The Signet Library’s Annual Online Exhibition for 2025 is now available. You can find it at “1890” and All That: Towards a New History of the WS Society. The Signet Library’s annual exhibitions showcase research projects, conservation, and digitisation work.
I had the privilege of contributing to two sections of this year’s exhibition, the John Watson’s Institution Project and a study of the Bibliotheca Polonica.
The Bibliotheca Polonica arrived at the Signet Library in 1821 as a donation from young Polish travellers eager to share their culture and in thanks for the kind reception they had enjoyed from Macvey Napier, the Signet Library’s Librarian. It remained at the library until 1962 when it was transferred to the National Library of Scotland (NLS) to join two other collections of Polish books.
I gave a presentation on the Bibliotheca Polonica in January last year in the Signet Library’s atmospheric Commissioners’ Room. From the exhibition link you can view and download my transcription of Manuscript Acc.10990, held at the NLS which includes ‘matching’ to the books now held at the NLS with shelfmarks and links to the NLS catalogue. You can also view and download my illustrated survey of the books. My thanks to the staff at the NLS’s Special Collections Reading Room for their patient and kind deliveries of so many books and their permission to photograph them. Also to the NLS digitisation team for supplying me with a copy of NLS MS Acc.10990.