga, sexually explicit prints, paintings and illustrated books, were widely produced and disseminated. However, from the 1850s onwards, shunga was suppressed by the government and it has largely been omitted from art history, excluded from exhibitions and censored in publications. Although changes have taken place, cultural institutions continue to be cautious about what they collect and exhibit, with shunga largely remaining a prohibited subject in Japan. Since the 1970s there has been a gradual increase in the acceptance of shunga outside Japan, as evidenced in the growing number of exhibitions and publications. The initial impetus behind this thesis was: Why and how did shunga become increasingly acceptable in Europe and North America in the twentieth century, whilst conversely becoming unacceptable in post-Edo Japan? I discuss how and why attitudes to shunga in the UK and Japan have changed from the Edo period to the present day, and consider how definitions can affect this. My research examines how shunga has been dealt with in relation to private and institutional collecting and exhibitions. In order to gauge modern responses, the 2013 Shunga: Sex and Pleasure in Japanese Art exhibition at the British Museum is used as an in-depth study – utilising mixed methods and an interdisciplinary approach to analyse curatorial and legal decisions, as well as visitor feedback. To-date there are no official or standardised guidelines for the acquisition, cataloguing, or display of sexually explicit artefacts. It is intended that institutions will benefit from my analysis of the changing perceptions of shunga and of previous shunga collections and exhibitions when dealing with shunga or other sexually explicit items in the future.

Handle with care: historical geographies and difficult cultural legacies of egg-collecting

This thesis offers an examination of egg-collecting, which was a very popular pastime in Britain from the Victorian era well into the twentieth century. Collectors, both young and old, would often spend whole days and sometimes longer trips in a wide variety of different habitats, from sea shores to moorlands, wetlands to craggy mountainsides, searching for birds’ nests and the bounty to be found within them. Once collectors had found and taken eggs, they emptied out the contents; hence, they were really eggshell collectors. Some egg collectors claimed that egg-collecting was not just a hobby but a science, going by the name of oology, and seeking to establish oology as a recognised sub-discipline of ornithology, these collectors or oologists established formal institutions such as associations and societies, attended meetings where they exhibited unusual finds, and also contributed to specialist publications dedicated to oology. Egg-collecting was therefore many things at once: a culture of the British countryside, from where many eggs were taken; a culture of natural history, taking on the trappings of a science; and a culture of enthusiasm, providing a consuming passion for many collectors. By the early twentieth century, however, opposing voices were increasingly being raised, by conservation groups and other observers, about the impact that egg-collecting was having on bird populations and on the welfare of individual birds. By mid-century the tide had turned against the collectors, and egg-collecting in Britain was largely outlawed in 1954, with further restrictions imposed in 1981. While many egg collections have been lost or destroyed, some have been donated to museums, including Glasgow Museums (GM), which holds in its collections over 30,000 eggs. As a Collaborative Doctoral Award involving the University of Glasgow and GM, the project outlined in this thesis aims to bring to light and to life these egg collections, the activities of the collectors who originally built them, and the wider world of British egg-collecting. By researching archival material held by Glasgow Museums, published specialist egg-collecting journals and other published sources, as well as the eggs as a material archive, this thesis seeks to recover some of the practices and preoccupations of egg collectors. It also recounts the practical activities carried out during the course of the project at GM, particularly those involving a collection of eggs newly donated to the museum during the course of this project, culminating in a new temporary display of birds’ eggs at Glasgow Museums Resource Centre.

Hunting and gathering : new imperatives in mapping and collecting student learning data to assure quality outcomes

Assurance of learning (AOL) is a quality enhancement and quality assurance process used in higher education. It involves a process of determining programme learning outcomes and standards, and systematically gathering evidence to measure students' performance on these. The systematic assessment of whole-of-programme outcomes provides a basis for curriculum development and management, continuous improvement, and accreditation. To better understand how AOL processes operate, a national study of university practices across one discipline area, business and management, was undertaken. To solicit data on AOL practice, interviews were undertaken with a sample of business school representatives (n = 25). Two key processes emerged: (1) mapping of graduate attributes and (2) collection of assurance data. External drivers such as professional accreditation and government legislation were the primary reasons for undertaking AOL outcomes but intrinsic motivators in relation to continuous improvement were also evident. The facilitation of academic commitment was achieved through an embedded approach to AOL by the majority of universities in the study. A sustainable and inclusive process of AOL was seen to support wider stakeholder engagement in the development of higher education learning outcomes.

In search of Cork's collecting traditions: from Kilcrea's Library to the Boole Library of today

The objective of this essay is not a description of the presently unresearched, unstated and unquantified tradition of collectors, collecting and collectables in Cork; it is rather one of signposting what survives in terms of influences which coalesced into what became the bibliographical and museological resources of the Queen's College and ultimately University College, Cork (UCC).

Early rooting in Rosemary's (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) cuttings under the influence of chemical treatments and collecting time

The present work aimed to verify the early rooting development and the root production in rosemary's (Rosmarinus officinalis L.) cuttings under the influence of treatments with sythetics auxins, boric acid and collecting time. The branches were collected at the end of the season and the stakes were prepared and placed into solutions containing NAA or IBA (25, 50, 75 and 100 pppm) without and with boric acid and then removed to a chamber of nebulization (all experimental work). In all the experimentes, the branches were collected after 30 days, the mean number of rooted cuttings was calculated, along with the mean number of roots per stakes and the dry weight of roots. The end of winter outstood as the best season for all analysed parameters.