National Archives of Scotland

After Dunfermline, we visited the National Archives of Scotland. This is a government agency that maintains the records of Scotland. It is divided into two divisions: record services, which deals with government records, court/legal records, and collections development; and corporate services, which deals with finance and administration, conservation, reader services, and communications. The records at the national archives range from the 12th to 21st century and occupy 70km of shelving. They also maintain a digital collection, known as "virtual volumes", which are the digitized records that are accessible in-house and include access to Scottish wills from 1500-1901. Another interesting website they maintain is the Scottish Register of Tartans, which is, as the name would suggest, a "national repository of tartan designs". The site allows the user to search a tartan that's already been registered (using the name of the tartan, the type, or the designer) or to register a new tartan.

For our visit, the staff had pulled out several interesting examples of old records for us to peruse. One of these items was a lawyer's descriptions of cases. The librarian at the archive had been going through them to find examples of merchant ships being sunk by Germans during WWI. Because the ships were sunk and the cargo lost, the ships owners had to seek a lawyer so that they could be protected from legal action. Another interesting document they had pulled out for us was an old medical record listing a little bit of information about the patient and the patient's ailment. The space for "occupation" on this form was particularly amusing; we found one that simply said "nothing" and another whose occupation was listed as "poor scholar".

Image courtesy of scotsfamily.com

Dunfermline Carnegie Library

First of all, Dunfermline is a gorgeous town, as far as I can tell.

Secondly, it's home the Dunfermline Carnegie Library. Carnegie endowed £8,000 to open the library, and it is the first of many Carnegie libraries. This library is the biggest and busiest library in Fife. Among its collections it has a large local and family history collection which contains ordnance survey maps, the local paper back to 1859, the Fife county census information back to 1841, and a large number of copies of old photographs. The photographs are divided into large books and organized based on the location where they were taken.

The library also contains a special collection devoted to the Scottish poet Robert Burns. This collection contains some of Burns' earliest works as well as a large sculpture of the poet himself. One particularly interesting program the librarian discussed is the bibliotherapy, or Book on Prescription program. With this program, doctors will "prescribe" a book (based on a list of approved books) that relates to the patient's ailment or treatment. The patient will take this "prescription" to the library, who has these books set aside, and the patient can check out the book to learn more. As someone who works with a patient library (that is associated with the medical library), I think this is a fantastic idea. Since many doctors don't always have a lot of time to spend with each patients and since there is such an enormous amount of health-related materials on the Internet (where credibility is almost always in question), I think it's wonderful to have specific resources for patients to go to.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia user Kilnburn

Edinburgh Central Library

Today we went to the Edinburgh Central Library. The library currently has around 850,000 items and was set up as part of an endowment by Andrew Carnegie. One fun fact, all Carnegie libraries have above their entrance the words "let there be light". About a year ago, an emphasis was placed on developing a virtual library and the librarians talked at length about that effort. Currently, there are still several items that can be searched on a card catalog, although most of the materials can be searched for on the library's OPAC. As part of their virtual library, the library has also scanned and uploaded many images pertaining to Edinburgh history, including many images from the early nineteenth century. This image library can be found at the Capital Collections website.

Another interesting aspect the librarians discussed was their reader development programs (what we in the states would call reader's adisory). Some of the initiatives for reader development include author events where local or national authors come to speak at the library. In addition, the reader development librarians work with local readers' groups and book clubs, and organize volunteers to read at seniors' centers.

After the library tours, a classmate and I found a yarn store, which had an excellent selection of Scottish yarns (I only bought two skeins). The rest of the evening was pretty low-key; back in Dalkeith, we explored the area around the palace where there are several trails that go through the woods. It was really pretty, albeit a bit muddy.

Image courtesy of edinburgh-scotland.net

National Library of Scotland

We didn't have a formal tour today, but were allowed to roam the exhibits at the National Library of Scotland at our leisure.



With roughly 14 million items, the National Library of Scotland (NLS) is Scotland's largest reference library, specializing in all things Scottish. The building we visited was opened in 1956, though the NLS itself was established in 1925. A library card is needed to use the reading rooms, so we didn't get to see those.

However, the exhibitions they have were open to anyone, and many of the displays were interactive. I particularly liked the John Murray Archive exhibit. John Murray was a prominant publisher who published some of the most important figures of his day, such as Lord Byron, Jane Austen, and Charles Darwin. The displays on each figure had a touch screen where you could scroll through a brief history of that person, sometimes including more scandalous details of their lives. Another part of the exhibit contained a large table which had an interactive display projected onto it. This display let you choose what kind of book to publish, including the genre, the style, the target audience, and even what the cover would look like. At the end, it predicted what kind of sales your book would have (mine would have low sales, but a strong cult following).

Image courtesy of skyscreapercity.com

Camden and Scotland

Saturday was a free day, so I did what any good consumer would do and went shopping. In Camden markets, specifically. My God. There is no beginning and no end, so far as I can tell. I spent all afternoon wandering the stalls and shops and getting myself lost. Found several gifts for friends (and a few for myself) before finding my way out (a small achievement in itself) and heading back to the dorms.

Sunday I woke up bright and early for a long and arduous bus ride to Scotland. Ok, maybe it wasn't particularly arduous, but everyone on board was very tired. A few first impressions of Scotland: first, it is very beautiful and second, there is a lot of livestock. I don't know that I've ever seen so many sheep and cows in my life! In fact, I know I haven't.

We stayed in a town called Dalkeith, which is a sleepy little town outside of Edinburgh and a dramatic change from London. Dalkeith Palace, where we called home while in Scotland, was magnificent. Very old, very large, and very creepy when you're walking through the corridors at night trying to find your way back to your room. It reminded me a bit of The Shining. The grounds around the house were thick with woods and there were several muddy, sluggy paths leading through them. (Seriously, there were a lot of slugs.)