Dobbie's Loan, 1919

Good news and bad news this morning. The good news is the Mitchell Library - from what I've seen online today - looks like an extensive archive of images and maps. The bad news is, it's all tied up with the City Council and, don't get me started... I remember using the Mitchell, must've been when we were living in Springburn, so that was 2002-3. The staff were either extremely well informed and helpful, or lazy, jobsworth twats. Which, I know, is the sort of binary formulation I now try hard to avoid, and will I hope need to revise when I go back a decade and half later.

This photo is described by the Virtual Mitchell site as "Back of tenement off Dobbie's Loan with woman posed leaning against a wall". The windows you can just see behind the woman, (women, actually, she has a ghostly visitor who didn't want to wait out the exposure time, which might have irked the photographer in 1919 but gives it a story, now) look as if they could have belonged to a tenement. But the building behind them looks commercial. Which is an interesting idea, habitations and small factories cheek-by-jowl.

So, it looks like I'm going to be spending less time at the University and more at the Mitchell. I need maps and plans and photos and gazetteers. That's my mission for next week: find a nook to work in, and friendly staff to help me find things.

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