Dr Karen McAulay occupies a dual role as a Performing Arts Librarian and Postdoctoral Researcher at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Her doctoral thesis (University of Glasgow, 2009) was published in augmented form as, Our Ancient National Airs: Scottish Song Collecting from the Enlightenment to the Romantic Era, by Ashgate in 2013, and she has also contributed a chapter to the Routledge essay collection, Understanding Scotland Musically: Folk Tradition and Policy (2018). 

Karen was postdoctoral researcher on the AHRC-funded ‘Bass Culture’ project (2012-2015), and Principal Investigator for the AHRC-funded research network, ‘Claimed From Stationers’ Hall’ (2017-2018), exploring early UK legal deposit music collections.  She has also been involved with EAERN (Eighteenth Century Arts Research Network), the Romantic Song Network, and Cultural History of Glasgow Research Network. Her research combines musicology, cultural history, library and book history, and she has a continuing interest in paratext as it appears in national song collections and other music-related material of the long nineteenth century.

Karen is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, and holds a Personal Achievement Award from the International Association of Music Libraries (UK & Ireland branch).  Additionally, she holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Arts Education, and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. 

https://pure.rcs.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/karen-mcaulay(bf010461-7987-4e0f-b786-515d816f76fc).html