National Library of Scotland ~ 23 July 2007

The National Library of Scotland adopted its current title in 1925. Before that, it was the Library of the Faculty of Advocates. In 1710, it became a deposit library for publications in Scotland, as well as Britain and Ireland. It not only receives books, but also music, official reports, and electronic publications, leading up to a total of 8,000 items per week! A large part of the library's collection includes maps and gazetteers, of which it holds around 3 million. One of the library's challenges is to try and promote wider access--to become more welcoming to the public. Their digitizing projects intend to meet this challenge. Another challenge to the library is the difficulty in getting funding, because the impact of the collections and archives is hard to measure and seems less obvious than other community institutions. To face this issue, the library has set up a new fundraising department with four staff members.

The focus of our visit was on the most recent treasure added to the library, the John Murray Archive. Both the senior curator of the archive (David McClay) and the education/outreach coordinator (Emma Faragher) shared a lot of valuable insight with us into the archive's history and the process of its design. The John Murray Archive contains 200,000 items from the John Murray Publishing Company that remained popular throughout its 167 years of existence. The National Library purchased it for £33 million with funding from the Heritage Lottery Grant and some state funding. There are currently three permanent cataloguers working on the John Murray project.

Ms. Faragher shared with us briefly about her duties: she teaches adult education courses on how to use the library and archives; she works with the core users of the library, university students; and she is involved with getting speakers to come in (writers, historians, etc.). She also spoke with us about the process of designing the John Murray Archive Exhibition and all the elements that went into the creation of its display. It took about 3 years to design the exhibition. I found it extremely interesting to learn about the task of transcribing manuscripts and interpreting them for the visitors. I also learned of the significance of exhibitions for the success of the library, because they are used to promote the collections and ultimately to raise public interest and increase access. A related challenge is that it is difficult to evaluate the visitors' learning from the exhibit and how it has affected them.

The John Murray Archive Exhibition is in a creative facsimile of John Murray's Victorian home that immediately transports the visitor back in time. It is made up of 11 character pods that spotlight writers from the John Murray collection, including Lord Byron, David Livingstone, Sir Walter Scott, and Isabella Bird Bishop. Each pod has clothing and props related to the writer and a digital screen that allows the viewer to explore further: background information, manuscripts, etc. Although the John Murray Archive was the highlight of our visit, I did look through the other exhibits that were available in the library, including the "Scotland and India" exhibit. It contained several interactive areas and artwork and books relating to travel, medicine, the British Empire, and missions.