About Adam Smith’s Library

September 2024

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This project was made possible through the support of Grant 62660 from the John Templeton Foundation. The opinions of those expressed in the outputs and publications are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the John Templeton Foundation. The Templeton Foundation https://www.templeton.org funded the Smith @300 project of which this research into the library and marginalia was one Pillar: https://www.gla.ac.uk/explore/adamsmith300/300/. The funding award enabled appointment of two full-time project PDRAs, with a portion of their hours allocated to development of this digital resource. The award also enabled the allocation of time for University of Glasgow staff for this research, and for fieldwork expenses and the 2023 Symposium. The grant was held at the University of Glasgow. Throughout the duration of the project, the University provided institutional and infrastructure support for the research and continues to commit resources to sustainable digital support for future use. For additional funds we thank: The Chancellor’s Fund of The University of Glasgow, The Tannahill Fund, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, and the Institute for Humane Studies.

The core research team who developed this digital resource are:

Prof. Craig Smith, PI (Politics, College of Social Science, University of Glasgow)

Prof. Shinji Nohara (Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo; Visiting Research Fellow in Politics, College of Social Science, University of Glasgow)

Dr Ana Paula Londe Silva, PDRA (University of Glasgow, March 2023-February 2025)

Dr Leo Steeds, PDRA (University of Glasgow, January 2023-December 2024)

David Stewart (Research Software Engineer, Research Computing as a Service, University of Glasgow)

Prof. Alison Wiggins, co-lead of the Scholar Pillar (English Language & Linguistics, College of Arts & Humanities, University of Glasgow)

The research team thanks Amy Laux and Kat Riach who have supported and enabled the research throughout. The research team acknowledge and thank the library professionals who have shared materials with this project and contributed their expertise and collections knowledge. In particular, from Glasgow University Library Archives and Special Collections: Julie Gardham, Senior Librarian, and Dr Graeme Kemp, Senior Librarian (Discovery and Systems). Staff at Tokyo University Library. From Edinburgh University Library, Rachel Hosker, University Archivist and Research Collections Manager, Centre for Research Collections. From the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, Ralph McLean.

In February 2023, colleagues at the University of Edinburgh provided us with information about an exploratory research project (14 March-1 June 2021) designed as three student internships funded by an Edinburgh Futures Initiative: Daryl Green, Melissa Terras, Rachel Hosker, Phoebe Cooper, Lucy Havens, and Joe Nockels, ‘A Wealth of Information: Understanding Adam Smith’s Library’, University of Edinburgh, 2021, project Report (c.500 words) and spreadsheet of data samples. These data samples were not used or incorporated into our project (the spreadsheet held samples without documentation or findings). Nonetheless, we were grateful to the team for their open sharing of these materials, which enabled us to be confident that we were not inadvertently repeating work.

We acknowledge and thank the libraries, archives, and repositories that have provided access to their collections, shared materials, given permissions and allowed space in reading rooms for photography, and given permissions for use of images. The catalogue of Smith’s Library developed for this digital resource incorporates records for books that are, today, distributed across 6 countries and 24 different archival or library collections, as follows:

England

  • King’s College Library, Cambridge
  • Lionel Robbin’s private library (permissions and photographs pending)
  • University of Reading Library
  • University of London, Senate House Library
  • Sir Lancelot Errington of Appin (permissions and photographs pending)

Ireland

  • Queen’s University Belfast Library, Special Collections

Italy

  • Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, Torino (permissions and photographs pending)

Scotland

  • University of Edinburgh Library, Heritage Collections
  • University of Glasgow Library, Special Collections
  • Kirkcaldy Museum / Fife Cultural Trust
  • Mitchell Library, Glasgow
  • National Library of Scotland, Special Collections

Japan

  • Doshisha University Library
  • Fukuyama University Library
  • Kantogakuin University Library
  • Keio University Library, Tokyo
  • Kyoto University Library
  • Osaka University Library
  • Nihon University Library
  • University of Tokyo, Faculty of Economics Library

USA

  • Johns Hopkins University Library, Eisenhower Library, Special Collections, Baltimore
  • Harvard Business School, Kress Collection
  • New York Public Library, Ford Collection, New York

We thank those who were part of the symposium Adam Smith’s Library Today and in Future, 12-13 June 2023, at the University of Glasgow, the purpose of which was:

  • to be a fact-finding exercise to establish an up-to-date picture of current research into Adam Smith’ Library and marginalia among leading experts
  • to be a networking opportunity to connect a range of international scholars, archive and library professionals, digital developers, and book history experts, who have shared interests in this field
  • to be an opportunity for members of the project research team (Craig Smith, Leo Steeds, Alison Wiggins) to present to peers their methods and approaches, to demonstrate materials to future and target users, to test out plans for the digital resource and receive feedback on these.

We thank and give credit to our international speakers at this event:

  • Prof. Katherine Acheson, University of Waterloo, Canada
  • Associate Prof. Michelle Schwarze, Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
  • Prof. Tomoji Onozuka, Graduate School of Economics, University of Tokyo
  • Dr Hiroyuki Ota, Visiting Research Fellow, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow
  • Associate Prof. Shinji Nohara, University of Tokyo
  • Dr Hiroyuki Koijima, Associate Director, Resources and Historical Collections Office, The Library of Economics, University of Tokyo/li>
  • Yuki Moriwaki, Resources and Historical Collections Office, The Library of Economics, University of Tokyo

We thank and give credit to the presenters from University of Glasgow who shared their expertise from the perspective of sister projects and cognate research ongoing:

  • Dr Carol Baraniuk (Robert Burns and Allan Ramsay projects)
  • Prof. Rhona Brown (Robert Burns and Allan Ramsay projects)
  • Dr Craig Lamont (Robert Burns project)
  • Prof. Kat Riach (Adam Smith Business School, and Co-I Smith @300 project)
  • Prof. Matthew Sangster (PI Books and Borrowing project)
  • Dr Ronnie Young (Centre for Robert Burns Studies)

We thank those who contributed to the event as session chairs and/or who participated through their discussions, questions, and feedback:

  • Julie Gardham (Glasgow University Library, Archives & Special Collections)
  • Dr Graeme Kemp (Glasgow University Library, Archives & Special Collections)
  • Bob MacLean (Librarian and Leading & Teaching Lead, Glasgow University Library, Archives & Special Collections)
  • Andrew McHugh (Research Computing as a Service Manager)
  • Dr Ana Paula Londe Silva (Politics; PDRA for Smith @300 project)
  • David Stewart (Research Computing as a Service; digital developer for Smith @300 project)

Please give credit when you are using this web resource:

Adam Smith’s Library, University of Glasgow (June 2025 release) https://www.adamsmithslibrary.gla.ac.uk

For authored essays on this site, please cite the essay itself and the resource, for example:

Craig Smith, ‘Adam Smith’s Book Collecting’, in Adam Smith’ Library, University of Glasgow (June 2025 release)

To refer to an individual item from our catalogue please use the ASL ID (i.e. the project-assigned ‘Adam Smith’s Library Identification Number’). If you are referring to a primary source, please cite the archive or library where it is held with the relevant creditline.

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