The Archivist Garden 7/15 Part Two

In the afternoon, we went to the National Archives of Scotland, which was built in the 1780s to house public records. They now hold over 80 kilometers worth, including documents from the 12^th century up through today. The most popular part of the collection is the Scotland People Centre, which allows patrons to look up resources for genealogy. They even host the Scottish Register of Tartan, where you can look up various tartans, which are the crisscross woven patterns associated with Scottish clans.

The oldest document in the collection is from the 1120’s, and is a brieve from King David I deeding lands to the church. The NAS has to balance the preservation of these documents with the need to keep the information accessible to the public. To that end, the research room contains searchable virtual volumes for the public to use. Still, under 50% of the collection is digitized, which is still significantly more than most of sites we visited.

We were allowed to touch some of the items in the collection, including letters from King Louis XII of France to James IV of Scotland. There was also a health record from the 19^th century, which had a lot of interesting diagnoses, like smallpox, “disease of head,” and “drink fever.”  In honor of our visit, the librarians had also pulled some documents pertaining to colonial America. We were particularly impressed by a criss-cross letter written by a Scottish immigrant. To save on paper, the man wrote first horizontally, and then over that writing vertically, doubling his space. We all took a turn trying to puzzle out what he wrote.

When we were done pouring over the documents, Jenny gave us a tour. The building was constructed with the collection in mind, ensuring, for example, that exposure to sunlight was limited. In terms of personnel, there are always two archivists on duty, but the NAS employs somewhere around 140 people.

One feature of the building that I loved was the courtyard garden, which I was told was called the “Archivist Garden.” It was beautiful, and apparently landscaped with plants that symbolize life and death, and placed in a pattern to symbolize the human brain. And I had just thought it was aesthetically pleasing.

We also got to see the digitizing system, which to me looked like a cross between a computer and a printing press. The books are stabilized while high resolution cameras capture their images, and then the operators change pages. The motion and rhythm that the stations created reminded me of working on a loom, and was incredibly soothing. I could just picture doing that for hours on end while chatting with coworkers, or (as one of the women demonstrated) listening to music and podcasts. Overall, there was something about the National Archives of Scotland that was (like Scotland in general), very welcoming.