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Engaging audiences
Exhibitions
'Petticoats and Pinnacles: Scotland's Pioneering Mountain Women', 10 July 2021–28 May 2022
This exhibition revealed how women overcame social and physical barriers to travel, climb and respond creatively to mountain environments. Their achievements as explorers and writers have been ignored, under-valued and lost over time. Each woman featured has a link to Scotland, either living or climbing here, and each has a story to tell. The exhibition was supported by Baillie Gifford.
Past exhibitions: Petticoats and Pinnacles
Collections in focus
'Sir Walter Scott and the Historical Novel', 12 November 2021–28 May 2022 (image No.35)
This display marked the 250th anniversary of the birth of Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) and attracted 19,043 visitors. Scott is one of Scotland's most important authors and was crucial in creating and shaping part of Scotland's national identity in the 19th century – a legacy still felt today. His technique of setting stories in historical events and bringing together fictional characters and real-life figures remains widely popular.
'The Eye of a Stranger: Henrietta Liston's Travels', 10 July–6 November, 2021
In 1812, diarist and botanist Henrietta Liston, then 60, and her husband, Robert, Ambassador to the Sublime Porte, sailed to Turkey. This display was about her three-and-a-half-month voyage and the eight years Liston spent in Constantinople, as described in her travel journal. Her rich and varied experiences offer a unique vision of Constantinople in the early 19th century, while her enquiring voice provides insights into Ottoman society. Thanks go to the American Patrons of the National Library and Galleries of Scotland for funding work on the Henrietta Liston project.
Events
'Tuathanas nan Creutairean': 'Animal Farm' Goes Gaelic
In August 2021, we recorded a talk by Angus Peter Campbell, who translated George Orwell's timeless novel 'Animal Farm' into Gaelic for the first time, bringing the text to the modern reader. Audience feedback fully supported and encouraged further Gaelic language and culture events.
Angus was hailed as "a great performer and storyteller", with one participant saying it was "so good to have Gaelic inclusion and Angus did a good job using both languages". Another noted that "having only the most basic grasp of Gaelic was not a barrier and I was exposed to native speaking in a positive and open manner using a text I could relate to".
First 'Library Late' with Neu! Reekie!
Our first 'Library Late' with the Neu! Reekie! artist collective took place on April 1 2022 and was a creative celebration of our new permanent exhibition, 'Treasures of the National Library of Scotland'. At the sold-out event, attended by 75 people, the Neu! Reekie! artists shared works they had created that were inspired by the 'Treasures' displays. The evening was a great success with positive feedback from all attendees. We look forward to hosting similar events in future.
'Women's Lives and Writing' workshops
Two online workshops – 'Women's Lives and Writing: Online Resources for Scottish Residents' and 'Women's Lives And Writing: Online Resources for Everyone' – focused on several subscription eResources about women's lives and their writing, showing what content is available and the best ways the public can use these resources
'Aye Write'
We sponsored an event held on 23 May 2021, hosted by the 'Aye Write' Book Festival in Glasgow and broadcast online. The focus was the enduring appeal of Alasdair Gray's seminal novel 'Lanark: A Life in Four Books' in its 40th anniversary year. Manuscripts Curator Colin McIlroy, who was part of a panel of four Gray experts and enthusiasts, presented images of some of our 'Lanark' artworks – complete with sticky tape and Tipp-Ex. He also discussed other illustrations, literary manuscripts and journals held by the Alasdair Gray Archive which showcase "Alasdair's wonderful inability to leave surfaces blank".
Library Patrons and supporters were invited to join the event, which followed social media activity in February to mark 'Gray Day' (the anniversary of the publication of 'Lanark'). Our Gray archive includes his hand-written manuscripts, research material, notebooks, correspondence and original artwork.
MacKinnon Collection touring exhibitions
The tour followed highly successful exhibitions at the Library and the Scottish National Portrait Gallery in 2019–2020. The project curator, Blake Milteer, and Library and National Galleries of Scotland staff continued planning for three touring exhibitions of the MacKinnon Collection throughout the lockdowns and periods of restricted access to our buildings.
Adapting to changing logistics and schedules internally and externally was sustained, alongside ongoing management, cataloguing, digitisation, conservation work and online engagement for this jointly owned collection of more than 16,000 19th and 20th-century photographs mainly relating to Scotland. The three tours which ran from 2021–2022 took in Duff House in Banff, Kirkcudbright Galleries and Museum Nan Eilean in Stornoway. The MacKinnon Collection includes photographs of Tantallon Castle in East Lothian and wildlife such as owls.
Praise for our staff, events and collections
"We visited the Library over three days and were delighted with the professionalism and warm nature of the staff – they were all wonderful.
"From advanced document ordering, reader registration, document production, the Special Collections room and all things in between, our impression was entirely positive.
"I was doing research in the Manuscripts Reading Room and my better half was working on her laptop mostly in the restaurant. She was thoroughly looked after and delighted by the friendly, courteous nature of every member of staff.
"The 'Petticoats and Pinnacles' and 'Sir Walter Scott and the Historical Novel' displays were very informative and enjoyable."
"Authentic, engaging and really well-organised [talk]. Perfectly timed, too."
"Very entertaining and high-quality content. Well-organised and professional."
"I'm always grateful for the programmes... this was excellent."
A Voyage Around the Scottish Islands
Maps Curator Chris Fleet delivered a fully illustrated excursion around the Islands in this talk, recorded in August 2021. The event proved popular with viewers from across the United States, Australia, Canada, Singapore, Jordan and Vietnam. One audience commented on how "interesting, excellent and engaging" the event had made the topic.
Developing the organisation
New working practices
Human-centred design
Collaboration is key to achieving the ambitions of our 'Reaching People' strategy. To support this, we partnered with the V&A Dundee to develop a tool kit and deliver training for staff on human-centred design thinking, through the 'Design Thinking Accelerator' programme. Human-centred design thinking is a collaborative, user-focused and creative approach using structured analysis, research, testing and refinement to achieve practical solutions.
Accessibility
Web accessibility was a focus for staff this year, with raising awareness of what creates barriers to websites and other digital content for people with disabilities a key objective in our accessibility plan. Online and in-house training sessions boosted our staff's skills in creating accessible documents, writing guidance documentation and carrying out accessibility assessments. We evaluated new and redeveloped Library sites for accessibility and took remedial action to resolve any issues.
Pandemic and IT
Throughout the year our IT teams have continued to provide equipment to support staff working from home, at the Library's buildings, or potentially anywhere in the world. With more than 250 laptops and over 370 Office 365 licences handed out, plus the routine use of Microsoft Teams for virtual meetings, we have become a mobile workforce. We are addressing the challenges associated with flexible working, such as the global shortage of IT equipment and ensuring devices are cyber secure.
Partnership with Edinburgh Council – Capital Gaelic
The Library and City of Edinburgh Council made a successful bid to Bòrd na Gàidhlig in 2021 for funding to support and promote Gaelic. The Capital Gaelic project supports a co-ordinated and creative partnership approach to embedding the language as a vibrant part of life in the capital for the benefit of citizens and visitors.
The project aims to build opportunities through solid, dynamic links to bodies engaged in cultural activity, tourism, business and industry. This multi-agency group aims to share knowledge and expertise, develop Gaelic skills, and shape a long-term vision for the future of the language.
People
Orkney Scriever 2021–22
The role of the Scriever – a joint initiative between the Library and Creative Scotland – aims to support the creation of original writing in Scots and the promotion of the language through creative forms.
In July 2021, to mark the centenary of Orcadian writer George Mackay Brown, the residency was based on Orkney and Alison Miller appointed to the role. She has taken part in activities to celebrate the richness of the Orcadian dialect, acknowledging the Islands as a stronghold for the Scots language.
The main aim of this 12-month residency was the creation of original work in Scots, specifically in the Orcadian dialect. Alison has edited and launched a volume of Orcadian poems, 'Gousters, Glims and Veerie-Orums', and written a poem, 'What We Hae A Keepen On', to mark the opening of the 'Treasures of the National Library of Scotland' exhibition.
The Scriever has also been engaged in promoting the Orcadian language, primarily to local communities, through this work and other projects
Dr Rosa Filgueira
Dr Rosa Filgueira was the National Librarian's Research Fellow in Digital Scholarship 2021–22. The fellowship ran from September 2021 until March 2022 and aimed to create an AI toolkit to use with collections on the Data Foundry, with the toolkit trialled on the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica' dataset. These tools will enable users with no data science or programming skills to interrogate the collections at scale.
More information can be found on the Data Foundry Projects page.
Chair and Board members
Sir Drummond Bone was appointed Chair of the Library for a four-year term from 1 October 2021. Sir Drummond was Master of Balliol College, from which he retired in 2018. He had an illustrious career as an expert in English literature and is a specialist on the works of Byron. Meanwhile, Alison Kidd, Robert Kilpatrick and Kirsty Lingstadt were appointed as Board members for a four-year term from 7 March 2022. They all bring a rich wealth of experience from disciplines including HR, estates and digital learning, teaching and research.
Artist in residence – Marion Carré
We took part in the collaborative programme 'New Forms of Togetherness' in 2021 with the Goethe Institut Glasgow, Alliance Française Glasgow, the Institut Français d'Ecosse and NEON Arts Festival. This involved hosting a Parisian artist, entrepreneur and teacher, Marion Carré, as our Artist in Residence.
Marion used the Library's dataset of more than 1,800 broadsides to create her work, 'Is it True? The PostTruth Archive Factory' – a three-part piece exploring the role of artificial intelligence in highlighting issues around the 'truth' of the archive. Learn more at data.nls.uk/project/artists-in-residence-marion-carre.
Miriam Mathews – Maps placement student
'Aiming for Today' was a short oral history project led by University of Glasgow PhD student Miriam Matthews through a Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities (SGSAH) voluntary placement.
Women, disabled people, people of colour and LGBTQ communities rarely see themselves represented in outdoor media, literature and other activities. Inspired by the pioneering women in our 'Aiming High' project and 'Petticoats and Pinnacles' exhibition, Miriam connected with seven women who are still breaking down barriers to access the outdoors and gathered their stories for the Sound Archive.
Alexandra Miller – Special Collections placement
Alexandra Miller worked with us in March and April 2022. She was continuing a previous placement to assign individual shelf marks to the open access reference stock in the Special Collections Reading Room and update the online catalogue.
2021–22 Internship programme
We recruited four interns in October 2021, continuing our support for young people despite the uncertainty of the pandemic. Each intern had their own project to work on, researching topics and developing solutions to support their own development and help the Library achieve its goals.
The interns and their projects were:
Jennifer Stewart, Location-based personalisation: Working with public libraries, the study aimed to gain an understanding of how we could offer a localised view into our collections through local libraries. It highlighted content that may be of higher interest to enhance reader experience and promote engagement.
John Stephen, Legacy digital media: Helped to assess older digital collections which may be at risk of deterioration.
Sophie Pearce-Hibbert, Scottish South Asians in broadcasting: Researched and uncovered Library collections and worked with community partners to tell the story of Scottish South Asians through their contribution to broadcast media.
Alex Wilson, LGBTQ+ history: Helped find LGBTQ+ stories and voices in our older collections and developed a 'starter pack' to support discovery, interpretation and engagement of these materials.
All of the internships ended in May 2022, leaving a great legacy of work. The interns have now moved on to new careers and opportunities, although Alex is still working in our Special Collections Reading Room.
Gaelic intern
Laura Macpherson began researching and identifying sub-groups of the wider Gaelic audience group, with the aim of developing relevant and meaningful ways of engagement, and where the Library could increase its Gaelic offering.
The focus was decided on community and family-focused activities as a way of reaching Gaelic audiences. With an increasing number of pupils in Gaelic medium education, cross-generational connections are very important in creating a sense of community and a meaningful tie to the language and culture.
Kickstart trainees
We welcomed two new team members in October 2021. Ryan Millar and Sophia Somerville joined the Preservation Services Unit (PSU) at Sighthill as Preservation Trainees for six months, as part of the UK Government-funded Kickstart scheme.
Kickstart pays employers to take on young people for work placements and the initiative is included in the Scottish Government's Youth Guarantee Employability Strategy. The Kickstart posts at Sighthill are a first for the Library and the experience has been positive.
Ryan and Sophia took to the work well, learnt new skills and brought energy and enthusiasm.
Sophia said: "This job is not what I expected – it's so much more interesting!"
Ryan added: "I am enjoying this work, especially when you see the results on the stack floors with boxes protecting books."
New PhD students welcomed in October 2021
Adele Kramber is researching 'Listen and Learn: Examining the Role of Schools Radio Broadcasting in Scotland's Classrooms'. This is a collaboration between the Library, University of Edinburgh and BBC Scotland. Adele is funded through the Arts and Humanities Research Council Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Studentship and Scottish Cultural Heritage Consortium.
Nelson Correia is researching 'Film Bang: Communities of Practice, Cross Media Interconnections and Sectoral Growth Within Scotland's Film And Television Industries'. This is a collaboration between the Library, Edinburgh Napier University and the University of Edinburgh and is funded by the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities, ARC Applied Research Collaborative Doctoral Award.
Ash Charlton is researching 'Slavery and Race in the 'Encyclopaedia Britannica' (1768–1860): A Text Mining Approach'. The research will analyse the newly digitised 'Encyclopaedia Britannica' using advanced text and data-mining approaches and aims to uncover how legacies of slavery are embedded into information sources.
The PhD is a collaboration between the Library and the University of Edinburgh and is funded by the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities, ARCS Applied Research Collaborative Doctoral Award.
Fragile Formats internship
Yolanda Bustamante Sampedro devised a survey – circulated to conservators across the UK – which aimed to gather evidence about treatment options for iron gall ink. This grew out of research Yolanda undertook during lockdown, to inform the treatment of a Robert Burns letter.
Her research led her to wonder how often the perceived best practice treatment for iron gall inks is carried out. The survey provided useful evidence, which is being collated into an iron gall inks treatment database. This tool will aid decision-making for treatment of this challenging conservation problem.
Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI)
As part of our efforts to improve EDI, we recruited Intern Hannah Lindsay through UK Research and Innovation's (UKRI) policy internship scheme, which gives PhD students experience of using research to inform policy.
As well as updating the Library's digital safeguarding policy, Hannah reviewed our equality impact assessment (EQIA) process, which ensures policies and services are developed with equality and inclusion principles in mind.
Later in the year we were pleased to welcome the Library's new EDI Officer, Ellie Muniandy, who is progressing work in this area with colleagues throughout the Library, including the development of mandatory training programmes.
Funding our work
Income 2021/22
Grant in aid: £17,057,000
Donations and legacies: £956,000
Charitable activities: £574,000
Investment income: £172,000
Other trading activities: £51,000
Spending 2021/22
Staff costs: £12,179,000
Depreciation: £3,402,000
Other running costs: £1,798,000
Collection purchases: £1,812,000
Building maintenance: £1,270,000
Other property costs: £763,000