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New Library of Mistakes Edinburgh
The Library of Mistakes is moving to much larger premises
Russell Napier
How you can help
Your donation will help us build the collection of books and papers on financial history and human decision making under uncertainty.
It will also support expanding the collection into other disciplines where decision making under uncertainty is necessary.
The new Library premises will be able to accommodate more people for our regular and popular lecture series. With enhanced audio-visual facilities, we will be able to make these events available globally from our website.
Please consider a donation via our JustGiving page here
Donate nowA glimpse of the new Library
Artist's impressions of what the interior of the new Library
About The Library of Mistakes
(Didasko Education Company)
The Library of Mistakes is a free public library in Edinburgh owned and operated by the registered Scottish charity Didasko Education Company (SC040205).
It exists in conjunction with a course called A Practical History of Financial Markets, also owned by Didasko, to broaden our understanding of finance beyond mere numbers.
The resources available at the library allow readers to study the interaction of numerous forces; political, sociological, psychological and others, in the assessment of how finance works and why the price of financial assets change.
In recent years mathematics has come to dominate financial understanding and thus leaving out much that cannot be counted, however, it has created an often-unstable economic system.
The Library of Mistakes provides an extensive resource for those who believe that a fuller understanding of finance can be gained by reading of financial history and an understanding of how we have all made decisions in the past when planning for an uncertain future.
Video transcript
Hello. My name is Russell Napier, and I am the keeper of the Library of Mistakes here in Edinburgh.
The Library has been up and running since 2014. If you’re watching this video, you’ve probably visited.
You’ve probably been reading there or you’ve probably joined us for some of our lectures. Well, the exciting news is the Library is moving to much bigger premises so we can accommodate many more people there, in this public library.
Not only that, we can accommodate them for reading, but also our lectures as well. And we will through the marvels of modern science, be able to beam those lectures and events to a much wider audience across the planet.
The Library will still be in the centre of Edinburgh in Melville Street in Edinburgh’s West End. During the day we hope to accommodate some activities for younger people who are interested in careers in finance, in conjunction with our sister charity Future Assets.
If you’d like to support the work of the Library of Mistakes – to change the world one mistake of a time – please feel free to do so by providing financial support through the JustGiving webpage, or perhaps you can email me directly if you’d prefer to do it that way to support the Library, in this work going forward.
Finance is a dominant theme in the world today.
It’s likely to become more so and its relationship with government and society is likely to shift very dramatically as we go forward in the post-COVID world. The Library of the study of financial history has something to say about these relationships, which are perhaps not well covered, in the modern finance curriculum.
So, change the world one mistake at a time; support your Library of Mistakes. And I hope to see you all soon in the new Library of Mistakes, Melville Street in Edinburgh and please help us and support us in that move. Thank you.