National Library of Scotland


The National Library of Scotland is one of Scotland's National Collections. It is one of the largest libraries in the United Kingdom. As well as a public programme of exhibitions, events, workshops, and tours, the National Library of Scotland has reading rooms where visitors can access the collections. It is the legal deposit library of Scotland and is a member of Research Libraries UK and the Consortium of European Research Libraries.
There are over 24 million items held at the Library in various formats including books, annotated manuscripts and first-drafts, postcards, photographs, and newspapers. The library is also home to Scotland's Moving Image Archive, a collection of over 46,000 videos and films. Notable items amongst the collection include copies of the Gutenberg Bible, Charles Darwin's letter with which he submitted the manuscript of On the Origin of Species, the First Folio of Shakespeare, the Glenriddell Manuscripts, and the last letter written by Mary Queen of Scots. It has the largest collection of Scottish Gaelic material of any library in the world.

Buildings

The Library's main public building is in Edinburgh city centre on George IV Bridge, between the Old Town and the university quarter. This building is Category A listed. Exhibitions are frequently held here, with past examples including 'Northern Lights: The Scottish Enlightenment', a display which explored Scotland's contribution to the progress of Enlightenment, and 'The International Style of Muriel Spark', a celebration of her life and literary achievements.
As the library is a not a lending library, this building is one of several venues where the public are able to visit and consult primary materials in the reading rooms. There are two reading rooms in the George IV building, and a third Multimedia Room for consulting non-written materials:
  • General Reading Room – a space for people to conduct research using materials like journals, newspapers and newer, post-1850 books.
  • Special Collections Reading Room – a room where the public are able to access old and rare materials, such as rare books and manuscripts.
  • Multimedia Room – a space to consult non-written materials, such as microforms and photographs.
There is also a more modern building, constructed in the 1980s, in a residential area on the south side of the town centre, on Causewayside. This was built to accommodate some of the specialist collections, such as maps and science collections, and to provide extra large-scale storage. There is one reading room located here also; the Maps Reading Room, purposed for visitors to consult maps, atlases, gazetteers, and cartographic reference books.
The newest addition to the Library is the 2016 Kelvin Hall public centre in Glasgow, purposed to provide access to the library's digital and moving collections, namely the Moving Image Archive. Like at the library's main building, exhibits are held here too, though on a smaller scale.

History

Originally, Scotland's national deposit library was the Advocates Library belonging to the Faculty of Advocates. It was opened in 1689 and gained national library status in the Copyright Act 1710, giving it the legal right to a copy of every book published in Great Britain. In the following centuries, the library added books and manuscripts to the collections by purchase as well as legal deposit, creating a privately funded national library in all but name.
By the 1920s, the upkeep of collection was too much for the Advocates Library and, with the aid of a £100,000 endowment from Alexander Grant, managing director of McVitie & Price, the library's contents were presented to the nation. The National Library of Scotland was formally constituted by the '.
Grant's support was recognised with a baronetcy, and in June 1924 he became Sir Alexander Grant of Forres. In 1928 he donated a further £100,000 – making his combined donations the equivalent of around £6 million today – for a new library building to be constructed on George IV Bridge, replacing the Victorian-period Sheriff Court, which moved to the Royal Mile. Government funding was secured which matched Grant's donation. Work on the new building was started in 1938, interrupted by World War II, and completed in 1956. The architect was Reginald Fairlie; the architectural sculptor was Hew Lorimer. The coat of arms above the entrance was sculpted by Scott Sutherland and the roundels above the muses on the front facade by Elizabeth Dempster.
By the 1970s, room for the growing collections was running out, and other premises were required. The Causewayside Building opened in the south-side of Edinburgh in two phases, in 1989 and in 1995, at a total cost of almost £50 million, providing additional working space and storage facilities.
Since 1999, the library has been funded by the Scottish Parliament. It remains one of six legal deposit libraries in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and is overseen by a board of trustees.
The library also holds many ancient family manuscripts including those of the Clan Sinclair, which date back to 1488.
On 26 February 2009, areas of the building were flooded after a water main burst on the 12th floor. Firefighters were called and the leaking water was stopped within ten minutes. A number of items were lightly damaged.
The last letter written by Mary Queen of Scots made a rare public appearance to mark the opening of a new library visitor centre in September 2009.
In 2010, the library joined the Possible poject in a bid to reduce its carbon footprint. One year later it announced that it had reduced its carbon emissions according to 10:10's criteria by 18%.
On 16 May 2012 the ' was passed by the Scottish Parliament, and received royal assent on 21 June 2012.
In April 2013 the library recruited a Wikipedian in residence, becoming the first institution in the Scotland to create such a post. In 2016, the library recruited a Gaelic Wikipedian in residence.
In September 2016 the library opened a new centre at the refurbished Kelvin Hall, Glasgow, in partnership with Glasgow Life and the University of Glasgow, providing access to the library's digital and moving image collections.

National Library of Scotland employees

The head of the library is the Chief Executive and National Librarian. The role has previously been known as the Librarian and National Librarian.
  • 1925–1931: William Kirk Dickson
  • 1931–1946: Henry W. Meikle
  • 1947–1953: Marryat Ross Dobie
  • 1953–1970: William Beattie
  • 1970–1990: Denis Roberts
  • 1990–2002: Ian McGowan
  • 2002–2014: Martyn Wade
  • 2014–2021: John Scally
  • 2021–present: Amina Shah

    Archives and collections

The National Library of Scotland has many different collections in varying sizes, though some of the larger ones are listed here:

John Murray Archive

The John Murray Archive is one of the larger collections at the National Library of Scotland, consisting of over one million items. It contains various documents, letters, manuscripts, and business papers all related to the House of John Murray, a British publisher known for publishing the likes of Jane Austen, Herman Melville, Charles Darwin, and Lord Byron. Also included within the collection is the Archive of Smith, Elder and Company, as well as the Charles Elliot papers. The Library continues to receive additions to the archive on an ad hoc basis.

India papers

There are over 4,200 bound volumes within the India Papers collection. The archive consists of reports, photographs, government correspondence, and various other miscellaneous material related to the British Raj. The collection is rare and is the largest of its kind in the UK behind the India Office Records at the British Library. It contains items related to medicine, travel, the arts, human rights, and military history, as well as many others. One of the bigger sections, the Medical History of British India, has been digitised and is available to the public online. One of the highlights from the collection is the Indian Hemp Drugs Commission report.

Minto papers

The Minto Papers are over 2,000 documents relating to the Elliot family, a British family of aristocrats founded in the 17th century. This collection is a valuable source of study for British politics, Scottish history, and the affairs of 19th-century Canada, Italy, and British India.

Patrick Leigh Fermor archive

The Patrick Leigh Fermor Archive is a collection of different items related to Patrick 'Paddy' Leigh Fermor, a British travel writer, adventurer, and veteran. The Archive was purchased by the Library in 2012 from Fermor's estate, using funds from the John R. Murray charitable trust. There are over 10,000 items in the collection including photographs, sketches, films, war reports, books, manuscripts, and postcards.

Moving Image Archive

The Moving Image Archive is a collection of over 46,000 moving images. The Library acquired the collection as the Scottish Screen Archive in 2007, though it was renamed in 2015. Over 2,600 items from the collection have been put online and are freely available to the public for viewing in the venue at Kelvin Hall.

Lord Hope's Historical Archive

in November 2014 donated legal and personal papers including opinions covering the period of his active legal career.

Maps

The National Library of Scotland holds over two million cartographic items, making it the largest collection of maps in Scotland and one of the largest in the world. There are several separate collections of maps within the library's holdings, namely the Bartholomew Archive and the Graham Brown Collection. At the library there are maps relating to many different kinds of landscapes, such as estates, counties, railways, maps which show the trenches of World War I, and alpine areas.
The collections include:
  • Over 1.5 million sheet maps
  • 15,000 atlases
  • 100,000 maps on microfilm
  • Over 200,000 digital maps
  • Gazetteers, cartographic reference books and periodicals
  • Map ephemera